Brexit: A misguided vote
So, on Friday morning we woke up to the news that Britain had voted narrowly (51.9%) in favour of leaving the European Union, with Scotland overwhelmingly against and Northern Ireland also mostly against, but...
Author: Matthew Smith
What happened to the child’s best interests?
Last Wednesday, Ben Butler, a convicted armed robber and serially violent offender from Sutton in south London, was convicted of murdering his six-year-old daughter Ellie in 2013 and sentenced to life in prison, with...
Appeal to Muslims on Brexit
Recently I've seen a couple of articles online appealing to Muslims to vote for Britain to leave the EU in this Thursday's referendum. The claims are that the EU is anti-Muslim, that it could...
Brexiters are lying
Coming home the other day over a flyover on the A3, I saw a poster from Vote Leave, the official campaign for Britain to leave the EU, which proclaimed "Turkey (population 76 million) is...
Who flies an English flag?
There’ll always be an England … and Labour must learn to love it by Tristram Hunt (from the Guardian) Tristram Hunt, in this article which appeared on the Guardian website Sunday before last, argues...
Undercover: Some impressions
I couldn't write a full review of Undercover, the six-part TV series about a police spy (Nick, played by Adrian Lester, right) who fell in love with and married the woman he was meant...
Make corruption history?
Who remembers the slogan "Make Poverty History"? It used to be found on banners on streets, on pamphlets and on the top corners of websites. I remember Bob Geldof trying to get a crowd...
No, Labour can’t “just win”
One of the candidates standing for the Labour party's National Executive Committee (NEC), having replaced Ken Livingstone on the centre-left slate, is a lady called Rhea Wolfson, who came to my attention today when...
Sexist trolls shouldn’t be able to ruin a petition
Update 2: I've run a search for the phrases "kuenssberg whore" and "kuenssberg bitch" on Twitter, using both TweetBot (which searches recent tweets) and TweetDeck (which searches all tweets). I really advise that you...
Who really “made Islam a hot topic”?
There has been an article published on the Daily Beast, the American news website that owns Newsweek, by Maajid Nawaz, explaining to their American audience the "real reason" why Islam was made an issue...
Did Sadiq Khan win, or Zac Goldsmith lose?
As I write this, the first preference votes for the London mayoral election are counted and Sadiq Khan has won 44.2% of them (on a turnout of only 45.3%); second preferences are being counted,...
Jews, Muslims, the left and “anti-Semitism”
Since I wrote my last piece on the left and claims of "anti-Semitism" against Labour students and the Left more generally, a spate of claims of anti-Semitism against various Labour politicians, two of them...
BADD 2016: Break the silence
This post is part of Blogging Against Disablism Day 2016. Last month we saw the Seven Days of Action campaign, to highlight the cases of people with learning disabilities, mostly autism, who are being...
Seven Days of Action: a lucky escape
This week the learning disability blogging crowd are putting on Seven Days of Action, with a blog featuring seven stories of young people who have spent time trapped in the ATU (Assessment and Treatment...
Trevor Phillips: back race-baiting, this time with junk research
Note: I started writing this last Tuesday and finished today (Sunday) as work made it impossible to complete during the week. I'd rather not be writing this entry. Last week there were two important...
High Valour?
A number of years ago I heard a play on Radio 4 whose title I can't remember but I suspect it was called High Valour. It was about a couple who emigrated to Australia...
Does the Left really have an anti-Semitism problem?
Recently accusations have started flying that the Left, including the Labour party, has a 'problem' with anti-Semitism and that Jeremy Corbyn, the party's leader, hasn't been doing enough to combat it. The accusations include...
Who needs Autism Awareness?
Today is World Autism Awareness Day, an event organised by the United Nations since 2008 to "encourage member states … to take measures to raise awareness about children with autism throughout the world". It's...
Review: Happy Valley, The A Word
Last Tuesday, The A Word started at 9pm on Tuesday, the slot that had been occupied by the second series of Happy Valley, the Yorkshire-based six-part police drama starring Sarah Lancashire as a police...
Guardian promotes child abuse
Experience: I paid to have my daughter kidnapped | Life and style | The Guardian This article was published today and appears to be due for publication in the "Experience" slot in the Weekend...