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,...
Author: Matthew Smith
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...
About the Leicester Mencap picture
Last week, someone posted a picture to the Mencap Facebook page, and the picture has been widely shared on social media and has found its way into the mainstream press. It shows a young...
Against this Brexit now
So, the date for the referendum on Britain's exit from the European Union has been set (23rd June) and politicians on both sides are coming out with their position on the matter. Unusually, David...
Converts more liable to become terrorists? Really?
ThinkProgress, a site some of us had taken for a progressive opinion site, recently published a piece titled "Why Converts To Islam Are So Susceptible To Becoming Terrorists", by one Beenish Ahmed (right). That...
Why was Sarah Reed in prison, not hospital?
Sarah Reed told family of alleged sexual assault in hospital, from the Guardian It has been revealed that Sarah Reed, the woman who was found dead in her cell at Holloway Prison in London...
Another victim of the great British mental health misery-go-round
They first sent me to Windsor, and then to Stoke on Trent In a holding cell in Liverpool three days and nights I spent My solicitor can't find me and my family don't know...
It’s only rape if it’s rape
Last weekend David Bowie died, and amid the non-stop media tributes (which have been compared to the relentless coverage of Lady Diana's death in 1997, although they can't have really approached that — normal...
Cologne attacks tell us nothing about Islam
On New Year's Eve, an organised gang of hundreds of young men, described as being of Arab or North African appearance, descended on the main railway station in Cologne, Germany, and molested and robbed...
Mediation, bullying and how it leads to adult violence
A week or so ago, I found a link that Karen Ingala-Smith, a prominent British campaigner against violence against women, posted about an 'experiment' in Harrow, north-west London, in which victims of domestic violence...
The AK-47 has always been the guerrilla weapon
In today's Guardian there is a feature on why the AK-47 has suddenly become the weapon of choice for terrorists, replacing suicide belts and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The article features a petty arms...
Joe Holliday and medical gender assignment
Back in the late 1990s I remember watching a documentary about a young girl then named Joella Holliday, whose mother had been fighting to get a birth certificate issued that said she was female....