Apple iCloud scam warning
Earlier today I got an email ostensibly from Apple, which told me that my iCloud ID was facing deletion because I had not ‘confirmed’ it. The email read: You’ve not yet confirmed your iCloud...
Author: Matthew Smith
No, Labour will not survive another split
In today’s Observer, there is a long article by former Labour stragegist (now a London headteacher) Peter Hyman in which he claims that the current Labour party is a party of “pacifism, republicanism and...
Populist bigots need not be fascists
Yesterday there was an article published in the Times by Melanie Phillips (it is paywalled, but a scanned image can be found here), a writer whose rantings against Muslims used to be a favourite...
Muslim women don’t owe solidarity to bigots
This morning I was listening to Vanessa Feltz’s phone-in show in London which is every weekday from 9am to noon. I tuned in just before 10am at which point I was heading out on...
Propaganda is not care
I saw a graphic that was presented next to an article for childminders on how to teach ‘British values’, as now required by the government, and the schools inspectorate Ofsted (which also governs children’s...
Sympathy for Tania Clarence shows disablist attitudes
In April 2014, Tania Clarence smothered three of her four children, Olivia, Ben and Max, all of whom had spinal muscular atrophy type 2 (SMA2), at the family home in New Malden (see earlier...
Review: Britain’s ISIS Supporters
[ISIS: The British Women Supporters Unveiled](http://www.channel4.com/programmes/isis-the-british-women-supporters-unveiled) from Channel 4 (available for 26 days as of this writing) On Monday night Channel 4 broadcast what purported to be an investigation into a group of British...
The Paris attacks: what kind of “game changer” are they?
So, a week and a half after the attacks on civilian targets in central Paris, including a stadium, a concert hall and several restaurants on Friday night supposedly by ISIS (or rather, a group...
Who’s a waste of space, then?
A letter to … My godson, with whom I’ve decided to sever ties | Life and style | The Guardian When I used to read the print edition of the Guardian, the paper I've...
Germaine Greer’s views are extreme, but so are her critics’
The Goldfish last week posted an entry in which she examined the complaints of 'silencing' and 'censorship' regarding the petition to prevent Germaine Greer from speaking at Cardiff University on the grounds of having...
About that “only disability in life” meme
You can't be on social media for more than a few weeks at a time, especially in any group with any disability connection whatever, without someone posting that infuriating meme that says "The only...
Girls, careers and posh schools
Girls must choose career or motherhood, says top head – Telegraph The Telegraph has interviewed the 'headmistress' of a London private girls' school, Francis Holland in Regent's Park, who says that she's "not a...
Iraq: We were right all along
So, today Tony Blair finally admitted in an interview on CNN (more here) that his action in following the Americans into war in Iraq in 2003 may have helped allow the rise of ISIS,...
It’s official: Connor Sparrowhawk died of neglect
Yesterday, the verdict was delivered in the inquest into the death of Connor Sparrowhawk, known as Laughing Boy or LB, in the NHS learning disability unit at Slade House, Oxford, in July 2013. The...
You were warned
I rarely watch Question Time, the late-night show on BBC1 in which an audience gets to ask questions of a panel of politicians and journalists, because it's on too late (I usually start work...
On Jeremy Corbyn and those nukes
Last week Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour leader, said in an interview that if he were Prime Minister, he would not use nuclear weapons under any circumstances, which provoked a storm of controversy with...
No, meat is not murder (and other reflections on Corbyn)
Last week it was revealed (or we were reminded) that the new shadow cabinet member for agriculture and the environment, Kerry McCarthy, was a vegan who gave an interview with the vegan magazine Viva!Life,...
‘House Muslims’, whatever we call them, are a thing
The other day Tell MAMA, which monitors hate crimes against Muslims, published an anonymous article claiming that certain unnamed "moral guardians of the Internet", mainly aged between 20 and 35 "who spend their time...
Saudi Arabia minimising civilian casualties?
I was rather surprised to hear the ongoing war in Yemen being described as the "forgotten war" on BBC's Newsnight, as I've been hearing about it almost non-stop on my social media feeds; but...
Name the problem: White Bigotry
There are some themes which will be familiar to anyone who follows or is involved in feminist discourses about rape and other violence against women and children: that the perpetrators often go unnamed while...