Get the Tories out!
We have a general election tomorrow (4th July); it may be today by the time you read this. We have had 14 years of Tory mismanagement, five of them enabled by the Liberal Democrats,...
Category: Uncategorized
Racism, not fascism
As the depredations of Donald Trump’s immigration forces continue in the USA and his visit to the UK is supported by nakedly mendacious propaganda in the Daily Mail (see right), it is fashionable to...
Encouraging obesity?
Yesterday I came across a report in the Daily Telegraph claiming that a study from the University of East Anglia (in England) had suggested that the normalisation of overweight models and “plus-size” clothes ranges...
Anti-Semitism and the ‘woke’ Muslim
Last weekend I had a brief exchange with three women on Twitter, two Muslim and one Jewish, after one of the two Muslims retweeted a conversation about Jews versus Blacks and why the first...
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...
Of course the ‘FGM doctor’ was innocent
Last Wednesday a doctor who had been charged with inflicting FGM (female genital mutilation) on a woman in the UK was found not guilty after a trial lasting two and a half weeks and...
How France can really ‘protect all religions’
France ‘to protect all religions’ (BBC News) The French president, François Hollande, has announced that France “will protect all religions” and that Muslims are the “main victims of fanaticism” in a speech at the...
Review of 2014
Two big things happened in my life in 2014. The first was that my Grandad died, in January. He had been living with us since the previous November, and had been getting steadily weaker....
The 4G rip-off
Last month I switched from the 3G SIM-only deal I’d been on with T-Mobile since 2012 to a new 4G deal with EE, which is part of the same company (I’m not sure who...
ITV’s soft focus on learning disability crisis
Last Thursday ITV broadcast a 24-minute programme titled Against the Odds, which supposedly revealed “the reality of life for people with learning disabilities in the UK, with many experiencing harassment and violence and just...
Renewed harassment of McDougalls is indefensible
On Sunday I read, via Sarah Ismail, that the McDougall family (Mark and Kerry McDougall, née Robertson, and their sons Ben and Lochlan) have faced renewed “investigation” since they have returned to Dunfermline, their...
“Either HS2 or more motorways!”
We must invest in high-speed rail or new motorways, warns HS2 chairman (from the Guardian) The Guardian reported yesterday that Douglas Oakervee, the chairman of the HS2 project (the new high-speed railway line from...
Issy Stapleton: suspicious timing
Recently a mother who was known to the online autism community and kept a blog about parenting her autistic daughter was found in a fume-filled van with her. Both the mother, Kelli Stapleton, and...
EDL versus Muslim extremists: Moore’s double standards
Woolwich outrage: we are too weak to face up to the extremism in our midst - Telegraph The above bit of EDL apologism by Charles Moore appeared in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, and it also...
Innocent till proven guilty? Not if it’s rape
Recently you may have heard that Rolf Harris, a well-known Australian entertainer who has been on the TV for one purpose or another (and in the pop charts occasionally) since the 1960s, was taken...
Hadley Freeman, feminism and intersectionality
Hadley Freeman on Sheryl Sandberg, feminism and intersectionality (from today’s Guardian) The above is an article by Hadley Freeman, who is one of the Guardian’s fashion columnists who also writes increasingly about feminist issues...
Fedora 18: Dangerous to your Data
Last month Fedora released the latest version of their Linux distribution, version 18, codenamed “Spherical Cow”, a reference to an engineering joke, the main new feature of which is a redesigned installer (still called...
Undateables: same old stories
Last Tuesday, the first in the new series of “The Undateables”, Channel 4’s series in which they attempt to match up people with various disabilities with partners, aired. I saw some of the first...
Tories have lost 2015 already, says Conservative Home editor
https://twitter.com/MargoJMilne/status/285333090874830848 This article has been appearing in my Twitter feed a lot this morning; it’s by the executive editor of ConservativeHome (and former MP for Wycome in Buckinghamshire), Paul Goodman, and predicts that 2015...
Labour ‘expels councillors’ who campaigned for rival
Labour party expels councillors who ‘supported rival’ (BBC News; more at The Wharf) This report is about three former Labour councillors who were expelled from the party in east London for supporting an independent...