Review: Silent Witness, “One Day”
Silent Witness is a series based on the work of police pathologists: the "witness" refers to the body of a murder victim. It's been running since 1996 and the stories are always in two...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
It’s not just the Far Right
Yesterday (Friday), Darren Osborne, who drove a van into a crowd of Muslims after a night-time prayer (taraweeh) last Ramadan and killed a 51-year-old worshipper, Makram Ali (right), who had collapsed prior to the...
Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba, racism and the appeal to authority
Last week the High Court ruled that a doctor whose mistakes contributed to the death of a young boy in 2011 should be erased from the medical register for life. Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba had...
Esther McVey and the Samaritans: a conflict of interest
This week it was revealed that Esther McVey, the new work and pensions secretary (after Justine Greening refused the job) in the Tory government, was on the advisory board of the Samaritans, the charity...
Who’s behind “Survivors Against Terror”?
I don't mean who's at the front of it: the public faces of it are on their website and include Brendan Cox, the widower of the murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, and some survivors...
Polygamy and “violent societies”
I saw this video being tweeted out by the Economist, a London-based weekly news magazine, this morning. It posits the idea that polygamy is strongly linked to violence in a society. Polygamy is still...
One lesson from Richard Handley’s inquest
Shitstorm. | Who By Fire The inquest into the death of Richard Handley (right), who died of faecal impaction in Ipswich in November 2017, is ongoing and is being live-tweeted on the account @HandleyInquest,...
Charities “refusing” Presidents’ Club donations
In light of the revelations about sexual harassment of hostesses at the men-only Presidents' Club dinner, an annual event for very wealthy men at which expensive prizes (e.g. flash cars, cosmetic surgery, flights in...
Review: Panorama, “White Fright”
Last night a 30-minute Panorama programme was shown on BBC1 that looked at Blackburn, a town of about 140,000 in Lancashire (north-western England) where the white British majority live largely separate lives from the...
It was the Muslims
So, last Friday the school in Newham, a borough in east London with a large Asian and Somali Muslim presence, which had introduced a ban on girls under age 8 wearing the hijab or...
“I’ve stopped fighting for Britain”
BBC Radio 5 live on Twitter: "“I’ve stopped fighting for Britain” Olaya has worked as an NHS nurse for fifteen years. Now she and her family are moving to Spain becaus… https://t.co/5X3puABDbN" An interview with...
Please sign this petition: leave our hijab alone!
Petition · Lyn Brown MP: Make Neena Lall remove the hijab and fasting ban at St Stephens in Newham! · Change.org This is a petition to the local MP in Newham, east London, against...
The men alive because we can’t hang them
The past two weeks it was separately announced that one serial rapist who preyed on women in London was to be released after serving nearly ten years and another, who attacked women and girls...
What’s “not Canada”?
This is a front page from today's Toronto Sun about the 11-year-old girl who was attacked in the street by a man who cut her hijab with a pair of scissors as she walked...
The “Workers’ Brexit” delusion
Yesterday, there was a letter printed in the Guardian from one Sarah Ansell about the notion that many of those who voted for Brexit in June 2016 are now experiencing "buyer's remorse" after Larry...
Review: House of Saud, episode 1
So, last night the first episode of a three-part series on BBC2, House of Saud: A Family at War was broadcast. I commented on the trailer last night as the language had been troubling...
Method acting
A Twitter defence of James Franco (right), who has been accused of sexual assault explicitly by one actress and implicitly by others: If you read closely, it said it happened during filming of Palo...
What is a revolution anyway?
I've been seeing trailers on BBC TV for a documentary on the changes being forced upon Saudi Arabia by the new crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman (his father, the actual king Salman is believed...
Cold callers getting more sophisticated
Earlier today while drinking my coffee I got a call from a woman who told me that there was some sort of payout waiting for me as a result of a vehicle incident that...
Abortion and Down’s syndrome: I’m with Kasich
In an article for the website Global Comment, the British feminist writer Phillipa Willitts this week opposed the new law in the US state of Ohio that bans abortion where a foetus has been...