Life isn’t fair?
The other day I came across a discussion on the forum MumsNet about a boy at primary school who had been, for the umpteenth time, given a trivial role in his school play while...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Why couldn’t Dean Saunders get a secure hospital place?
Last Friday an inquest jury gave its verdict in the case of Dean Saunders, who killed himself in Chelmsford Prison in January 2016 having been remanded there having injured his father who tried to...
Treaty rights versus legal rights
A couple of days ago there was a demonstration in Dublin to pressure the government there to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD), which Ireland has signed but...
How to make sure wheelchair users can ride the bus
'Wheelchair v buggy': Disabled man wins Supreme Court case — BBC News Today the Supreme Court gave its ruling on whether FirstBus, a major provider of bus services throughout the UK, discriminated against a...
Stonehenge, and the A303, really need that tunnel
Stonehenge Tunnel plan finalised by government — BBC News So, the government have finally agreed on plans to build a tunnel to the south of the ancient stone circle, Stonehenge, outside Amesbury in Wiltshire....
Jill Saward, the Press and civil liberties
Last week Jill Saward (pronounced Say-ward), best known for having been the victim of the notorious "Ealing Vicarage" rape attack in 1986 in which she was raped and subjected to other sexual assaults and...
Watership Down: the significance of Cowslip
In today's Guardian, there is a piece by Giles Fraser about what might be the significance of the book Watership Down, whose author Richard Adams died earlier this week. Focusing on the part of...
On Black Lives Matter and Muslim participation
On Friday evening a well-known western Muslim scholar, in an interview with the British journalist Mehdi Hasan at the Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS) 2016 conference in Toronto, made some offensive and inaccurate remarks...
CyanogenMod knocked on head
Update 26th Dec: Cyanogen, Inc. turned off CyanogenMod's web servers yesterday, likely in response to a final blog post from the team. The download site remains up until the end of the month. As...
Regarding Brandon Reid
Brandon Reid is a 16-year-old boy with Asperger's syndrome whose family home is in Sheffield. He was in the news in November when a local paper and then the Daily Mail reported that the...
Some thoughts on the Berlin truck atrocity
On Monday evening, someone hijacked a 40-tonne Scania articulated lorry, murdered the driver, and then drove it into the Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 people. Police arrested a suspect, an asylum seeker from Pakistan,...
Does Sleaford really matter much more than Richmond?
Why Sleaford matters more than Richmond – CapX Last week there were two by-elections in the UK triggered by resignations of MPs. One was in Richmond Park, in which Zac Goldsmith had resigned from...
Why ban National Action?
Today the Home Secretary announced that she intends to proscribe the Far Right group National Action, which she describes as "a racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic organisation". An organisation can be proscribed if the home...
Time to change the law on disability hate crime
Update 12th December: The Disability Hate Crime Network has written to the Attorney General to seek a review of James Wheatley's sentence. Last week in Newcastle, a man who had imprisoned and tortured to...
Why I’m against Universal Basic Income
Recently the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) has gained a lot of traction in Left circles in the UK, with calls for Jeremy Corbyn to adopt it and try and make it...
Castro saved his country
Years ago, there used to be a common explanation for why communism didn't work. It was all nice on paper, people would say; the state would share all the wealth around and make sure...
What is a congestion charge for?
London mayor Sadiq Khan issues £2.5m VW congestion charge call So, Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is demanding that Volkswagen pay up £2.5m to compensate the London taxpayer for a discount that drivers...
Lego and the Daily Mail: Before you get too excited …
Lego ends advertising with Daily Mail after calls for companies to 'Stop Funding Hate' (from the Independent) According to this report, widely shared by people I know on social media, Lego have announced that...
So, about those Democrat infiltrators …
Yesterday, someone posted a link to the blog by the author of the Dilbert cartoons, alleging among other things that violence at Trump rallies had mostly been caused by infiltrators from Clinton's campaign, who...
Is anti-Semitism really “a hate apart”?
Let’s be clear – antismetism is a hate apart | Howard Jacobson | Opinion | The Guardian The above is in last Sunday's Observer, and is part of a genre of articles in which...