Indigo Jo Blogs Blog

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...