Yes, we do get rid of ‘hate preachers’
‘If you hate the migrants in Calais, you hate yourself’ | Nick Cohen (in today's Observer) People have been sharing this feature by Nick Cohen since it first appeared online yesterday (and I had...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
There’s more to the Binladins than OBL
Yesterday a light aircraft crashed when attempting to land at Blackbushe airfield near Farnborough. The airfield is a former RAF base which has also been a passenger airport, but these days is used for...
On Jeremy Corbyn: no, it’s not about purity
The Labour Party are currently holding their leadership election following the resignation of Ed Miliband after he lost the general election in May. The four candidates are Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper and...
Review: Don’t Take My Baby
Don’t Take My Baby is an hour-long BBC drama, broadcast on BBC Three (which is likely to be removed from digital TV and only shown online as of next year, something one review says...
Anti-FGM crusade brings out the busybodies
The crusade against FGM is out of control – Spectator Blogs Brendan O'Neill wrote the above article on the incident reported recently in the British press, in which Baroness Jenny Tonge took a flight...
On feminists and girls’ school uniforms
Last Thursday Woman's Hour, the 10am slot on BBC Radio 4, had a feature on the growing trend in the UK for schools to ban girls from wearing skirts (it starts at 32:25, not...
‘Hadith 38’ isn’t about war
The BBC reported today that Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez (right), the gunman of Kuwaiti origin who murdered five US marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, last week, had sent what it called a "war text" to a...
Close the units down?
Last Wednesday the BBC's Call You and Yours programme on Radio 4 held a feature on the 'progress' in getting long-term residents out of assessment and treatment units (ATUs), the type of short-term mental...
Price tags on medication: why it’s a stupid, callous idea
Yesterday the government announced that labels on drugs prescribed by the NHS in England that cost over £20 will have the cost printed on them along with the words “funded by the UK taxpayer”....
Review: Kids in Crisis
Kids in Crisis was a programme about children with severe mental health problems in the UK who are being transferred a long way from home, sometimes hundreds of miles, because there is no inpatient...
Who’s sorry?
NHS staff told to say 'I am sorry' to patients for medical blunders | Society | The Guardian Recently the health blogosphere and Twitter has been buzzing with talk of NHS managers' and other...
Hard come, easy go
Over the past month the BBC has been running a four-part series called Protecting Our Foster Kids, which went out late at night and featured a series of children in Dorset (a mostly rural...
No, we’re not “quietly condoning” ISIS
Last week, in a speech to a gathering of security chiefs in Bratislava, Slovakia, David Cameron accused Muslims of pointing the finger at everyone but themselves for some Muslims being attracted to ISIS. The...
Magna Carta: the baby steps
Right now there are celebrations going on in Surrey and Berkshire to mark the 800th anniversary of the passing of Magna Carta, the charter sealed by King John that established the rule of law...
So, Maisie’s home, but …
Last Sunday I mentioned that there was to be a "tweet storm" in support of the "Get Maisie Home" campaign, which was really about re-opening a children's mental health unit in Hull which was...
So, the al-Qa’ida chiefs don’t like ISIS
Last Thursday, the Guardian carried a lengthy feature (the "big read" in their comment section) as well as a front-page article on how prominent members of al-Qa'ida have come out against ISIS. The long...
On Thomas Rawnsley’s 21st, Maisie’s tweet storm and the Kesgrave abuse inquiry
Today would have been Thomas Rawnsley's 21st birthday. Thomas was a man with Down's syndrome and autism, who was in a succession of care homes and NHS hospital units from 2013 until he died...
Boycott ISIS? Boycott what?
There is a story going around that the NUS recently passed a motion to align itself with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, while a year ago having rejected a motion...
Time to bring the air industry down to earth
Yesterday a story started circulating on social media in which an American female Muslim chaplain named Tahera Ahmad, who was travelling on a United Airlines flight (run by a partner, Shuttle America), asked for...
Andy Burnham: an uninspiring, Tory-lite shop-minder
Labour warning by Andy Burnham – You will not win if workshy have an 'easy ride' | Western Daily Press Last week I got a letter printed in the New Statesman, in response to...