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...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
‘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...
Why can’t a leading Muslim cop tell Islam from ISIS?
Today the Guardian published an interview with Britain's "most senior Muslim police officer", Scotland Yard commander Mak Chishty, head of community engagement for the Metropolitan police, in which he claimed that earlier and more...
It’s always different when it’s you
Israel has many injustices. But it is not an apartheid state | Benjamin Pogrund | Comment is free | The Guardian This bit of self-serving liberal Zionist guff was in yesterday's Guardian — actually,...
National Service? If I hear it again I’ll go Spare!
So, in today's Telegraph there's an interview with Prince Harry (right), who is set to leave the Army next month after ten years of service, in which he calls for the return of National...
Picking up the pieces from Thursday’s disaster
As anyone who reads the news will know, last Thursday there was a general election here and on Friday morning we learned that the Tories had gained an absolute majority of the seats, which...
So who’s a mensch, then? And who cares?
Today the Sun put that picture of Ed Miliband trying to eat a bacon butty and getting it all down his shirt, suggesting that if he can't even eat without making a mess, he'll...