Discriminatory on every level
Man faces deportation as UK wife's salary too low Last week a couple found out that they had been refused the right to settle in the UK and would have to split or resettle...
Indigo Jo Blogs Blog
Quality, not quantity
On Thursday the inquest into the death of Nico Reed, who died in a Southern Health supported living unit in Chalgrove, Oxfordshire, returned a narrative verdict which stated that his death was the result...
Tories’ “£15bn roads revolution” is a pre-election con
Today the government announced their intention to spend £15billion on an ambitious set of new road projects, including improvements to several junctions on the M25, a tunnel near Stonehenge on the A303 and the...
Feminists throw Billy-no-mates under the bus
A letter to … the girl who accused me of rape when I was 15 | Life and style | The Guardian I knew when I saw this piece in today's Guardian Family supplement...
What’s missing from Bubb’s tepid report
This week the long-awaited report by Sir Stephen Bubb into the care of people with learning disabilities and autism following the scandal of Winterbourne View in 2011 was published. Titled "Winterbourne View: Time for...
Not being spied on used to be called freedom
Yesterday a report from the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) came out that concluded that the murder of Lee Rigby, a British soldier, in London in 2013 could not have been prevented despite the...
Palestinians are not just irrational haters
Last Tuesday, two Palestinians attacked a synagogue in Jerusalem, killing four rabbis and a Druze Israeli policeman. It was revealed that several of the rabbis killed were immigrants from Britain and the USA; one...
I’m a professional driver, and I’m not a knucklehead
Last week Mark Reckless, who had stood down as a Tory MP in the Rochester and Strood constituency in Kent and re-stood for UKIP, won the by-election with 42.1% of the vote on a...
Julien Blanc and swearing on talk radio
This morning on the Nick Ferrari show on LBC (which I don’t listen to very often; I always preferred the BBC London station), they were talking about the American “pick-up artist” Julien Blanc, who...
Are we really much better than the Greeks?
Last Friday there was a story on the BBC website on a state home for both children and adults with learning disabilities in Greece, in which some of the inmates, who have conditions including...
Why does sport welcome violent men?
It’s not often that I write about sport here, mainly because I pay so little attention to it. I’ve watched only one football match in person (Ipswich v Oxford at Portman Road in 1991...
In-your-face racism is back (but victim blaming never went away)
A few people I know yesterday tweeted an article by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, the mainstream media's favourite "Muslim" and authority on all things Asian, which claimed that "in-your-face racism" had returned and that she was...
Claire Dyer is free
Today Claire Dyer and her family found out that she had been released from her sectioning under the Mental Health Act, and will not have to return to the medium-secure unit to which she...
About those sarnies
The Daily Mail’s headline today reads “Is there nobody left in Britain who can make a sandwich?” and refers to an Irish-based sandwich making company, Greencore, which is seeking to recruit hundreds of workers...
The 4G rip-off
Last month I switched from the 3G SIM-only deal I’d been on with T-Mobile since 2012 to a new 4G deal with EE, which is part of the same company (I’m not sure who...
A rail geography lesson for jihadis and journos
Over the years I've noticed that a standard tactic of the dishonest journalist or columnist in the age of the Internet is to rely on the geographical ignorance of your overseas audience, most of...
Lipman, the socialist, deserts the poor for Israel
Last week Maureen Lipman, the British comic actress best known for roles in advertisements in the 1980s (as in “if you’ve got an ‘ology, you’re a scientist”), announced in an article for Standpoint magazine...
Bedroom Tax gag on Lamont typical of Labour’s cowardice
Miliband barred Lamont from attacking bedroom tax for 12 months | Politics | theguardian.com Yesterday, in the fallout from Johann Lamont‘s resignation as leader of the Scottish Labour party (a nominally independent Scottish version...
Julie Bindel does not deserve a “no-platform” policy
This week Julie Bindel (right) is due to speak in a debate at Essex University about pornography. Bindel is a radical feminist best known for her work with Justice for Women, a group that...
From Clegg to Clacton
The other night I was driving home (I had a long drive from Diss, Norfolk to west London, which takes three hours by any reasonable route in an 18-tonne lorry) and listening to reports...