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What happens if you are caught making explosives... but you're white, so you can't be a terrorist! You get headlines like...

ITV: "Science 'nerd' guilty of making explosives in mum's garden"

Sky: "Self-styled 'science nerd' convicted after homemade explosives found in garden shed"

BBC: "'Nerdy' Caddington man made explosive devices in shed - court"

Police found radioactive substances, ammunition, poison and recreational drugs as well. The guy had a previous conviction for actual bodily harm, and, to quote Sky, "After his arrest, police uncovered a stream of racist chat on WhatsApp in which Whittaker vented hate towards a Luton mosque."

I'd like to thank the British police for preventing this wannabee terrorist from attempting to kill British Muslims.

As a member of the science nerd community I am outraged that the News Media should pin this on nerdism, rather than racist shithousery.

"Speak to any 14 year old girl, or woman who remembers being 14. Such creepy behaviour by older men is very common."

@Foxy on a previous thread.

Yes - as someone who endured this and worse at 14 and on numerous occasions since then it is creepy and criminal and very common.

And it is very common because men like you, I'm sorry to say, do not take it seriously, underplay it because it has happened "since time immemorial" (your words) so girls should just put up with it and it is far too much expense and bother to build the facilities to lock up the men who make women and girls' life a misery with this sort of behaviour.

What is needed instead is for us to clamp down hard on men who do this, the first time they do it to send a very clear message that this is intolerable and will not be tolerated. Instead of expecting women to endure it, letting such men carry on with their repellent behaviour for years then being all shocked when they carry out some appalling crime and we learn of all the previous occasions when we turned a blind eye or were far too lenient because .... Well why? Because men can never be expected to behave or accept the consequences of their actions, apparently.

Women are so fucking fed up and furious at being thought of as second class citizens whose interests don't matter, whose rights to basic decency must always come second to those of men. Every single fucking day in this country we see example after example of this contempt for women and girls, even from professionals such as @ Foxy who might be expected to know better.

StaLLMer redefining renewal

Renewal means handing power back to people with skin in the game - people who know what their communities need most.

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1983574128578769407

What does that actually mean? Scratch one-man-one-vote and just have community leaders at the head of mobs? Local referenda that can vote for things that'll upset the Guardian? Some kind of libertarian paradise? What?!?

Government by fortune cookie.

Sod that. I want government via 'truth or dare'.

I want government via 'Cards Against Humanity.'

I thought Boris Johnson was a card against humanity.

The crazy thing about the rise of populism in this country is that things aren't actually that bad. The economy is growing, unemployment is low, real incomes are rising again after being squeezed by a series of global economic shocks, and we face an international migration problem that is small by the standard of many countries and fixable with time and effort. Imagine the state of our politics if we were to face a real crisis! Pardon my lack of political correctness, but perhaps we just need to man up a bit?
Plus of course, on the slow moving but very real problem the country is facing around the fiscal costs of ageing, the populists and mainstream politicians alike have nothing to say.

Might not be for you but other peoples lived experience is different

Sky high deductions leading to low take home pay, expensive housing, cost of everything up, wages not keeping up and fewer job opportunities

People’s quality of life has gone down

Or in clear terms imagine earning the uk average salary and trying to live in London today vs 20 years ago

It’s a real problem. And that’s just the private economic stuff without all the other stuff that pisses people off

When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s on my dad's average kind of salary we could never have afforded to live in London either. So what? We didn't want to live in London. Unemployment was much higher then, as was inflation for much of the time. House prices are higher than in the 80s but haven’t gone up in real terms for twenty years. Marginal tax rates are lower for most people than they were then, too.
I don't want to play down others' lived experience. But I do wonder whether as a country we have become a little bit spoilt. Sometimes things are tough - that's life. We've just been through the biggest pandemic since 1918 and we have the biggest war in Europe since 1945. We also literally voted to make ourselves poorer in 2016. Maybe we just to suck it up and stop moaning. Voting for chancers offering moon on the stick nonsense isn't going to help. I thought we were better than this.

It's the peculiar thing about the Brexit/Johnson/Reform movement.

It's bedrock is older homeowners. By definition, they are relatively comfortable in the main. Certainly more so than the generations above and below them.

So what's driving it? Hard to say, but it feels like it's about culture more than money, to the extent that people are happy to be poorer if it keeps the culture just-so.

In other contexts, that's called a luxury belief.

Talking of Polanski.......

There are a bunch of posters on here who think if they take the moral high ground in matters of morality it makes them look noble or even chivalrous. They are all of the right and at least one is a laughable hypocrite........

.....Some years ago I described Roman Polanski as 'a man more sinned against than sinning',.........

In brief a couple of girls went to his hacienda and asked him to have sex with them. He obliged and it transpired that despite looking early 20's they they were just 13 or 14. To avoid US jail he escaped to Europe where the laws on under age sex were more lax and he hadn't returned since. I wrote that he was a generational talent and he was a great loss to film making.

This must be at least ten years ago. But to this day all you need do if you are a rabid right winger is clutch your pealrs to you bosom and mention my name and Polanski and you are guaranteed the approval of at least five or six of your peers.

FFS Roger. He was 42, she was 13. Polanski was facing four charges including rape, sodomy, child molestation and giving drugs to a minor.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/11/newsid_4265000/4265617.stm

Genius he may have been, you're better placed than me to judge. But deeply, deeply flawed. Vile in fact.

@Foxy FPT

He tried to kiss her, said he wanted to make babies with her and invited her back to his flat.

I don’t know what world you live in but that’s a long way past the line as far as I am concerned.

She’s a 14 year old child for goodness sake.

Yes, I agree, as I made clear in my post.

It should be dealt with by the police, but is a 12/12 custodial sentence appropriate for such a low level non-violent offence? And one that most teenage girls will have experienced since time immemorial?

If so, then no wonder our prisons are bursting at the seams.

Maybe it had to be custodial because of his housing situation, but locking up every lecherous man is just impossible.

He physically assaulted her and another woman.

The Judge who heard the evidence deemed it appropriate.

Why do people mitigate these offences on women by predatory men ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cde3w04jwjzo

‘ A judge at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court also found him guilty of harassing the girl, inciting her to engage in sexual activity and an attempted sexual assault, and warned him to expect a prison sentence.

Kebatu attempted to kiss the girl and placed his hand on her thigh, as well as asking her to kiss another child in front of him, the court heard.

When a woman intervened he also placed his hand on her thigh, which she said made her feel "shocked, uncomfortable", before she called the police.’

Like I said, it is an offense and should be dealt with by the police, but to make him out to be a violent sex offender is exagerrating things.

I suspect a white offender with similar actions would have got off with a caution.

If you go and read the sentencing remarks it is clear 6 months in jail was the absolute minimum he could have been given by following the sentencing guidelines. So black, white, yellow, purple, its was going to 6 months and that is before the judge gets to the fact one victom was 14 year old, repeated offences, no admission of guilt or willingness to really engage or show remorse etc etc etc. It could easilly have been even more serious sentence.

So no, a white offender who acted exactly this way wasn't getting a caution.

With that source of sentencing guidelines we need vastly larger prisons, if anyone tries to enforce the law evenly.

Speak to any 14 year old girl, or woman who remembers being 14. Such creepy behaviour by older men is very common.

I really don't know why you continually down play this, it wasn't just "creepy behaviour" e.g. his crime wasn't wolf whistling at a girl he didn't know to be 14 as she wandered by and that was the extent of all his wrong doings. He assaulted multiple people multiple times and the under aged victim, he was told repeatedly she was only 14. And the other was trying to help him. No admission of guilt, no remorse. You sound very much like those who kept trying to minimise the likes of Lucy Connolly behaviour.

I thought Connollys sentance far too excessive too..

Community Service and a suspended sentance would have been better for her case too.

No wonder our prisons are bursting at the seems and in chaos. I think it was Hurd who described prison as "an expensive way of making bad people worse".