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"Middle-class white men banned from public sector internship
National Audit Office’s six-week paid programme only accepts female, black heritage or lower socio-economic applicants" (£)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/06/middle-class-white-men-banned-from-public-sector-internship/

Are white, middle-class heterosexual men the most put upon cohort in UK society?

@Mexicanpete defending DEI to the hilt!

Give over Sunil. Is that the time?

The details of my life are quite inconsequential...

Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving corner shop owner from Zanzibar with low-grade lethargy and a penchant for psephology. My mother was a 20-year-old newsreader named Gargi with gap-teeth.

My father would plagiarize; he would snigger. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the opinion poll. Sometimes, he would accuse free-range eggs of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the insane possess and the genius lament...

My childhood was typical: summers in Penarth... sudoku lessons... In the spring, we'd make Quorn helmets... When I was insolent I was placed in a Sinclair C5 and beaten with Tory Party leaflets - pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first Coelacanth.

At the age of 14, a Bristolian named Brenda ritualistically shaved my buttocks. There really is nothing like a shorn bottom - it's breathtaking... I suggest you try it!

I genuinely understand none of this.

It’s a riff on the Dr Evil speech from Austin Powers.

Thanks. Still absolutely no idea of the context.

Austin Powers is the main character from the Austin Powers movie series, which is a parody of James Bond movies. The character Dr Evil, who is a parody of Blofeld, who was the main (but not only) villain from said movies, makes the speech that Sunil quotes in the first movie.

Errr, no.

Dr No gives the speech in the first James Bond film.

I was in a pub quiz team with someone who knew the actor who played Dr No. Extraordinary. If anyone knows it without Googling (I don't - I've already forgotten), I'll be impressed.

I don't - which is disappointing for a Bond fan. What I can say, however, is when I was a student in South Ken I often came across the chap who played Blofeld in some of the films. He was perhaps the only person who spent more time in the local pubs than me.

Charles Gray ?
(He has that look.)

DecrepiterJohnL said:
Andy_JS said:
Can we please continue to talk about why Paul Quinn hasn't received a longer sentence after allowing Andrew Malkinson to spend 17 years in prison?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfbLCXIaZBo
Or should we talk about why Malkinson was not released for more than 12 years after DNA evidence exonerated him? Or why the CCRC turned him down twice. Or even how he came to be wrongly convicted in the first place.


I did some research into this and read the various reports. So if there's any interest, happy to share.

Please do share Cyclefree.

I am just bewildered that the CCRC turned the case down twice after the DNA evidence was available. How could they possibly have thought it was a safe conviction after that?

The judicial system has a deep seated fear of acknowledging the system is capable of error. "We do not err. We cannot err. If we are fallible - the system collapses. Regardless of the cost to poor individuals, we have to hold the line."..

.

DecrepiterJohnL said:
Andy_JS said:
Can we please continue to talk about why Paul Quinn hasn't received a longer sentence after allowing Andrew Malkinson to spend 17 years in prison?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfbLCXIaZBo
Or should we talk about why Malkinson was not released for more than 12 years after DNA evidence exonerated him? Or why the CCRC turned him down twice. Or even how he came to be wrongly convicted in the first place.


I did some research into this and read the various reports. So if there's any interest, happy to share.

Please do share Cyclefree.

I am just bewildered that the CCRC turned the case down twice after the DNA evidence was available. How could they possibly have thought it was a safe conviction after that?

The judicial system has a deep seated fear of acknowledging the system is capable of error. "We do not err. We cannot err. If we are fallible - the system collapses. Regardless of the cost to poor individuals, we have to hold the line."..

DavidL is a judge, I think, and seems just as disquieted as the rest of us.
So it's not quite as simple as that.

DecrepiterJohnL said:
Andy_JS said:
Can we please continue to talk about why Paul Quinn hasn't received a longer sentence after allowing Andrew Malkinson to spend 17 years in prison?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfbLCXIaZBo
Or should we talk about why Malkinson was not released for more than 12 years after DNA evidence exonerated him? Or why the CCRC turned him down twice. Or even how he came to be wrongly convicted in the first place.


I did some research into this and read the various reports. So if there's any interest, happy to share.

Please do share Cyclefree.