Glad the killers of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes have been found guilty.
For all those who expend their energy worrying about the theoretical harm being done to trans kids, we’ll, there are some very real cases of extreme child abuse like Arthur’s that should worry us more.
Just my 2p.
Btw - serious fuckup by Solihull council social workers.
The odd point that I saw was he grandmother had photos but the social workers told her they didn’t want to see them
The social workers saw the photos and did a visit just 26 hours later - and then said they couldn't see any bruises on Arthur. They had a medical expert testify that it was impossible for the bruises to have cleared up that quickly.
This is a bit strange and something that the Independent investigation into social services that will now happen will doubtless look into.
Lessons Will Be learned.
Some junior people will get the boot.
Some senior people will have to be let go, provided that higher paying, more responsible jobs can be found for them. Some assistance will be required to help them carry their golden goodbye settlements.....
Cases like this do make you wonder why they keep on getting it so wrong, but then we only ever hear about the cases that go wrong enough to make the news. Maybe there are lots of kids saved from horrifying cruelty every day that obviously never get reported?
My suggestion to deal with the problem that prosecutions were hard to bring against the apparatchiks involved in Rotherham* was this - put them all on the Sex Offenders registers.
*Quite a number boosted that they were untouchable since records had been destroyed.
Labour’s biggest funder, Unite, will cut political donations to the party and divert the money to other leftwing causes, the union’s new general secretary, Sharon Graham, has warned.
Good perhaps Mexican Pete, Southam Observer Jonathon and CHB can make up the shortfall
Good to get a name check.
Starmer can at least say he isn't in Sharon Graham's pocket.
I was genuinely offended by Len threatening to turn the taps off if he wasn't allowed to toss his tuppence worth of nonsense into the Labour Party policy pot.
The last time I paid Labour Party fees it felt like I was taking on most of Len's burden anyway and that was almost a decade ago.
Surely Labour under SKS offers you exactly what you want politically Pete.
Without 150k members subs and a big reduction in Union monies SKS needs monies from supporters like yourself urgently.
It is unconscionable to imagine Starmer might rely on voluntary payments from members rather than the highly anachronistic trade union levy which was not only more or less extorted from union members regardless of their political views but put overwhelming power in the hands of a few scarcely elected, usually corrupt and frequently somewhat sinister union barons.
How on Earth could he survive the shame?
Which members?
He has lost 150k of those too and counting
I'm one of them but I think Corbyn is a whopper, so what is your point?
My point is Lab is a financial basket case under SKS and down over £2m on membership fees
and now Unions are sick of funding a leader that doesnt suppport Union causes and withdrawing their financial support too
So far there is no alternative funding forthcoming but i am sure CHB will have a cunning plan?
Well, that's adding value, surely? From basket case to financial basket case?
After the antisemitism and abuse under Corbyn, they've gone from morally bankrupt to fiscally . . .
By the time Johnson is done with us, no opposition party will require a campaign war chest.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 1h I thought the whole point of the EU (or so EU leaders tell us) is that it's the bulwark against fascism and war returning to the continent of Europe...
Yet Italy, Austria, Germany and now France are going down the road to fascism, declaring war on their own people.
Terrifying.
===
Is mandatory vax fascism? Sounds like a good essay question for PPE at an Oxford college.
What I find pretty astonishing is that she ignores the fact that many non-EU places have also gone down the mandatory (or effectively mandatory) route.
In LA, you kids cannot attend a public school unless they are fully vaccinated. For all but the wealthiest parents, that's a mandatory vax requirement.
She strikes me as the sort who would consider LA to be a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah so I'm not sure that proves much.
Incidentally, I am holed up in a beautiful little cottage by the river Monnow in Craswall, west Herefordshire, with a suspected case of Omicron
No joke
Hope you feel better soon. Interesting as the Nature article posted by @Chris said that PCR tests were only to a degree able to identify Omicron. Who is doing the suspecting?
111 England
Tho they didn’t say “omicron” they just said “quite probably covid get tested immediately”
I’m the one making the leap, not just because I want to be a fashionable early adopter but because my symptoms are spookily like the ones described by South African GPs
I’m praying it’s just a bug, I can do without long Covid and quarantines
I just had this this week. Bed for 4 days. I did have loss of taste. Blood sats at 92-93% for 48 hrs. Breathy chest. PCR result - negative. This despite a quarter of my kids school teachers currently being off with covid. Most odd.
I think partly we’ve forgotten how bad other bugs can make us feel. Not every time one gets ill will be Covid. Even at the height of waves in the U.K. the vast majority of tests were negative.
Thanks for the kind remarks. I’m not dying (I hope) but it isn’t pleasant. The main symptoms are intense fatigue, chest pain and a dry, scratchy cough - plus general aches etc. I have slept 32 of the last 36 hours. Mad. These are the signs of Omicron as reported from SA. My senses of smell and taste are fine
I’ve ordered a PCR which should arrive tomorrow so then I’ll know. It’s certainly something best avoided - whatever it is
Didn't you have covid in the very very early stages of the covid crisis. Like so before the beginnings that you went to PHE and they said maybe and the tests were shit and was not positive or something?
Labour’s biggest funder, Unite, will cut political donations to the party and divert the money to other leftwing causes, the union’s new general secretary, Sharon Graham, has warned.
Good perhaps Mexican Pete, Southam Observer Jonathon and CHB can make up the shortfall
Good to get a name check.
Starmer can at least say he isn't in Sharon Graham's pocket.
I was genuinely offended by Len threatening to turn the taps off if he wasn't allowed to toss his tuppence worth of nonsense into the Labour Party policy pot.
The last time I paid Labour Party fees it felt like I was taking on most of Len's burden anyway and that was almost a decade ago.
Surely Labour under SKS offers you exactly what you want politically Pete.
Without 150k members subs and a big reduction in Union monies SKS needs monies from supporters like yourself urgently.
It is unconscionable to imagine Starmer might rely on voluntary payments from members rather than the highly anachronistic trade union levy which was not only more or less extorted from union members regardless of their political views but put overwhelming power in the hands of a few scarcely elected, usually corrupt and frequently somewhat sinister union barons.
How on Earth could he survive the shame?
Which members?
He has lost 150k of those too and counting
I'm one of them but I think Corbyn is a whopper, so what is your point?
My point is Lab is a financial basket case under SKS and down over £2m on membership fees
and now Unions are sick of funding a leader that doesnt suppport Union causes and withdrawing their financial support too
So far there is no alternative funding forthcoming but i am sure CHB will have a cunning plan?
Well, that's adding value, surely? From basket case to financial basket case?
After the antisemitism and abuse under Corbyn, they've gone from morally bankrupt to fiscally . . .
By the time Johnson is done with us, no opposition party will require a campaign war chest.
Thanks for the kind remarks. I’m not dying (I hope) but it isn’t pleasant. The main symptoms are intense fatigue, chest pain and a dry, scratchy cough - plus general aches etc. I have slept 32 of the last 36 hours. Mad. These are the signs of Omicron as reported from SA. My senses of smell and taste are fine
I’ve ordered a PCR which should arrive tomorrow so then I’ll know. It’s certainly something best avoided - whatever it is
Dude, that's just getting old.
Hah
This description of Omicron does sound exactly like my lurgy
Perhaps it goes without saying but stay off the sauce Leon! Even if you’ve felt better for a week give a it a few days after that, is the advice from all the pissheads I know who caught covid
I don't think that Boris will necessarily go down in history as being a great PM.
Not just because I think he is a useless twat, but because if you think about it, "he got Brexit done" - no. Well he was in the car when it drove over the line and the history books will talk about a short while of back and forth while the details were hammered out but the Great British Public, given the opportunity by Cameron, got Brexit done. And those history books might point out, as they do today about, say, the Great Depression or the GFC, the UK's relative position following Brexit and that position might be unfavourable.
Then there's Covid. Again we will have to wait for all the stats but at the moment they don't seem hugely favourable or hugely unfavourable. Middle of the pack, with better than Eastern Europe and towards the bottom of Western Europe, for example. So not a "great" performance by any measure.
The economy? Would have to take a look but doesn't seem anything special.
So what would be great about his PM-ship.
Boris will without doubt be always known as the Prime Minister of Brexit and covid and while not being great will be spoken about for many years to come
We still talk about Lord North today.
And Neville Chamberlain.
Jeremy Irons is playing Neville Chamberlain in new Netflix drama, Munich - The Edge of War, out in January
Who was the better man: Chamberlain or your boy Franco
Chamberlain did do some good social reforms and bought time for rearmament, Franco at least kept the Communists out
I don't think that Boris will necessarily go down in history as being a great PM.
Not just because I think he is a useless twat, but because if you think about it, "he got Brexit done" - no. Well he was in the car when it drove over the line and the history books will talk about a short while of back and forth while the details were hammered out but the Great British Public, given the opportunity by Cameron, got Brexit done. And those history books might point out, as they do today about, say, the Great Depression or the GFC, the UK's relative position following Brexit and that position might be unfavourable.
Then there's Covid. Again we will have to wait for all the stats but at the moment they don't seem hugely favourable or hugely unfavourable. Middle of the pack, with better than Eastern Europe and towards the bottom of Western Europe, for example. So not a "great" performance by any measure.
The economy? Would have to take a look but doesn't seem anything special.
So what would be great about his PM-ship.
Boris will without doubt be always known as the Prime Minister of Brexit and covid and while not being great will be spoken about for many years to come
We still talk about Lord North today.
And Neville Chamberlain.
Jeremy Irons is playing Neville Chamberlain in new Netflix drama, Munich - The Edge of War, out in January
Who was the better man: Chamberlain or your boy Franco
Chamberlain did do some good social reforms and bought time for rearmament, Franco at least kept the Communists out
Nicholas II, unlike Peter the Great and Henry VIII, was at least a good husband.
Thanks for the kind remarks. I’m not dying (I hope) but it isn’t pleasant. The main symptoms are intense fatigue, chest pain and a dry, scratchy cough - plus general aches etc. I have slept 32 of the last 36 hours. Mad. These are the signs of Omicron as reported from SA. My senses of smell and taste are fine
I’ve ordered a PCR which should arrive tomorrow so then I’ll know. It’s certainly something best avoided - whatever it is
Look after yourself, Leon. At least you’re holed up somewhere nice. Stay safe!
Thanks for the kind remarks. I’m not dying (I hope) but it isn’t pleasant. The main symptoms are intense fatigue, chest pain and a dry, scratchy cough - plus general aches etc. I have slept 32 of the last 36 hours. Mad. These are the signs of Omicron as reported from SA. My senses of smell and taste are fine
I’ve ordered a PCR which should arrive tomorrow so then I’ll know. It’s certainly something best avoided - whatever it is
Dude, that's just getting old.
Hah
This description of Omicron does sound exactly like my lurgy
Perhaps it goes without saying but stay off the sauce Leon! Even if you’ve felt better for a week give a it a few days after that, is the advice from all the pissheads I know who caught covid
Go to bed with our blessings and get the rest you need Leon.
Thanks for the kind remarks. I’m not dying (I hope) but it isn’t pleasant. The main symptoms are intense fatigue, chest pain and a dry, scratchy cough - plus general aches etc. I have slept 32 of the last 36 hours. Mad. These are the signs of Omicron as reported from SA. My senses of smell and taste are fine
I’ve ordered a PCR which should arrive tomorrow so then I’ll know. It’s certainly something best avoided - whatever it is
Dude, that's just getting old.
Hah
This description of Omicron does sound exactly like my lurgy
Perhaps it goes without saying but stay off the sauce Leon! Even if you’ve felt better for a week give a it a few days after that, is the advice from all the pissheads I know who caught covid
Agreed.
As a witness of Sean’s postings for the best part of a decade, I think he ought to be more concerned about liver disease and STDs than Covid.
I don't think that Boris will necessarily go down in history as being a great PM.
Not just because I think he is a useless twat, but because if you think about it, "he got Brexit done" - no. Well he was in the car when it drove over the line and the history books will talk about a short while of back and forth while the details were hammered out but the Great British Public, given the opportunity by Cameron, got Brexit done. And those history books might point out, as they do today about, say, the Great Depression or the GFC, the UK's relative position following Brexit and that position might be unfavourable.
Then there's Covid. Again we will have to wait for all the stats but at the moment they don't seem hugely favourable or hugely unfavourable. Middle of the pack, with better than Eastern Europe and towards the bottom of Western Europe, for example. So not a "great" performance by any measure.
The economy? Would have to take a look but doesn't seem anything special.
So what would be great about his PM-ship.
Boris will without doubt be always known as the Prime Minister of Brexit and covid and while not being great will be spoken about for many years to come
We still talk about Lord North today.
And Neville Chamberlain.
Jeremy Irons is playing Neville Chamberlain in new Netflix drama, Munich - The Edge of War, out in January
Who was the better man: Chamberlain or your boy Franco
Chamberlain did do some good social reforms and bought time for rearmament, Franco at least kept the Communists out
By the power conferred on me by Godwin, I must tell you so did AH, until 1945 anyway.
If the data/studies continue to show that Omicron has a really high infection rate (estimates of up to 5 times that of Delta) and can break through immunity both naturally occurred through exposure and to a slightly lesser degree vaccine acquired immunity then we could be in some major trouble this winter.
I could easily see a scenario of us having to implement more stringent measures to try and buy us time until a vaccine is tweaked to combat the variant.
I don't think you can rule out another lockdown...
Hands up who is more scared of another lockdown than the virus itself?
I\m old enough to remember when (about 5 days ago) you were calling me a panty-wetting hysteric for freaking out about Nu (this is so long ago it was still called Nu!) and I insisted that this fucker gave me bad vibes. You then said “it’s just another scare story from South Africa, wake me up when it’s causing hospital admissions”
Oh.
I change my mind when the facts change. What do you do?
I damn well hope I've got some protection after this Moderna booster. It doesn't muck around !
I had moderna each time and knocked me for six. The original dose in the trial was even higher for some!
Can you get it in Australia? It would be handy to have something that knocks for six.
I had my first Pfizer this afternoon, to add to my AZ x 2. So far just my arm is a bit sore.
Got my Moderna booster this afternoon. Seriously impressive technique from the guy with the needle, in and out bid the ark almost before I’d finished rolling up my sleeve. I asked and he said he’d stopped counting after the first couple of thousand he’d done. So far virtually no side effects.
Have we discussed the weird Scotsman poll? Sudden bounce for independence, now 55-45. Personal ratings Sturgeon +20, Sarwar +17 (also a bounce upwards), Ross -27, Johnson -64 (the lowest rating ever recorded by Ipsos-Mori) SNP 52 (+2), Con 19 (-1), Lab 17(-5!) constituency, 43/20/15 and Greens 12 regional. So a typical Scot is an Indy-loving, Sarwar-loving, Labour-hating voter.
Apparently.
Several times. Most recently when HYUFD insisted on counting the NDs against indy. But don't forget Mr Ross was caught not, erm,. bothering to declare his earnings from (a) his second apparently full time job as a representative in another parliament, AND his third job as a footie referee.
Edit: but that SLAB discrepancy is odd.
Scots look at Anas Sarwar and think he’s not too bad (compared to his predecessors). Then they look at their local Labour councillors and think “I’m not voting for that bunch of incompetent troughers”.
Might be other reasons for the latter, too, such as being second rate Tory Unionists (as in Aberdeen). But it's not as if, say, Mesdames/Messrs Murphy, Dugdale, Leonard etc. had the gravitas of, say, John Smith or Donald Dewar - or Wendy Alexander.
In retrospect, the much maligned Wendy was a giant compared to Lamont, Leonard, Murphy etc. She hugely pissed off her demented boss Gordon Brown, which cost her her job. But history has proven her right. And him stark raving.
Wendy was so much better than her more famous, but smug and slimy, brother.
I\m old enough to remember when (about 5 days ago) you were calling me a panty-wetting hysteric for freaking out about Nu (this is so long ago it was still called Nu!) and I insisted that this fucker gave me bad vibes. You then said “it’s just another scare story from South Africa, wake me up when it’s causing hospital admissions”
Oh.
I change my mind when the facts change. What do you do?
Thanks for the kind remarks. I’m not dying (I hope) but it isn’t pleasant. The main symptoms are intense fatigue, chest pain and a dry, scratchy cough - plus general aches etc. I have slept 32 of the last 36 hours. Mad. These are the signs of Omicron as reported from SA. My senses of smell and taste are fine
I’ve ordered a PCR which should arrive tomorrow so then I’ll know. It’s certainly something best avoided - whatever it is
Dude, that's just getting old.
Hah
This description of Omicron does sound exactly like my lurgy
Perhaps it goes without saying but stay off the sauce Leon! Even if you’ve felt better for a week give a it a few days after that, is the advice from all the pissheads I know who caught covid
Go to bed with our blessings and get the rest you need Leon.
Has he gone now?
pssst Ace. Is it too late to have Leon in the Deadpool?
Sarah Phelps @PhelpsieSarah I was a bit of a dick about doing the speed awareness course but I haven’t stopped thinking about it. Shocked by how much I drive like a stressy careless twat. Thinking about doing an advanced course or something like that so I’m not a car-twat. https://twitter.com/PhelpsieSarah/status/1466324421027770371
I did one earlier this year after being done for 27 mph in a 20 mph zone. Some interesting points, but I'm still bitter about the location.
In some ways driving is to easy - so people find they can all too easily drift off in their attention.
I drove through Hampton recently and I was so lucky that I was behind a local who knew it was a 20 limit. There are cameras both ways and they catch loads of people. Curiously, Google Street View is messed up just at bit where the cameras are:
For me, the issue is that driving is routine. We do it without incident for the vast majority of time.
Those 20 limits are an utter disgrace, in my opinion.
As per previous thread I hired a Ford Puma the other day which knew, and limited itself to, the speed limit. This was in Scotland where all towns seem to be 20 mph. Must have saved me several tickets.
That’s one of the reasons I love our Volvos. Their smart safety system must have saved me a fortune over the years. The cars have rock-solid info on all speed limit zones, and warn you if you’re going too fast when changing to a new zone.
Waze is almost as good, but maybe less user-friendly than an in-built system.
Our other car has no such system and I often find myself driving far too fast.
The mismatching cars can be a killer. I did £1500 damage to a land rover a few years ago because I expected it to have reversing sensors and it didn't. Thinking you have ABS when you haven't can also be problematic.
Snap.
Our Mini was the first of our cars in about ten years not to have reversing sensors. Various family members have now smashed the rear bumper on three occasions, so I can’t be bothered repairing the latest incident. It’s going in March anyway.
Weird, I've never had a car with reversing sensors.
I’m a huge fan.
Other outstanding newer safety features: Adaptive cruise control Automatic braking Lane change warners Smart headlights
I’m also a full convert to automatic and AWD. Although when on holiday I love to hire a crapmobile with a dodgy manual gearbox and no A/C. Just wind down the windows and pump up the radio
Smart headlights are a terrible invention which should be utterly banned. They may be great for the driver of the vehicle to which they are fitted, but I'm totally fed up of being dazzled by the stupid things, as they aren't very good at working out what they are looking at until its far to late (I generally dip before the guy going the other way comes round the corner, rather than 5 seconds after like most smart headlights - it's a skill called anticipation at which which car computer systems remain very poor).
On the jumping from vehicle to vehicle thing, we have three forklifts at work:
One has hydrostatic transmission, which means single pedal operation - you let go of the throttle and the transmission brings it to a halt. The other two have torque converter transmissions which roll when you come off the throttle - one has a RH throttle and brake set up (like an auto car), the other has the older configuration of a LH brake RH throttle.
By the time you've mastered regularly driving all three and had a few panics going for a brake pedal which isn't there, you can drive pretty much anything...
Thanks for the kind remarks. I’m not dying (I hope) but it isn’t pleasant. The main symptoms are intense fatigue, chest pain and a dry, scratchy cough - plus general aches etc. I have slept 32 of the last 36 hours. Mad. These are the signs of Omicron as reported from SA. My senses of smell and taste are fine
I’ve ordered a PCR which should arrive tomorrow so then I’ll know. It’s certainly something best avoided - whatever it is
Didn't you have covid in the very very early stages of the covid crisis. Like so before the beginnings that you went to PHE and they said maybe and the tests were shit and was not positive or something?
Glad the killers of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes have been found guilty.
For all those who expend their energy worrying about the theoretical harm being done to trans kids, we’ll, there are some very real cases of extreme child abuse like Arthur’s that should worry us more.
Just my 2p.
Btw - serious fuckup by Solihull council social workers.
The odd point that I saw was he grandmother had photos but the social workers told her they didn’t want to see them
The social workers saw the photos and did a visit just 26 hours later - and then said they couldn't see any bruises on Arthur. They had a medical expert testify that it was impossible for the bruises to have cleared up that quickly.
This is a bit strange and something that the Independent investigation into social services that will now happen will doubtless look into.
Lessons Will Be learned.
Some junior people will get the boot.
Some senior people will have to be let go, provided that higher paying, more responsible jobs can be found for them. Some assistance will be required to help them carry their golden goodbye settlements.....
Cases like this do make you wonder why they keep on getting it so wrong, but then we only ever hear about the cases that go wrong enough to make the news. Maybe there are lots of kids saved from horrifying cruelty every day that obviously never get reported?
And most of the cases that do make the news, are the other way around.
Private Eye also has a long-running series of articles, about family courts taking kids away from their parents for adoption. They never make the news because it’s illegal to report on family courts in a way that might identify children, even if the story is that the parents feel their kids have been ‘stolen’ from them.
Comments
*Quite a number boosted that they were untouchable since records had been destroyed.
Con 42
Lab 31
RefUK 16
Oth 6
LD 5
Sharon Graham is fast becoming the leader of the Labour Movement, not Keir Starmer. This is the leader we’re looking for and so desperately need.
NEW THREAD
As a witness of Sean’s postings for the best part of a decade, I think he ought to be more concerned about liver disease and STDs than Covid.
Seriously impressive technique from the guy with the needle, in and out bid the ark almost before I’d finished rolling up my sleeve. I asked and he said he’d stopped counting after the first couple of thousand he’d done.
So far virtually no side effects.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery to @Leon .
pssst Ace. Is it too late to have Leon in the Deadpool?
On the jumping from vehicle to vehicle thing, we have three forklifts at work:
One has hydrostatic transmission, which means single pedal operation - you let go of the throttle and the transmission brings it to a halt.
The other two have torque converter transmissions which roll when you come off the throttle - one has a RH throttle and brake set up (like an auto car), the other has the older configuration of a LH brake RH throttle.
By the time you've mastered regularly driving all three and had a few panics going for a brake pedal which isn't there, you can drive pretty much anything...
Private Eye also has a long-running series of articles, about family courts taking kids away from their parents for adoption. They never make the news because it’s illegal to report on family courts in a way that might identify children, even if the story is that the parents feel their kids have been ‘stolen’ from them.