The Walsall child sex abuse case is grotesque. It sounds like abuse within families over multiple generations. Like something from darkest Appalachia
It shows the crassness of trying to link rape cases to ethnicity as Sunak and Braverman did yesterday backed up today by a really vile article by Alison Pearson in the Telegraph
Doesn't it show the precise opposite? In a country which is 85% white you'd expect most criminals to also be white.
No one is trying to pretend that all grooming gangs are of Pakistani origin. That would be ridiculous. What they are saying is that they are grossly disproportionate to their share of the population. Which they very clearly are. Particularly in certain towns where there has clearly been a deeply poisonous culture which somehow made this ok.
Suella Braverman does pretend precisely this and she's the Home Secretary.
In terms of sexual crimes against children generally, Asian perpetrators seem to be roughly in proportion to their population. There could be a particular propensity to grooming but the data isn't very good.
I don't accept your assertion (other than the Home Secretary being a moron and completely unfit for her job, of course). I remember doing an analysis a year or two ago with one of the towns in northern England and something like 20% of the men in the town who identified as being of Pakistani origin in the census had been convicted. It was astounding. It is simply not true to say that it is "roughly in proportion" although it may be patchy.
It also suggested to me that this was a cultural thing. These men regard these girls as white trash. Where that mindset is predominant many can get swept along into things that they would never have conceived of and many more turn their heads and pretend not to see. We need to address this. And of course the non Asian gangs such as were convicted today.
Exactly, it's not either or. People act like recognising there has been a disproportion in some areas means there won't be focus on others. I should think we all agree that would be absurd.
Agreed. Among many aspects of these cases, one which particularly rankles with many is not specifically the ethnicity of the perpetrators - but that the abuse was explicitly overlooked BECAUSE OF the ethnicity of the perpetrators, in order to not be racist.
But that is the responsibility of LABOUR Council, Councillors and social service departments alongside the police, and yes so as not to be seen as prejudiced. Braverman is welcome to repeat this easy partisan win reality. What I object to is that she views the story as an opportunity to beat up on a group that she clearly and shamelessly views as an easy target to trigger racists and bigots to support her.
Just written a cheque for the milkman. Proof that both cheques and milkmen are still around in some parts.
We have a milkman. Two things are interesting about this: - our milk order is 1 pint on Tuesdays, 2 pints on Thursdays and 2 pints on Fridays. In what world is this a sane way of milk arriving? It used to be 2, 2 and 2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, but has evolved over time to the present unsatisfactory arrangement. Clearly it needs changing, but never gets to the top of my list. Presumably changing it would actually be easier than lamenting it to my imaginary friends on the internet, and yet...
- the milkman comes at about half past midnight. Again, madness. The arrival of milk in the summer dawn is a trope I will not let go. "When it's too late for drunks, and too early for milkmen..." Round here the milkman has been and gone before the drunks go shambling past.
I worry that some of the investigations and prosecutions may be being held back for fear of reprisals against Pakistanis, Muslims, brown people, Asians and anyone else by idiot racists
There seem to be similar stories coming from Blackburn, Burnley and Birmingham. And that's just the B's
Any context for this? The town looks British, but the sky does not.
My house is over on the left hand side. Finally we have clear skies after a month of cloud and rain,
Whereabouts is the pic of?
If it is South Island - it has to be Shanklin I think given the hills behind, which don't fit the northern coastal towns to my memory, and West Wight settlements are too small. Sandown is another possible but it's more of a town with a cliff to the seaward side?
Friend of mine looked into buying a house there but took no further interest when he checked the geological map. A few years later it slid downhill.
The Walsall child sex abuse case is grotesque. It sounds like abuse within families over multiple generations. Like something from darkest Appalachia
It shows the crassness of trying to link rape cases to ethnicity as Sunak and Braverman did yesterday backed up today by a really vile article by Alison Pearson in the Telegraph
Doesn't it show the precise opposite? In a country which is 85% white you'd expect most criminals to also be white.
No one is trying to pretend that all grooming gangs are of Pakistani origin. That would be ridiculous. What they are saying is that they are grossly disproportionate to their share of the population. Which they very clearly are. Particularly in certain towns where there has clearly been a deeply poisonous culture which somehow made this ok.
Suella Braverman does pretend precisely this and she's the Home Secretary.
In terms of sexual crimes against children generally, Asian perpetrators seem to be roughly in proportion to their population. There could be a particular propensity to grooming but the data isn't very good.
I don't accept your assertion (other than the Home Secretary being a moron and completely unfit for her job, of course). I remember doing an analysis a year or two ago with one of the towns in northern England and something like 20% of the men in the town who identified as being of Pakistani origin in the census had been convicted. It was astounding. It is simply not true to say that it is "roughly in proportion" although it may be patchy.
It also suggested to me that this was a cultural thing. These men regard these girls as white trash. Where that mindset is predominant many can get swept along into things that they would never have conceived of and many more turn their heads and pretend not to see. We need to address this. And of course the non Asian gangs such as were convicted today.
We contacted the CPS who provided us with the information they publish on defendants in child sex abuse cases. 98% of defendants were male in 2015/16, but no information about the ethnicity of the defendants was published. We then submitted a freedom of information request to the CPS asking for information on the ethnicity of defendants prosecuted in child sex abuse cases.
It provided us with data on the number of defendants prosecuted for sex offences in cases flagged as relating to child abuse in 2015/16. It also included the ethnicity of those defendants.
Of the 6,200 or so defendants in these prosecutions, 67% were white, 4% were Asian, 3% were black, 1% were mixed race and 1% were other. For 24% of defendant’s there was no information on their ethnicity. Of all these prosecutions, around three quarters resulted in a conviction.
It then explained the data has errors, and it is also a bit old but at least it's collected in a systematic way unlike data for grooming, which is extremely partial.
This is a website dedicated to political polling and betting
It is entirely about statistics and probability
Yet when presented with starkly stacked statistics showing a particular problem with one minority ethnic section of our country grooming and gang raping children WAY above the national average, half the group have to say "white people do it too, so shut up"
Do they know nothing about statistics, or feign ignorance to be woke?
The Walsall child sex abuse case is grotesque. It sounds like abuse within families over multiple generations. Like something from darkest Appalachia
It shows the crassness of trying to link rape cases to ethnicity as Sunak and Braverman did yesterday backed up today by a really vile article by Alison Pearson in the Telegraph
Doesn't it show the precise opposite? In a country which is 85% white you'd expect most criminals to also be white.
No one is trying to pretend that all grooming gangs are of Pakistani origin. That would be ridiculous. What they are saying is that they are grossly disproportionate to their share of the population. Which they very clearly are. Particularly in certain towns where there has clearly been a deeply poisonous culture which somehow made this ok.
Suella Braverman does pretend precisely this and she's the Home Secretary.
In terms of sexual crimes against children generally, Asian perpetrators seem to be roughly in proportion to their population. There could be a particular propensity to grooming but the data isn't very good.
I don't accept your assertion (other than the Home Secretary being a moron and completely unfit for her job, of course). I remember doing an analysis a year or two ago with one of the towns in northern England and something like 20% of the men in the town who identified as being of Pakistani origin in the census had been convicted. It was astounding. It is simply not true to say that it is "roughly in proportion" although it may be patchy.
It also suggested to me that this was a cultural thing. These men regard these girls as white trash. Where that mindset is predominant many can get swept along into things that they would never have conceived of and many more turn their heads and pretend not to see. We need to address this. And of course the non Asian gangs such as were convicted today.
We contacted the CPS who provided us with the information they publish on defendants in child sex abuse cases. 98% of defendants were male in 2015/16, but no information about the ethnicity of the defendants was published. We then submitted a freedom of information request to the CPS asking for information on the ethnicity of defendants prosecuted in child sex abuse cases.
It provided us with data on the number of defendants prosecuted for sex offences in cases flagged as relating to child abuse in 2015/16. It also included the ethnicity of those defendants.
Of the 6,200 or so defendants in these prosecutions, 67% were white, 4% were Asian, 3% were black, 1% were mixed race and 1% were other. For 24% of defendant’s there was no information on their ethnicity. Of all these prosecutions, around three quarters resulted in a conviction.
It then explained the data has errors, and it is also a bit old but at least it's collected in a systematic way unlike data for grooming, which is extremely partial.
Pretty poor show that a well-known outlet like full fact is using a greengrocer's apostrophe.
Also, it's not really very helpful in describing the grooming scandal, given that the whole point of the grooming scandal was that the police were not arresting, let alone prosecuting, attackers from the communities we're discussing.
In all these exposes where they approached a number of MPs, I think it's a pity that they don't list the ones who told them to sod off. By only mentioning the ones who bent or broke the rules, they encourage the impression that "they're all at it".
I have often wondered how I would fare if accused of some crime or other; I would be seriously useless in the witness box under cross-examination. My memory of day-to-day events, of people, of conversations, is utterly woeful.
Indeed, the only reason I can be sure I have not been in such a situation is that I am not in prison.
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
You’re a Manchester-ish, aren’t you? Dunno how far you are from Broughton or maybe Prestwich/Whitefields, but Jewish supermarkets/grocers should have you covered. There’s Statefayre in Hale and Lulu’s in Cheadle too, but I can’t say for certain if they do rollmop (also you’ll pay for it there). Obvs keep an eye on the opening hours given it’s Pesach now (chag sameach to them what celebrate).
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
The Waitrose and Sainsbury herring pieces (from Denmark IIRC) are pretty good in my opinion - I don't personally like rollmops as much as they are fiddly to cut up.
I have often wondered how I would fare if accused of some crime or other; I would be seriously useless in the witness box under cross-examination. My memory of day-to-day events, of people, of conversations, is utterly woeful.
Indeed, the only reason I can be sure I have not been in such a situation is that I am not in prison.
I dread ever being asked ‘where were you on the night of [x]?’, as I’ll have no bloody clue whatsoever. Could be last night and I’d struggle to remember.
This is a website dedicated to political polling and betting
It is entirely about statistics and probability
Yet when presented with starkly stacked statistics showing a particular problem with one minority ethnic section of our country grooming and gang raping children WAY above the national average, half the group have to say "white people do it too, so shut up"
Do they know nothing about statistics, or feign ignorance to be woke?
1. This site is not 'entirely about statistics and probability' - politics is so much more than that.
2. Given there seem to be competing statistics offered up (as ever - lies, damn lies, etc.) I think there's merit to both sides of the argument.
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
The Waitrose and Sainsbury herring pieces (from Denmark IIRC) are pretty good in my opinion - I don't personally like rollmops as much as they are fiddly to cut up.
You cut them up? Pluck a whole one out and all in..
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
The Waitrose and Sainsbury herring pieces (from Denmark IIRC) are pretty good in my opinion - I don't personally like rollmops as much as they are fiddly to cut up.
The obvious answer is... anywhere on the Baltic coast.
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
The Waitrose and Sainsbury herring pieces (from Denmark IIRC) are pretty good in my opinion - I don't personally like rollmops as much as they are fiddly to cut up.
While my animal eating days are long behind me, one of the very few animal foods I genuinely miss the taste of is (this sounds odd) small white fish, from whitebait through sardines up to herring. Not so much that I’d ever relapse, but odd that I’m not bothered to miss steak, sausage, black pudding, cheese, bacon or whatever (actually blue cheese a bit tbf).
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
You’re a Manchester-ish, aren’t you? Dunno how far you are from Broughton or maybe Prestwich/Whitefields, but Jewish supermarkets/grocers should have you covered. There’s Statefayre in Hale and Lulu’s in Cheadle too, but I can’t say for certain if they do rollmop (also you’ll pay for it there). Obvs keep an eye on the opening hours given it’s Pesach now (chag sameach to them what celebrate).
Thanks - I didn't know they were a Jewish thing. I'm in the Broughton area roughly twice a week with 90 minutes to myself (taking daughters climbing) - I shall take a look next time I'm up there.
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
The Waitrose and Sainsbury herring pieces (from Denmark IIRC) are pretty good in my opinion - I don't personally like rollmops as much as they are fiddly to cut up.
The obvious answer is... anywhere on the Baltic coast.
Actually the Lidl pickled Herring in sour cream is pretty good
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
The Waitrose and Sainsbury herring pieces (from Denmark IIRC) are pretty good in my opinion - I don't personally like rollmops as much as they are fiddly to cut up.
The obvious answer is... anywhere on the Baltic coast.
Actually the Lidl pickled Herring in sour cream is pretty good
Or go to Berlin and eat Bismarck Herring Hausfraue Art
I have often wondered how I would fare if accused of some crime or other; I would be seriously useless in the witness box under cross-examination. My memory of day-to-day events, of people, of conversations, is utterly woeful.
Indeed, the only reason I can be sure I have not been in such a situation is that I am not in prison.
I dread ever being asked ‘where were you on the night of [x]?’, as I’ll have no bloody clue whatsoever. Could be last night and I’d struggle to remember.
I'm kind of the opposite. My best friend has a similar memory to yours and he gets slightly annoyed with me when I reference a conversation we had in maybe June 13th 1987 about a Greek philosopher that I remember clear as day.
But I also envy him - I'd love to forget more stuff.
I had it for lunch. The Elsinore one with red onions. Very nice, but sadly the end of the jar.
Any recommendations for easily available rollmops in the English suburbs?
I had my first ever rollmops at the Ceilidh Place, Ullapool, during the 1992 Olympics. They were superb. But the rollmops I've had since have been inconsistent. I'm sometimes tempted to buy supermarket rollmops and they're almost always almost unbearably sour. I'm still a fan in principle, but I'm disappointed far more often than not. If anyone is able to recommend any sources of good, sweet, not hopelessly acidic rollmops I'd be very interested.
You’re a Manchester-ish, aren’t you? Dunno how far you are from Broughton or maybe Prestwich/Whitefields, but Jewish supermarkets/grocers should have you covered. There’s Statefayre in Hale and Lulu’s in Cheadle too, but I can’t say for certain if they do rollmop (also you’ll pay for it there). Obvs keep an eye on the opening hours given it’s Pesach now (chag sameach to them what celebrate).
Thanks - I didn't know they were a Jewish thing. I'm in the Broughton area roughly twice a week with 90 minutes to myself (taking daughters climbing) - I shall take a look next time I'm up there.
Obviously not uniquely Jewish, but they were adopted into Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine along with a lot of other Baltic and mitteleuropan food. Jewish pickles do tend more to sweetness so hopefully you’ll find something to your taste.
In all these exposes where they approached a number of MPs, I think it's a pity that they don't list the ones who told them to sod off. By only mentioning the ones who bent or broke the rules, they encourage the impression that "they're all at it".
This is a website dedicated to political polling and betting
It is entirely about statistics and probability
Yet when presented with starkly stacked statistics showing a particular problem with one minority ethnic section of our country grooming and gang raping children WAY above the national average, half the group have to say "white people do it too, so shut up"
Do they know nothing about statistics, or feign ignorance to be woke?
1. This site is not 'entirely about statistics and probability' - politics is so much more than that.
2. Given there seem to be competing statistics offered up (as ever - lies, damn lies, etc.) I think there's merit to both sides of the argument.
1 Of course it's not! But its core ought to be; we deal with the numbers of polls and betting. Knowing how numbers work does help
2 The statistics depend on when race is mentioned. They don't release religion as a stat, that has to be worked back from the demographics of the area where the crimes have so far been recorded as committed
The Walsall child sex abuse case is grotesque. It sounds like abuse within families over multiple generations. Like something from darkest Appalachia
It shows the crassness of trying to link rape cases to ethnicity as Sunak and Braverman did yesterday backed up today by a really vile article by Alison Pearson in the Telegraph
Doesn't it show the precise opposite? In a country which is 85% white you'd expect most criminals to also be white.
No one is trying to pretend that all grooming gangs are of Pakistani origin. That would be ridiculous. What they are saying is that they are grossly disproportionate to their share of the population. Which they very clearly are. Particularly in certain towns where there has clearly been a deeply poisonous culture which somehow made this ok.
Suella Braverman does pretend precisely this and she's the Home Secretary.
In terms of sexual crimes against children generally, Asian perpetrators seem to be roughly in proportion to their population. There could be a particular propensity to grooming but the data isn't very good.
Something between 5-10% of all the Pakistani Muslim men in Rotherham, aged 18-65, have been charged with rape, abuse, torture etc in the recent trials and arrests. These are the ones police have enough evidence to prosecute
Does that not seem a striking statistic to you?
I think that stat is wrong
@CDP1882 18/ When it came to Pakistanis, rates of prosecution across England and Wales for this kind of abuse was 1 in 1,700.
In Rochdale, 1 in 280 Muslim males over 16 were prosecuted.
Those groups were also greatly over represented among taxi drivers and late night fast food operators - it’s possible, likely even, that opportunity plays as much of a role as any particular tendency (cultural or otherwise) in the likelihood if offending,
On that score, I note that somewhere between 5 and 10% of the teachers at my boarding school ended up in prison for similar offences against pupils.
I have often wondered how I would fare if accused of some crime or other; I would be seriously useless in the witness box under cross-examination. My memory of day-to-day events, of people, of conversations, is utterly woeful.
Indeed, the only reason I can be sure I have not been in such a situation is that I am not in prison.
I dread ever being asked ‘where were you on the night of [x]?’, as I’ll have no bloody clue whatsoever. Could be last night and I’d struggle to remember.
I'm kind of the opposite. My best friend has a similar memory to yours and he gets slightly annoyed with me when I reference a conversation we had in maybe June 13th 1987 about a Greek philosopher that I remember clear as day.
But I also envy him - I'd love to forget more stuff.
That reminds me of a lovely Borges short story: ‘Funes the Memorious’. Worth seeking out.
Any context for this? The town looks British, but the sky does not.
My house is over on the left hand side. Finally we have clear skies after a month of cloud and rain,
Whereabouts is the pic of?
If it is South Island - it has to be Shanklin I think given the hills behind, which don't fit the northern coastal towns to my memory, and West Wight settlements are too small. Sandown is another possible but it's more of a town with a cliff to the seaward side?
Friend of mine looked into buying a house there but took no further interest when he checked the geological map. A few years later it slid downhill.
Ah, IoW - yes, now you say it I remember Ian is from there. Never been, but would like to. Some friends of mine went camping there the summer before last. They daren't go again - the holiday was so perfect they won't risk the memory of it. Two weeks of blowsy sunny days, adventures with the kids, making friends, fish and chips watching the sunset, dolphins in the bay - it was as if it had been scripted by Enid Blyton.
In all these exposes where they approached a number of MPs, I think it's a pity that they don't list the ones who told them to sod off. By only mentioning the ones who bent or broke the rules, they encourage the impression that "they're all at it".
I agree.
Wasn’t Gavin Williamson revealed as the man of principle by the recent Led by Donkeys sting?
In all these exposes where they approached a number of MPs, I think it's a pity that they don't list the ones who told them to sod off. By only mentioning the ones who bent or broke the rules, they encourage the impression that "they're all at it".
I agree.
Wasn’t Gavin Williamson revealed as the man of principle by the recent Led by Donkeys sting?
MPs - Can you pass the Sir Gavin Williamson test of integrity and competency in rejecting obviously dodgy approaches?
Doesn't feel like it should be a super hard test. Problem is if even 1% fail it that is still 7 MPs at least.
In all these exposes where they approached a number of MPs, I think it's a pity that they don't list the ones who told them to sod off. By only mentioning the ones who bent or broke the rules, they encourage the impression that "they're all at it".
I agree.
Wasn’t Gavin Williamson revealed as the man of principle by the recent Led by Donkeys sting?
If by ‘man of principle’ you mean ‘displaying the absolute bare minimum standard of probity we should expect from politicians’, then yeah.
On the grooming thing, what boggles me is that as with so many other things people are trying to excuse absolutism. It is a fact that some of these gangs have been Pakistani heritage men preying on white girls. I is a fact that they got away with it as long as they did because the authorities didn't want to know because it sounds like a racial witch hunt.
Saying there have been Pakistani grooming gangs is not racism, it is stating fact.
What is racism is what the Indian heritage home secretary is doing by trying to associate ALL of these gangs with Pakistani heritage men. By ONLY wanting to associate Pakistani heritage men with these crimes. And yet today we have had another gang jailed - all white, many female. Why did they get away with it for so long? Because the authorities didn't want to know.
Back when Rochdale kids were being terrorised by Cyril Smith and not by Pakistani heritage men, the same authorities did the exact same thing - disbelieve the victims, ignore the evidence, sweep it under the carpet.
We need to resource up and empower the police and social services to actually give a shit, to investigate not ignore, regardless of what the excuse is. Race, poverty, class - does it matter why they chose not to act? We just want them to act. By trying to pin this all one Pakistani heritage men - and thus the blame on lefty woke PC types, we open the door to more Savilles and Smiths and this gang just jailed.
Part 1 Thanks @RochdalePioneers for getting to the nub of an uneasiness I've felt for a while in these discussions without being able to capture it.
You earn both the like and the requote.
The existence and, yes, prevalence of Asian grooming gangs should not allow us to lose focus or fall to see other types of abuse.
@Taz has attempted to slap down , with "think of v the victims" posts, two separate pointings out of (alleged) abuse today perpetrated by white people - the ring convictions in Birmingham and arrest for an alleged white grooming gang as such in Bolton. I raised the first as a fairly factual comment this morning. But there is no concern for victims in sweeping any MO by any set of people under the carpet.
One could add in that coercive, often abusive, formal prostitiuton rings could easily be prosecuted in these sorts of mass trials, pimps, not all of whom are Maltese, and punters alike, and it would mirror quite closely what the grooming gangs often look like -not so much a single coherent "ring" but loose networks of associations. Again that would bring in different people, different patterns of abuse.
And while I'm at it not only is there diversity the patterns and perpetrators, even between different Asian games (for example the Huddersfield gang a while back were all petty criminal with prior assault, burglary charges, operating out of snooker clubs , clear lowlifes very much on the murky edge of even their own local community - no pillars of the community thete)........
The Walsall child sex abuse case is grotesque. It sounds like abuse within families over multiple generations. Like something from darkest Appalachia
It shows the crassness of trying to link rape cases to ethnicity as Sunak and Braverman did yesterday backed up today by a really vile article by Alison Pearson in the Telegraph
Doesn't it show the precise opposite? In a country which is 85% white you'd expect most criminals to also be white.
No one is trying to pretend that all grooming gangs are of Pakistani origin. That would be ridiculous. What they are saying is that they are grossly disproportionate to their share of the population. Which they very clearly are. Particularly in certain towns where there has clearly been a deeply poisonous culture which somehow made this ok.
Suella Braverman does pretend precisely this and she's the Home Secretary.
In terms of sexual crimes against children generally, Asian perpetrators seem to be roughly in proportion to their population. There could be a particular propensity to grooming but the data isn't very good.
Something between 5-10% of all the Pakistani Muslim men in Rotherham, aged 18-65, have been charged with rape, abuse, torture etc in the recent trials and arrests. These are the ones police have enough evidence to prosecute
Does that not seem a striking statistic to you?
I think that stat is wrong
@CDP1882 18/ When it came to Pakistanis, rates of prosecution across England and Wales for this kind of abuse was 1 in 1,700.
In Rochdale, 1 in 280 Muslim males over 16 were prosecuted.
Those groups were also greatly over represented among taxi drivers and late night fast food operators - it’s possible, likely even, that opportunity plays as much of a role as any particular tendency (cultural or otherwise) in the likelihood if offending,
On that score, I note that somewhere between 5 and 10% of the teachers at my boarding school ended up in prison for similar offences against pupils.
I think child and teen sex abuse is actually quite common. A bit like rapists, most get away with it. Even when reported few cases make it to court, either because the witnesses don't want to testify, or would be unreliable under cross examination.
And further, not only is it absolutely not a prerequisite for the local police and authority to fail for bad things to start happening, but the modes of failure that do not take the opportunities to stop this, whilst having common threads of ignoring the signs are varied.. The supposed pattern of "Labour councils actively ignoring Asian grooming gangs because PC" is a not entirely wrong accusation, but to think wokeness is the one central thread in failures going back decades, as opposed to the many other ways to fall....
I wonder how many not very bright Conservative council leaders are led to half think that it couldn't happen on their patch because their anti-wokenesd is like a shield of steel. Ask Telford - another one I pointed out, which switched between Conservative to Labour and back over the period of a report into abuse ring failings, with many severe criticisms singling out period of Conservative incumbency. Again, naturally, politicisation was shouted but, it's IMPORTANT to mote.
Councils that fail on these things do not fit one profile, they are not always uniformly terrible in all respects and at all times, though the worst failings will tend towards the councils doing things the worst. But councils of all colours, and doing many things right can fail. There can be no "it couldn't happen here", even where everything is being done right.
Sometimes @Cyclefree seems to give off that impression that everyone you sometimes see that other than her is incompetent in her deriding failing organisations. To me, I'd love to hear about the organisations that did many or most things well, who were diligent and broadly succeeded, but yet still had the odd blind spot and suffered big reputational damage as a result. Therein, to me, hangs a much more compelling and instructive tale than the standard "everything and everyone was shit" schtick.
I have often wondered how I would fare if accused of some crime or other; I would be seriously useless in the witness box under cross-examination. My memory of day-to-day events, of people, of conversations, is utterly woeful.
Indeed, the only reason I can be sure I have not been in such a situation is that I am not in prison.
I dread ever being asked ‘where were you on the night of [x]?’, as I’ll have no bloody clue whatsoever. Could be last night and I’d struggle to remember.
I'm kind of the opposite. My best friend has a similar memory to yours and he gets slightly annoyed with me when I reference a conversation we had in maybe June 13th 1987 about a Greek philosopher that I remember clear as day.
There are movies I've not see in 20 years I can still quote lines from, yet recounting in detail yesterday's events would miss a lot. Doesn't really make sense as a system, which I think we all know is poorly designed.
And further, not only is it absolutely not a prerequisite for the local police and authority to fail for bad things to start happening, but the modes of failure that do not take the opportunities to stop this, whilst having common threads of ignoring the signs are varied.. The supposed pattern of "Labour councils actively ignoring Asian grooming gangs because PC" is a not entirely wrong accusation, but to think wokeness is the one central thread in failures going back decades, as opposed to the many other ways to fall....
I wonder how many not very bright Conservative council leaders are led to half thing that it couldn't happen on their patch because their anti-wokenesd is like a shield of steel. Ask Telford - another one I pointed out, which switched between Conservative to Labour and back over the period of a report into abuse ring failings, with many severe criticisms singling out period of Conservative incumbency. Again, naturally, politicisation was shouted but, it's IMPORTANT to mote.
Councils that fail on these things do not fit one profile, they are not always uniformly terrible in all respects and at all times, though the worst failings will tend towards the councils doing things the worst. But councils of all colours, and doing many things right can fail. There can be no "it couldn't happen here", even where everything is being done right.
Sometimes @Cyclefree seems to give off that impression that everyone you sometimes see that other than her is incompetent in her deriding failing organisations. To me, I'd love to hear about the organisations that did many or most things well, who were diligent and broadly succeeded, but yet still had the odd blind spot and suffered big reputational damage as a result. Therein, to me, hangs a much more compelling and instructive tale than the standard "everything and everyone was shit" schtick.
I would love to hear about an organisation that turned itself around from time to time. As it is it can be so downbeat it's like the more doomsaying climate activists, who make the case about how bad things are and how little is done so much that it just makes doing anything seem pointless as it is obviously too late.
We do need a bit of optimism, even over optimism, from time to time.
I have often wondered how I would fare if accused of some crime or other; I would be seriously useless in the witness box under cross-examination. My memory of day-to-day events, of people, of conversations, is utterly woeful.
Indeed, the only reason I can be sure I have not been in such a situation is that I am not in prison.
I dread ever being asked ‘where were you on the night of [x]?’, as I’ll have no bloody clue whatsoever. Could be last night and I’d struggle to remember.
I'm kind of the opposite. My best friend has a similar memory to yours and he gets slightly annoyed with me when I reference a conversation we had in maybe June 13th 1987 about a Greek philosopher that I remember clear as day.
There are movies I've not see in 20 years I can still quote lines from, yet recounting in detail yesterday's events would miss a lot. Doesn't really make sense as a system, which I think we all know is poorly designed.
It's also interesting how differently people recall the same thing. I once had a (platonic) holiday with someone who I'm still friends with. We compared notes recently and were astonished to find that we remembered quite different "highlights", and each of us had thought the other agreed - her best moments were meh to me, and vice versa.
The Walsall child sex abuse case is grotesque. It sounds like abuse within families over multiple generations. Like something from darkest Appalachia
It shows the crassness of trying to link rape cases to ethnicity as Sunak and Braverman did yesterday backed up today by a really vile article by Alison Pearson in the Telegraph
Doesn't it show the precise opposite? In a country which is 85% white you'd expect most criminals to also be white.
No one is trying to pretend that all grooming gangs are of Pakistani origin. That would be ridiculous. What they are saying is that they are grossly disproportionate to their share of the population. Which they very clearly are. Particularly in certain towns where there has clearly been a deeply poisonous culture which somehow made this ok.
Suella Braverman does pretend precisely this and she's the Home Secretary.
In terms of sexual crimes against children generally, Asian perpetrators seem to be roughly in proportion to their population. There could be a particular propensity to grooming but the data isn't very good.
Something between 5-10% of all the Pakistani Muslim men in Rotherham, aged 18-65, have been charged with rape, abuse, torture etc in the recent trials and arrests. These are the ones police have enough evidence to prosecute
Does that not seem a striking statistic to you?
I think that stat is wrong
@CDP1882 18/ When it came to Pakistanis, rates of prosecution across England and Wales for this kind of abuse was 1 in 1,700.
In Rochdale, 1 in 280 Muslim males over 16 were prosecuted.
Those groups were also greatly over represented among taxi drivers and late night fast food operators - it’s possible, likely even, that opportunity plays as much of a role as any particular tendency (cultural or otherwise) in the likelihood if offending,
On that score, I note that somewhere between 5 and 10% of the teachers at my boarding school ended up in prison for similar offences against pupils.
I think child and teen sex abuse is actually quite common. A bit like rapists, most get away with it. Even when reported few cases make it to court, either because the witnesses don't want to testify, or would be unreliable under cross examination.
When I lived in Bradford as a young man, the phenomenon of the white schoolgirl having an older Asian boyfriend with cash and a nice motor was a well-known phenomenon.
Equally however, at my school in Edlington in S Yorks, plenty of girls had older (20s) boyfriends, always white and often minor dealers or whatever. Wrong’uns abusing vulnerable children may take on different characteristics in different places - depending on the various ways our society enables it.
This is a website dedicated to political polling and betting
It is entirely about statistics and probability
Yet when presented with starkly stacked statistics showing a particular problem with one minority ethnic section of our country grooming and gang raping children WAY above the national average, half the group have to say "white people do it too, so shut up"
Do they know nothing about statistics, or feign ignorance to be woke?
Who is saying “shut up” ?
What people were objecting to was this from Braverman in the Mail: “…Second, the perpetrators are groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani, who hold cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values. They have been left mostly unchallenged both within their communities and by wider society, despite their activities being an open secret…”
That is to suggest the problem is confined to a small section of society. It is not. And the lack of action is as much to do with lack of resources as it is with anyone turning a blind eye (something which is common to all institutions).
Faint shades of Tim Smith (Benton did not do it), who was MP here in Ashfield for a couple of years from 1977, when he overturned a 22,915 Labour majority. Then did a run to Beaconsfield, followed later by a trail of brown envelopes.
More greens than I’d have expected, and fewer RefUK.
In my local experience the Greens have put in a lot of work over the last few elections, and drastically increased their number of candidates.
Hasn't helped them win seats (yet), but kudos for the effort and attempt to engage with representative democracy and not simply be a pressure group.
Reform, as far as I can see, seem much more driven by national matters, they know people will refer to them as a threat to the Tories and are ready for that attention, but maybe it makes persuading people to stand for the local county council in nowhereshire harder?
Those interested in green politics (as opposed to the watermelon economic side of things principally) will always have something local they can sink their teeth into.
The Tories do also seem genuinely intent on standing as widely as possible, even in no hope areas.
Any context for this? The town looks British, but the sky does not.
My house is over on the left hand side. Finally we have clear skies after a month of cloud and rain,
Whereabouts is the pic of?
If it is South Island - it has to be Shanklin I think given the hills behind, which don't fit the northern coastal towns to my memory, and West Wight settlements are too small. Sandown is another possible but it's more of a town with a cliff to the seaward side?
Friend of mine looked into buying a house there but took no further interest when he checked the geological map. A few years later it slid downhill.
Ah, IoW - yes, now you say it I remember Ian is from there. Never been, but would like to. Some friends of mine went camping there the summer before last. They daren't go again - the holiday was so perfect they won't risk the memory of it. Two weeks of blowsy sunny days, adventures with the kids, making friends, fish and chips watching the sunset, dolphins in the bay - it was as if it had been scripted by Enid Blyton.
I have often wondered how I would fare if accused of some crime or other; I would be seriously useless in the witness box under cross-examination. My memory of day-to-day events, of people, of conversations, is utterly woeful.
Indeed, the only reason I can be sure I have not been in such a situation is that I am not in prison.
I dread ever being asked ‘where were you on the night of [x]?’, as I’ll have no bloody clue whatsoever. Could be last night and I’d struggle to remember.
I'm kind of the opposite. My best friend has a similar memory to yours and he gets slightly annoyed with me when I reference a conversation we had in maybe June 13th 1987 about a Greek philosopher that I remember clear as day.
There are movies I've not see in 20 years I can still quote lines from, yet recounting in detail yesterday's events would miss a lot. Doesn't really make sense as a system, which I think we all know is poorly designed.
It's also interesting how differently people recall the same thing. I once had a (platonic) holiday with someone who I'm still friends with. We compared notes recently and were astonished to find that we remembered quite different "highlights", and each of us had thought the other agreed - her best moments were meh to me, and vice versa.
I recall something similar. Or at least I think I do.
And further, not only is it absolutely not a prerequisite for the local police and authority to fail for bad things to start happening, but the modes of failure that do not take the opportunities to stop this, whilst having common threads of ignoring the signs are varied.. The supposed pattern of "Labour councils actively ignoring Asian grooming gangs because PC" is a not entirely wrong accusation, but to think wokeness is the one central thread in failures going back decades, as opposed to the many other ways to fall....
Political correctness per se has very little to do with the overall problem, even if it was a significant element in those particular cases. The examples of the Irish Catholic church - where child abuse extended to multiple murders of infants - or a dozen English public schools, both of which types of institution were the complete opposite of woke, make that very obvious. It took decades for those stories to come out.
Any context for this? The town looks British, but the sky does not.
My house is over on the left hand side. Finally we have clear skies after a month of cloud and rain,
Whereabouts is the pic of?
To pick up on a long past post, of yours I don't know if you watch music videos much, but the way St. Catherine's Down (K?) stars on the Wet Dream video! Perfect. It's the same otherness of sky in daytime and part of a perfect (food related) colour palette that recalls There's No Other Way".
Back in day on a Wight holiday I swear the Wet Leg women waitressed our table once (well, Hester, did, Rhiann spent time looking bored by a French door). I remember that because they had a proper non-nursery nurse conversation with my more academic, then 4 year old daughter, that was one of the key "what have we got here" moments in her early development. Actually, I think I may have fancied Rhiann a bit, and in talking expansively to my daughter Hester performed an admirably well executed shot across the bows, which Rhiann then joined in.
More greens than I’d have expected, and fewer RefUK.
I mentioned earlier that RefUK will be very disappointed by the number of candidates they've managed to put forward. They won't be able to make the most of their 6% polling average.
Very off topic, but this story cheered me up, and might do the same for some of you: "Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and a bipartisan group of House lawmakers met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in a historic gathering where both sides reaffirmed their commitment to preserving freedom amid escalating tensions between the two democracies and China." source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/05/tsai-kevin-mccarthy-taiwan/
Any context for this? The town looks British, but the sky does not.
My house is over on the left hand side. Finally we have clear skies after a month of cloud and rain,
Whereabouts is the pic of?
If it is South Island - it has to be Shanklin I think given the hills behind, which don't fit the northern coastal towns to my memory, and West Wight settlements are too small. Sandown is another possible but it's more of a town with a cliff to the seaward side?
Friend of mine looked into buying a house there but took no further interest when he checked the geological map. A few years later it slid downhill.
Ah, IoW - yes, now you say it I remember Ian is from there. Never been, but would like to. Some friends of mine went camping there the summer before last. They daren't go again - the holiday was so perfect they won't risk the memory of it. Two weeks of blowsy sunny days, adventures with the kids, making friends, fish and chips watching the sunset, dolphins in the bay - it was as if it had been scripted by Enid Blyton.
Good calls.
I thought Sandown, but that has a pier.
It's Ventnor - had to look it up.
Should have got that. Ventnor, per anecdote, felt steeper than that!
How is it looking these days? 10 years ago it had a bit of roughness round the edges, even for Wight, that a similar looking place in Dorset simply wouldn't have had.
Kansas Republicans have successfully overridden the Governor veto to now authorize genital inspections of children in order for kids to play sports. A very dark & disturbing day. https://twitter.com/Davis_Hammet/status/1643696444719628289
The Economist on treatment of gender dysphoria among teens:
European medical systems have not concluded that it is always wrong for an adolescent to transition. They are not trying to erase distressed patients. They have simply determined that more research and data are needed before physical treatments for gender dysphoria can become routine. Further research could, conceivably, lead to guidelines similar to those already in use by American medical bodies. But that is another way of saying that it is impossible to justify the current recommendations about gender-affirming care based on the existing data.
Comments
Two things are interesting about this:
- our milk order is 1 pint on Tuesdays, 2 pints on Thursdays and 2 pints on Fridays. In what world is this a sane way of milk arriving? It used to be 2, 2 and 2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, but has evolved over time to the present unsatisfactory arrangement. Clearly it needs changing, but never gets to the top of my list. Presumably changing it would actually be easier than lamenting it to my imaginary friends on the internet, and yet...
- the milkman comes at about half past midnight. Again, madness. The arrival of milk in the summer dawn is a trope I will not let go. "When it's too late for drunks, and too early for milkmen..." Round here the milkman has been and gone before the drunks go shambling past.
There seem to be similar stories coming from Blackburn, Burnley and Birmingham. And that's just the B's
The town looks British, but the sky does not.
This sort of thing ought to be useful to you.
Friend of mine looked into buying a house there but took no further interest when he checked the geological map. A few years later it slid downhill.
https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/1643657252870422543
It is entirely about statistics and probability
Yet when presented with starkly stacked statistics showing a particular problem with one minority ethnic section of our country grooming and gang raping children WAY above the national average, half the group have to say "white people do it too, so shut up"
Do they know nothing about statistics, or feign ignorance to be woke?
Also, it's not really very helpful in describing the grooming scandal, given that the whole point of the grooming scandal was that the police were not arresting, let alone prosecuting, attackers from the communities we're discussing.
Indeed, the only reason I can be sure I have not been in such a situation is that I am not in prison.
2. Given there seem to be competing statistics offered up (as ever - lies, damn lies, etc.) I think there's merit to both sides of the argument.
But I also envy him - I'd love to forget more stuff.
2 The statistics depend on when race is mentioned. They don't release religion as a stat, that has to be worked back from the demographics of the area where the crimes have so far been recorded as committed
The denominator in Rotherham was relatively small - around 3000 of Pakistani heritage, and around 8000 who were Moslem:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal
Those groups were also greatly over represented among taxi drivers and late night fast food operators - it’s possible, likely even, that opportunity plays as much of a role as any particular tendency (cultural or otherwise) in the likelihood if offending,
On that score, I note that somewhere between 5 and 10% of the teachers at my boarding school ended up in prison for similar offences against pupils.
Sorry, Sir Gavin.
Doesn't feel like it should be a super hard test. Problem is if even 1% fail it that is still 7 MPs at least.
Thanks @RochdalePioneers for getting to the nub of an uneasiness I've felt for a while in these discussions without being able to capture it.
You earn both the like and the requote.
The existence and, yes, prevalence of Asian grooming gangs should not allow us to lose focus or fall to see other types of abuse.
@Taz has attempted to slap down , with "think of v the victims" posts, two separate pointings out of (alleged) abuse today perpetrated by white people - the ring convictions in Birmingham and arrest for an alleged white grooming gang as such in Bolton. I raised the first as a fairly factual comment this morning. But there is no concern for victims in sweeping any MO by any set of people under the carpet.
One could add in that coercive, often abusive, formal prostitiuton rings could easily be prosecuted in these sorts of mass trials, pimps, not all of whom are Maltese, and punters alike, and it would mirror quite closely what the grooming gangs often look like -not so much a single coherent "ring" but loose networks of associations. Again that would bring in different people, different patterns of abuse.
And while I'm at it not only is there diversity the patterns and perpetrators, even between different Asian games (for example the Huddersfield gang a while back were all petty criminal with prior assault, burglary charges, operating out of snooker clubs , clear lowlifes very much on the murky edge of even their own local community - no pillars of the community thete)........
And further, not only is it absolutely not a prerequisite for the local police and authority to fail for bad things to start happening, but the modes of failure that do not take the opportunities to stop this, whilst having common threads of ignoring the signs are varied.. The supposed pattern of "Labour councils actively ignoring Asian grooming gangs because PC" is a not entirely wrong accusation, but to think wokeness is the one central thread in failures going back decades, as opposed to the many other ways to fall....
I wonder how many not very bright Conservative council leaders are led to half think that it couldn't happen on their patch because their anti-wokenesd is like a shield of steel. Ask Telford - another one I pointed out, which switched between Conservative to Labour and back over the period of a report into abuse ring failings, with many severe criticisms singling out period of Conservative incumbency. Again, naturally, politicisation was shouted but, it's IMPORTANT to mote.
Councils that fail on these things do not fit one profile, they are not always uniformly terrible in all respects and at all times, though the worst failings will tend towards the councils doing things the worst. But councils of all colours, and doing many things right can fail. There can be no "it couldn't happen here", even where everything is being done right.
Sometimes @Cyclefree seems to give off that impression that everyone you sometimes see
that other than her is incompetent in her deriding failing organisations. To me, I'd love to hear about the organisations that did many or most things well, who were diligent and broadly succeeded, but yet still had the odd blind spot and suffered big reputational damage as a result. Therein, to me, hangs a much more compelling and instructive tale than the standard "everything and everyone was shit" schtick.
We do need a bit of optimism, even over optimism, from time to time.
I was very surprised the first time I tried a brand without sugar. Didn't care for it at all.
The curried ones are pretty decent.
Equally however, at my school in Edlington in S Yorks, plenty of girls had older (20s) boyfriends, always white and often minor dealers or whatever. Wrong’uns abusing vulnerable children may take on different characteristics in different places - depending on the various ways our society enables it.
What people were objecting to was this from Braverman in the Mail:
“…Second, the perpetrators are groups of men, almost all British-Pakistani, who hold cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values. They have been left mostly unchallenged both within their communities and by wider society, despite their activities being an open secret…”
That is to suggest the problem is confined to a small section of society. It is not.
And the lack of action is as much to do with lack of resources as it is with anyone turning a blind eye (something which is common to all institutions).
@ElectionMapsUK
🚨🗳️ || TOTAL NUMBER OF CANDIDATES #LE2023:
🌳 CON: 7,512 (93%)
🌹 LAB: 6,232 (77%)
🔶 LDM: 4,816 (60%)
🌍 GRN: 3,322 (41%)
👩 INDs: 1,870 (23%)
🏘️ LOCs: 827 (10%)
➡️ RFM: 471 (6%)
🧑🔧 TUSC: 254 (3%)
🏰 HER: 64 (1%)
💷 UKIP: 45 (1%)
🔓 FAL: 40 (0%)
🏵️ YOR: 38 (0%)
🔴 SDP: 36 (0%)"
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1643655792275406850
Faint shades of Tim Smith (Benton did not do it), who was MP here in Ashfield for a couple of years from 1977, when he overturned a 22,915 Labour majority. Then did a run to Beaconsfield, followed later by a trail of brown envelopes.
It’s the propensity to form false memories and be convinced they are correct - even very recent ones.
Hasn't helped them win seats (yet), but kudos for the effort and attempt to engage with representative democracy and not simply be a pressure group.
Reform, as far as I can see, seem much more driven by national matters, they know people will refer to them as a threat to the Tories and are ready for that attention, but maybe it makes persuading people to stand for the local county council in nowhereshire harder?
Those interested in green politics (as opposed to the watermelon economic side of things principally) will always have something local they can sink their teeth into.
The Tories do also seem genuinely intent on standing as widely as possible, even in no hope areas.
I thought Sandown, but that has a pier.
It's Ventnor - had to look it up.
The examples of the Irish Catholic church - where child abuse extended to multiple murders of infants - or a dozen English public schools, both of which types of institution were the complete opposite of woke, make that very obvious. It took decades for those stories to come out.
Back in day on a Wight holiday I swear the Wet Leg women waitressed our table once (well, Hester, did, Rhiann spent time looking bored by a French door). I remember that because they had a proper non-nursery nurse conversation with my more academic, then 4 year old daughter, that was one of the key "what have we got here" moments in her early development. Actually, I think I may have fancied Rhiann a bit, and in talking expansively to my daughter Hester performed an admirably well executed shot across the bows, which Rhiann then joined in.
"Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and a bipartisan group of House lawmakers met with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen on Wednesday in a historic gathering where both sides reaffirmed their commitment to preserving freedom amid escalating tensions between the two democracies and China."
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/04/05/tsai-kevin-mccarthy-taiwan/
How is it looking these days? 10 years ago it had a bit of roughness round the edges, even for Wight, that a similar looking place in Dorset simply wouldn't have had.
Remains of Linda Mary Beardy, 33, spotted by staff at Canadian garbage dump amid crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/05/indigenous-woman-body-winnipeg-landfill
Kansas Republicans have successfully overridden the Governor veto to now authorize genital inspections of children in order for kids to play sports. A very dark & disturbing day.
https://twitter.com/Davis_Hammet/status/1643696444719628289
European medical systems have not concluded that it is always wrong for an adolescent to transition. They are not trying to erase distressed patients. They have simply determined that more research and data are needed before physical treatments for gender dysphoria can become routine. Further research could, conceivably, lead to guidelines similar to those already in use by American medical bodies. But that is another way of saying that it is impossible to justify the current recommendations about gender-affirming care based on the existing data.
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/04/05/the-evidence-to-support-medicalised-gender-transitions-in-adolescents-is-worryingly-weak