Given he was able to fly from Paris to Dublin legally, so perhaps from Sudan to Paris legally, it will be interesting to know more about his background. Doesn't sound like a typical refugee or economic migrant posing as refugee.
He was granted refugee status quite quickly too,
The Belfast attacker flew from Paris to Dublin 10.02.2023 and travelled to Belfast where he claimed asylum, his LTR was granted 28.09.2023.
This was when Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick were Home Secretary and Immigration Minister respectively.
I am rooting for Rupert Lowe and the subsequent litigation against Jenrick and Braverman's dereliction of duty. Lowe's threat is a comedy silver lining from an otherwise brutal atrocity.
Did Lowe not threaten legal action against Farage before? What happened?
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
The two recent cases are being discussed because the first involved the police making a terrible mistake (and we don't yet fully understand why, although some believe its because they were trying to avoid accusations of not taking racism seriously) and the second was someone from the most trouble parts of Africa trying to behead someone in the street.
I'm broadly happy with this, with one caveat. My child has Type 1 diabetes, and uses their phone as part of the closed loop CGM and insulin pump. We also have a "follow" app that takes data pumped to the cloud from their phone. I need to speak to the school about how this will be catered for.
They will have to give an exemption, and have probably considered the case.
If they have not done so I would be surprised, since the rough numbers (AI) are 3300+ under 18s in Scotland with Type I Diabetes, and around 80% have such a system. As a comparator there are ~2500 schools in Scotland, of which 360 are state secondaries.
I would suggest that the best prep. will be a phone call to your Specialist Nurse at the hospital clinic. They will have other children locally in the same situation, and may even have one at the same school. They will not be able to talk names for privacy reasons, but should be able to discuss how it is managed routinely.
One potential option, which I use, is that I chose to have a separate control unit - which is a previous generation locked down phone with just the diabetes pump app. I use the Omnipod 5 disposable pump system - I get a box of them delivered every three months and put a replacement on every 3 days. The old ones are returned for recycling.
Tandem T:Slim & Dexcom here, the pump itself can be used to administer bolus but children being children, mine would rather not have to get the pump out when they can put the bolus through the phone app. and we would lose the data to keep a track of their glucose levels. Yes, as you say, I would be surprised if there is no exception made. I plan to speak to the school this week.
Hello from Belfast where the great unwashed of Loyalism have declared an evening of rioting and house clearance.
There are I'm sure quite a few with Republican communities who would like to do their own but the orthodoxy that Irish Republicans love the asylum seekers and welcome them with open arms is strong. Some very burly looking community workers keeping locals from gathering....
I will lay it out and I suspect plenty a UK city is the same. We have had a lot of inward migration last 10 years from outside EU/wider Europe and its easy to stratify into its main groups:
Indians: Often come as families, work in tech and health. Younger members of family often seen in retail. Well integrated and have set up small clusters West Africans: not clustered, seen all the time usually on way or going from the care homes and hospitals in which they work Filipinos: Brought specifically in for the NHS over recent years North East African. Somali, Sudanese. Disproportionately younger male, don't seem to be as much in the working population Middle East Arab: Some families but disproportionately younger males,
The last two groups are the asylum seekers, the former three economic and legal migrants.
I will give you one guess where the social interaction issues with the natives lie.
Our very own Kristalnacht, until rain stopped play.
Which sounds as if it disappoints you.
I will bet you supported all the concessions to the Men Of Violence and The Community Leaders for The Peace Process.
As I’ve pointed out before, this taught the Face Eating Leopards that threatening to eat faces, works.
The Community Leaders were carefully taught that representations to ministers would be ignored. A few death threats in the right place and *they* get called.
Tommy Lots Of Names formed the EDL to get the same thing. Look how he’s grown….
Feel proud - it should be a matter of celebration that education works.
The Peace Process has been very successful. What alternative approach are you suggesting should’ve been taken?
A peace process that is built on giving the gangsters whatever they want?
You can see the success on TV.
The decent politicians (such as the ones who got some Nobel Prizes for the actual peace) have been sidelined. It’s all about how close you can get to violence and pretend it’s not you. 71 people in one toilet….
It’s been very successful at creating an Acceptable Level Of Violence.
You need to understand that this success includes the riots you just saw.
The level of violence in Northern Ireland now is much, much, much lower than it was during the Troubles.
As I said, what alternative approach are you suggesting should’ve been taken? You’ve complained about the Process, but you’ve not suggested a different approach.
If all you want is to reduce the level of violence, just give the violent everything they want.
Now you are finding that the sacrifice required is people you care about.
Simple version - give the democratic politicians more. Give the Men Of Violence less.
Sure they’ll be upset. But is your response to the EDL violence just to give them what they want?
The immigrants will be out of the neighbourhoods in question within days. Once again, violence will have been given what it wants.
So there will be more violence.
No-one is suggesting giving the EDL what they want. The situation in Northern Ireland was very different to the EDL. Can you not see the differences???
There is much, much, much less violence in Northern Ireland since the Peace Process than before. Other approaches to the Troubles that didn’t involve talking to the men of violence had not produced a resolution.
It’s great that PB is somewhere that people can challenge the orthodoxy. If you’re going to challenge the orthodoxy, I suggest you come up with more than one half-arsed analogy.
The Peace Process became giving worse than the EDL whatever they wanted.
It is not “half arsed” to suggest that protecting the civic institutions at the expense of some terrorists getting explody is a worthwhile trade.
If you want peace at any price, then you want immigrants burnt out of their homes. Own it. Love it. You made it. You.
I can hear your outrage, but I can’t discern any coherent point here. The Peace Process did not cause the recent rioting in N Ireland. You repeatedly ignore the point that there was vastly more violence before the Peace Process than after. You appear unable to answer how you would’ve stopped that violence in some other way.
Also, the claim that the Peace Process gave the men of violence “whatever they wanted” is the most ridiculous claim on PB this week. The IRA wanted reunification with Ireland and the British out. They did not get this.
The men of violence wanted their rackets untouched. They are. They wanted immunity from prosecution, they have it. They wanted power, unchallenged, in their communities.
The PIRA didn’t get reunification - but that is a side quest to their becoming a replacement for civic government in a number of areas of NI. As have the Loyalists.
The violence stopped with a ceasefire that was brokered by democratic politicians.
This did not entail giving immunity for racketeering.
That came later with the pivot to resolving every single complain from the MoV by giving them what they wanted at the expense of democracy.
Is shutting down investigations into bank robberies required by the peace process? Is shutting down investigating large scale drug dealing part of the peace process?
The paramilitaries have much less power in their communities than they did at the height of the Troubles. I’m not saying things are perfect now, but they’re a helluva lot better. You do not appear to be reality based in your argument here.
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
Hello from Belfast where the great unwashed of Loyalism have declared an evening of rioting and house clearance.
There are I'm sure quite a few with Republican communities who would like to do their own but the orthodoxy that Irish Republicans love the asylum seekers and welcome them with open arms is strong. Some very burly looking community workers keeping locals from gathering....
I will lay it out and I suspect plenty a UK city is the same. We have had a lot of inward migration last 10 years from outside EU/wider Europe and its easy to stratify into its main groups:
Indians: Often come as families, work in tech and health. Younger members of family often seen in retail. Well integrated and have set up small clusters West Africans: not clustered, seen all the time usually on way or going from the care homes and hospitals in which they work Filipinos: Brought specifically in for the NHS over recent years North East African. Somali, Sudanese. Disproportionately younger male, don't seem to be as much in the working population Middle East Arab: Some families but disproportionately younger males,
The last two groups are the asylum seekers, the former three economic and legal migrants.
I will give you one guess where the social interaction issues with the natives lie.
Our very own Kristalnacht, until rain stopped play.
Which sounds as if it disappoints you.
I will bet you supported all the concessions to the Men Of Violence and The Community Leaders for The Peace Process.
As I’ve pointed out before, this taught the Face Eating Leopards that threatening to eat faces, works.
The Community Leaders were carefully taught that representations to ministers would be ignored. A few death threats in the right place and *they* get called.
Tommy Lots Of Names formed the EDL to get the same thing. Look how he’s grown….
Feel proud - it should be a matter of celebration that education works.
The Peace Process has been very successful. What alternative approach are you suggesting should’ve been taken?
A peace process that is built on giving the gangsters whatever they want?
You can see the success on TV.
The decent politicians (such as the ones who got some Nobel Prizes for the actual peace) have been sidelined. It’s all about how close you can get to violence and pretend it’s not you. 71 people in one toilet….
It’s been very successful at creating an Acceptable Level Of Violence.
You need to understand that this success includes the riots you just saw.
The level of violence in Northern Ireland now is much, much, much lower than it was during the Troubles.
As I said, what alternative approach are you suggesting should’ve been taken? You’ve complained about the Process, but you’ve not suggested a different approach.
If all you want is to reduce the level of violence, just give the violent everything they want.
Now you are finding that the sacrifice required is people you care about.
Simple version - give the democratic politicians more. Give the Men Of Violence less.
Sure they’ll be upset. But is your response to the EDL violence just to give them what they want?
The immigrants will be out of the neighbourhoods in question within days. Once again, violence will have been given what it wants.
So there will be more violence.
No-one is suggesting giving the EDL what they want. The situation in Northern Ireland was very different to the EDL. Can you not see the differences???
There is much, much, much less violence in Northern Ireland since the Peace Process than before. Other approaches to the Troubles that didn’t involve talking to the men of violence had not produced a resolution.
It’s great that PB is somewhere that people can challenge the orthodoxy. If you’re going to challenge the orthodoxy, I suggest you come up with more than one half-arsed analogy.
The Peace Process became giving worse than the EDL whatever they wanted.
It is not “half arsed” to suggest that protecting the civic institutions at the expense of some terrorists getting explody is a worthwhile trade.
If you want peace at any price, then you want immigrants burnt out of their homes. Own it. Love it. You made it. You.
I can hear your outrage, but I can’t discern any coherent point here. The Peace Process did not cause the recent rioting in N Ireland. You repeatedly ignore the point that there was vastly more violence before the Peace Process than after. You appear unable to answer how you would’ve stopped that violence in some other way.
Also, the claim that the Peace Process gave the men of violence “whatever they wanted” is the most ridiculous claim on PB this week. The IRA wanted reunification with Ireland and the British out. They did not get this.
The men of violence wanted their rackets untouched. They are. They wanted immunity from prosecution, they have it. They wanted power, unchallenged, in their communities.
The PIRA didn’t get reunification - but that is a side quest to their becoming a replacement for civic government in a number of areas of NI. As have the Loyalists.
The violence stopped with a ceasefire that was brokered by democratic politicians.
This did not entail giving immunity for racketeering.
That came later with the pivot to resolving every single complain from the MoV by giving them what they wanted at the expense of democracy.
Is shutting down investigations into bank robberies required by the peace process? Is shutting down investigating large scale drug dealing part of the peace process?
The paramilitaries have much less power in their communities than they did at the height of the Troubles. I’m not saying things are perfect now, but they’re a helluva lot better. You do not appear to be reality based in your argument here.
“The paramilitaries have much less power in their communities than they did at the height of the Troubles.”
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
2023 under Sunak: Fourteenth Doctor, three reasonable episodes, Tennant as Doctor. Not good, but OK. People watched it.
2024*1 under Starmer: Fifteenth Doctor, eighteen goodish episodes but four disastrous season enders (one of which was so bad it killed the series), Gatwa as Doctor, crying all the bloody time, drowning in its own continuity. You couldn't pay people to watch it.
This latter period was marked by the showrunner saying the show was doing really well whilst he made worse and worse decisions and it finally became apparent he didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
Sound familiar?
So yes, this is all Starmer's fault. Bad Starmer
*1 OK you have to stretch the chronology here, but this lines up reasonably well. Well, well-ish.
RTD was lying like a bastard about the script for the Xmas special. There never was one.
So not best pleased, no. The future could be good, and it really depends on who wins the franchise bid, but I'm thinking of the death of British Leyland: the owners lose faith, they farm it out to asset strippers, the business dies and we buy foreign cars now.
I don’t think the owners (the BBC) have lost faith. They want a successful Dr Who series and see Dr Who as a big asset.
So do I, but both I and the BBC have the same problem: we really don't know how to bring that about.
I wonder whether the answer is that Doctor Who itself isn’t the asset any more, but the wider universe around it.
The BBC has already dabbled with this before. Torchwood for adults, Sarah Jane Adventures for children, UNIT popping up all over the place. Long before Marvel, Doctor Who had a shared universe.
The risk is that the main show occupies an awkward middle ground. It’s a family-oriented hard-ish sci-fi adventure series, and there really isn’t much else in that lane. Modern TV tends to reward either prestige adult sci-fi (Silo, Foundation, Severance etc.) or family fantasy. Doctor Who sits somewhere in between.
If Amazon or Apple got hold of it, I suspect they’d be less interested in Doctor Who and more interested in a Doctor Who Universe. Multiple shows aimed at different audiences, with the Doctor as the flagship brand.
I give you, The DWCU
That’s what they tried with the Disney deal, producing “The War Between the Land and the Sea”. This doesn’t suggest the approach worked that well.
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
2023 under Sunak: Fourteenth Doctor, three reasonable episodes, Tennant as Doctor. Not good, but OK. People watched it.
2024*1 under Starmer: Fifteenth Doctor, eighteen goodish episodes but four disastrous season enders (one of which was so bad it killed the series), Gatwa as Doctor, crying all the bloody time, drowning in its own continuity. You couldn't pay people to watch it.
This latter period was marked by the showrunner saying the show was doing really well whilst he made worse and worse decisions and it finally became apparent he didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
Sound familiar?
So yes, this is all Starmer's fault. Bad Starmer
*1 OK you have to stretch the chronology here, but this lines up reasonably well. Well, well-ish.
RTD was lying like a bastard about the script for the Xmas special. There never was one.
So not best pleased, no. The future could be good, and it really depends on who wins the franchise bid, but I'm thinking of the death of British Leyland: the owners lose faith, they farm it out to asset strippers, the business dies and we buy foreign cars now.
I don’t think the owners (the BBC) have lost faith. They want a successful Dr Who series and see Dr Who as a big asset.
So do I, but both I and the BBC have the same problem: we really don't know how to bring that about.
I wonder whether the answer is that Doctor Who itself isn’t the asset any more, but the wider universe around it.
The BBC has already dabbled with this before. Torchwood for adults, Sarah Jane Adventures for children, UNIT popping up all over the place. Long before Marvel, Doctor Who had a shared universe.
The risk is that the main show occupies an awkward middle ground. It’s a family-oriented hard-ish sci-fi adventure series, and there really isn’t much else in that lane. Modern TV tends to reward either prestige adult sci-fi (Silo, Foundation, Severance etc.) or family fantasy. Doctor Who sits somewhere in between.
If Amazon or Apple got hold of it, I suspect they’d be less interested in Doctor Who and more interested in a Doctor Who Universe. Multiple shows aimed at different audiences, with the Doctor as the flagship brand.
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
2023 under Sunak: Fourteenth Doctor, three reasonable episodes, Tennant as Doctor. Not good, but OK. People watched it.
2024*1 under Starmer: Fifteenth Doctor, eighteen goodish episodes but four disastrous season enders (one of which was so bad it killed the series), Gatwa as Doctor, crying all the bloody time, drowning in its own continuity. You couldn't pay people to watch it.
This latter period was marked by the showrunner saying the show was doing really well whilst he made worse and worse decisions and it finally became apparent he didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
Sound familiar?
So yes, this is all Starmer's fault. Bad Starmer
*1 OK you have to stretch the chronology here, but this lines up reasonably well. Well, well-ish.
RTD was lying like a bastard about the script for the Xmas special. There never was one.
So not best pleased, no. The future could be good, and it really depends on who wins the franchise bid, but I'm thinking of the death of British Leyland: the owners lose faith, they farm it out to asset strippers, the business dies and we buy foreign cars now.
I don’t think the owners (the BBC) have lost faith. They want a successful Dr Who series and see Dr Who as a big asset.
So do I, but both I and the BBC have the same problem: we really don't know how to bring that about.
I wonder whether the answer is that Doctor Who itself isn’t the asset any more, but the wider universe around it.
The BBC has already dabbled with this before. Torchwood for adults, Sarah Jane Adventures for children, UNIT popping up all over the place. Long before Marvel, Doctor Who had a shared universe.
The risk is that the main show occupies an awkward middle ground. It’s a family-oriented hard-ish sci-fi adventure series, and there really isn’t much else in that lane. Modern TV tends to reward either prestige adult sci-fi (Silo, Foundation, Severance etc.) or family fantasy. Doctor Who sits somewhere in between.
If Amazon or Apple got hold of it, I suspect they’d be less interested in Doctor Who and more interested in a Doctor Who Universe. Multiple shows aimed at different audiences, with the Doctor as the flagship brand.
I give you, The DWCU
Maybe the programme should go back to being hide-behind-the-sofa terrifying. Sod all the namby-pamby social issues. Go with FEAR....
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
There is a difference though. You might have children living with you, one of them eats you out of house and home, breaks things, leaves a mess everywhere, doesn’t flush, doesn’t contribute with chores or financially but they are your child and you sort of have to accept it. Then someone invites themself to stay with you and behaves in the same way - you don’t have to accept it like with your child, you ask them/tell them to leave.
We can’t do anything about the shitbags who are British nationals who murder etc but understandably people will ask why we have to add extra shitbags if there is a way we can avoid it.
The European Commission is dropping their investigation as to whether Korea's KHNP won the competition to build new reactors in the Czech Republic due to unfair state (Korean) subsidies. Article link in reply.
Another bidder, France's EDF, claimed that it would be impossible to build reactors in Europe at the cost that KHNP bid, unless there were illegal state (Korean) aid.
In addition to a lower cost bid, KHNP offered the Czech's a guarantee that the construction would not be delayed or become more expensive.
The truth, that the French can't accept, is that the Koreans are just better at building nuclear plants, as their record shows. They likely benefitted from the experience they got from building four reactors in the UAE.. https://x.com/HopfJames/status/2064369846616522867
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
I'm broadly happy with this, with one caveat. My child has Type 1 diabetes, and uses their phone as part of the closed loop CGM and insulin pump. We also have a "follow" app that takes data pumped to the cloud from their phone. I need to speak to the school about how this will be catered for.
They will have to give an exemption, and have probably considered the case.
If they have not done so I would be surprised, since the rough numbers (AI) are 3300+ under 18s in Scotland with Type I Diabetes, and around 80% have such a system. As a comparator there are ~2500 schools in Scotland, of which 360 are state secondaries.
I would suggest that the best prep. will be a phone call to your Specialist Nurse at the hospital clinic. They will have other children locally in the same situation, and may even have one at the same school. They will not be able to talk names for privacy reasons, but should be able to discuss how it is managed routinely.
One potential option, which I use, is that I chose to have a separate control unit - which is a previous generation locked down phone with just the diabetes pump app. I use the Omnipod 5 disposable pump system - I get a box of them delivered every three months and put a replacement on every 3 days. The old ones are returned for recycling.
The situation has changed remarkably in quite a short period of time. At the time I was diagnosed in 2001, it was routine for schools to be unable to medicate (for various reasons), so often one partner would have to go into the school several times a day to inject their child with insulin and be unable to get a normal job.
Often they would opt to Home Educate for that reason.
An internet associate, called Jackie Jacombs, used to coordinate an advocacy group called Children with Diabetes, and they have done a huge amount to achieve that. Pumps are a godsend, especially closed-loop pumps. Most diabetes activists have either suddenly had someone in their circle diagnosed, or are some sort of professional concerned, such as a teacher or a nurse.
Here she is being interviewed in 2009: The survey found that 70% of primary schools with diabetic children require parents to come in and inject them with insulin if the children are too young to do so themselves. Only 16% of schools are willing to give medications and have a policy on drug administration. "This situation is outrageous," says Jackie Jacombs, chair of the UK Children With Diabetes advocacy group. "Not only can the caring parent often not work, but children are denied access to snacks, vital for their health, during lessons and kept out of class unnecessarily."
"Nick Timothy When equality law serves terrorists and murderers it’s clear that we need change Conservatives will abolish the public sector duty enabling extremists to bring costly claims from prison" (£)
The sites have links to other webcams in the parks, including ones that ocasionally show some of the denizens and, in decent weather, show some of the visitors. For example, if the weather forecasters are right, Mt. Rainier is likely to be crowded during the next few days. https://wnpf.org/our-priorities/parks-we-support/park-webcams/
(*The discovery was accidental; I was looking at Washington state national park sites, clicked on the one for the North Cascades (Newhalem), and saw the map. I think it is the default if the webcam at a site isn't operating. It is operating today, by the way.)
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
2023 under Sunak: Fourteenth Doctor, three reasonable episodes, Tennant as Doctor. Not good, but OK. People watched it.
2024*1 under Starmer: Fifteenth Doctor, eighteen goodish episodes but four disastrous season enders (one of which was so bad it killed the series), Gatwa as Doctor, crying all the bloody time, drowning in its own continuity. You couldn't pay people to watch it.
This latter period was marked by the showrunner saying the show was doing really well whilst he made worse and worse decisions and it finally became apparent he didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
Sound familiar?
So yes, this is all Starmer's fault. Bad Starmer
*1 OK you have to stretch the chronology here, but this lines up reasonably well. Well, well-ish.
RTD was lying like a bastard about the script for the Xmas special. There never was one.
So not best pleased, no. The future could be good, and it really depends on who wins the franchise bid, but I'm thinking of the death of British Leyland: the owners lose faith, they farm it out to asset strippers, the business dies and we buy foreign cars now.
I don’t think the owners (the BBC) have lost faith. They want a successful Dr Who series and see Dr Who as a big asset.
So do I, but both I and the BBC have the same problem: we really don't know how to bring that about.
I wonder whether the answer is that Doctor Who itself isn’t the asset any more, but the wider universe around it.
The BBC has already dabbled with this before. Torchwood for adults, Sarah Jane Adventures for children, UNIT popping up all over the place. Long before Marvel, Doctor Who had a shared universe.
The risk is that the main show occupies an awkward middle ground. It’s a family-oriented hard-ish sci-fi adventure series, and there really isn’t much else in that lane. Modern TV tends to reward either prestige adult sci-fi (Silo, Foundation, Severance etc.) or family fantasy. Doctor Who sits somewhere in between.
If Amazon or Apple got hold of it, I suspect they’d be less interested in Doctor Who and more interested in a Doctor Who Universe. Multiple shows aimed at different audiences, with the Doctor as the flagship brand.
I give you, The DWCU
A TV version of Big Finish ?
Yes, absolutely this I love the work Big Finish do. McGann's contributions are amazing. The irony of his Big Finish run is not lost on me.
The European Commission is dropping their investigation as to whether Korea's KHNP won the competition to build new reactors in the Czech Republic due to unfair state (Korean) subsidies. Article link in reply.
Another bidder, France's EDF, claimed that it would be impossible to build reactors in Europe at the cost that KHNP bid, unless there were illegal state (Korean) aid.
In addition to a lower cost bid, KHNP offered the Czech's a guarantee that the construction would not be delayed or become more expensive.
The truth, that the French can't accept, is that the Koreans are just better at building nuclear plants, as their record shows. They likely benefitted from the experience they got from building four reactors in the UAE.. https://x.com/HopfJames/status/2064369846616522867
Be interesting if the Koreans got the chance to bid for the Sizewell C capacity...
Hello from Belfast where the great unwashed of Loyalism have declared an evening of rioting and house clearance.
There are I'm sure quite a few with Republican communities who would like to do their own but the orthodoxy that Irish Republicans love the asylum seekers and welcome them with open arms is strong. Some very burly looking community workers keeping locals from gathering....
I will lay it out and I suspect plenty a UK city is the same. We have had a lot of inward migration last 10 years from outside EU/wider Europe and its easy to stratify into its main groups:
Indians: Often come as families, work in tech and health. Younger members of family often seen in retail. Well integrated and have set up small clusters West Africans: not clustered, seen all the time usually on way or going from the care homes and hospitals in which they work Filipinos: Brought specifically in for the NHS over recent years North East African. Somali, Sudanese. Disproportionately younger male, don't seem to be as much in the working population Middle East Arab: Some families but disproportionately younger males,
The last two groups are the asylum seekers, the former three economic and legal migrants.
I will give you one guess where the social interaction issues with the natives lie.
Our very own Kristalnacht, until rain stopped play.
Which sounds as if it disappoints you.
I will bet you supported all the concessions to the Men Of Violence and The Community Leaders for The Peace Process.
As I’ve pointed out before, this taught the Face Eating Leopards that threatening to eat faces, works.
The Community Leaders were carefully taught that representations to ministers would be ignored. A few death threats in the right place and *they* get called.
Tommy Lots Of Names formed the EDL to get the same thing. Look how he’s grown….
Feel proud - it should be a matter of celebration that education works.
The Peace Process has been very successful. What alternative approach are you suggesting should’ve been taken?
A peace process that is built on giving the gangsters whatever they want?
You can see the success on TV.
The decent politicians (such as the ones who got some Nobel Prizes for the actual peace) have been sidelined. It’s all about how close you can get to violence and pretend it’s not you. 71 people in one toilet….
It’s been very successful at creating an Acceptable Level Of Violence.
You need to understand that this success includes the riots you just saw.
The level of violence in Northern Ireland now is much, much, much lower than it was during the Troubles.
As I said, what alternative approach are you suggesting should’ve been taken? You’ve complained about the Process, but you’ve not suggested a different approach.
If all you want is to reduce the level of violence, just give the violent everything they want.
Now you are finding that the sacrifice required is people you care about.
Simple version - give the democratic politicians more. Give the Men Of Violence less.
Sure they’ll be upset. But is your response to the EDL violence just to give them what they want?
The immigrants will be out of the neighbourhoods in question within days. Once again, violence will have been given what it wants.
So there will be more violence.
No-one is suggesting giving the EDL what they want. The situation in Northern Ireland was very different to the EDL. Can you not see the differences???
There is much, much, much less violence in Northern Ireland since the Peace Process than before. Other approaches to the Troubles that didn’t involve talking to the men of violence had not produced a resolution.
It’s great that PB is somewhere that people can challenge the orthodoxy. If you’re going to challenge the orthodoxy, I suggest you come up with more than one half-arsed analogy.
The Peace Process became giving worse than the EDL whatever they wanted.
It is not “half arsed” to suggest that protecting the civic institutions at the expense of some terrorists getting explody is a worthwhile trade.
If you want peace at any price, then you want immigrants burnt out of their homes. Own it. Love it. You made it. You.
I can hear your outrage, but I can’t discern any coherent point here. The Peace Process did not cause the recent rioting in N Ireland. You repeatedly ignore the point that there was vastly more violence before the Peace Process than after. You appear unable to answer how you would’ve stopped that violence in some other way.
Also, the claim that the Peace Process gave the men of violence “whatever they wanted” is the most ridiculous claim on PB this week. The IRA wanted reunification with Ireland and the British out. They did not get this.
The men of violence wanted their rackets untouched. They are. They wanted immunity from prosecution, they have it. They wanted power, unchallenged, in their communities.
The PIRA didn’t get reunification - but that is a side quest to their becoming a replacement for civic government in a number of areas of NI. As have the Loyalists.
The violence stopped with a ceasefire that was brokered by democratic politicians.
This did not entail giving immunity for racketeering.
That came later with the pivot to resolving every single complain from the MoV by giving them what they wanted at the expense of democracy.
Is shutting down investigations into bank robberies required by the peace process? Is shutting down investigating large scale drug dealing part of the peace process?
The paramilitaries have much less power in their communities than they did at the height of the Troubles. I’m not saying things are perfect now, but they’re a helluva lot better. You do not appear to be reality based in your argument here.
“The paramilitaries have much less power in their communities than they did at the height of the Troubles.”
I was last in N Ireland… I think it was 2024, examining a PhD viva in Belfast. I work regularly with a colleague from there, but usually on Teams. Likewise, it was Teams that took me to a meeting in Galway on Monday.
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
2023 under Sunak: Fourteenth Doctor, three reasonable episodes, Tennant as Doctor. Not good, but OK. People watched it.
2024*1 under Starmer: Fifteenth Doctor, eighteen goodish episodes but four disastrous season enders (one of which was so bad it killed the series), Gatwa as Doctor, crying all the bloody time, drowning in its own continuity. You couldn't pay people to watch it.
This latter period was marked by the showrunner saying the show was doing really well whilst he made worse and worse decisions and it finally became apparent he didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
Sound familiar?
So yes, this is all Starmer's fault. Bad Starmer
*1 OK you have to stretch the chronology here, but this lines up reasonably well. Well, well-ish.
RTD was lying like a bastard about the script for the Xmas special. There never was one.
So not best pleased, no. The future could be good, and it really depends on who wins the franchise bid, but I'm thinking of the death of British Leyland: the owners lose faith, they farm it out to asset strippers, the business dies and we buy foreign cars now.
I don’t think the owners (the BBC) have lost faith. They want a successful Dr Who series and see Dr Who as a big asset.
So do I, but both I and the BBC have the same problem: we really don't know how to bring that about.
I wonder whether the answer is that Doctor Who itself isn’t the asset any more, but the wider universe around it.
The BBC has already dabbled with this before. Torchwood for adults, Sarah Jane Adventures for children, UNIT popping up all over the place. Long before Marvel, Doctor Who had a shared universe.
The risk is that the main show occupies an awkward middle ground. It’s a family-oriented hard-ish sci-fi adventure series, and there really isn’t much else in that lane. Modern TV tends to reward either prestige adult sci-fi (Silo, Foundation, Severance etc.) or family fantasy. Doctor Who sits somewhere in between.
If Amazon or Apple got hold of it, I suspect they’d be less interested in Doctor Who and more interested in a Doctor Who Universe. Multiple shows aimed at different audiences, with the Doctor as the flagship brand.
I give you, The DWCU
A TV version of Big Finish ?
That’s the most vile and disgusting idea I’ve seen on PB for months.
https://x.com/larisamlbrown/status/2064580303595704455 The situation inside the MoD is so bad that Britain is second bottom in a Nato league table that ranks member states based on the extent to which they are meeting their rearmament promises. The UK is currently 31 out of 32 countries on a list — which may be published by the end of the month — detailing how each country is progressing in hitting the alliance’s capability requirements. The only country below the UK is understood to be Iceland, which does not have a military.
Hollowed out and destroyed 2010 to 2024.
What Tories did spend is so delayed it's either obsolete or crap.
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
2023 under Sunak: Fourteenth Doctor, three reasonable episodes, Tennant as Doctor. Not good, but OK. People watched it.
2024*1 under Starmer: Fifteenth Doctor, eighteen goodish episodes but four disastrous season enders (one of which was so bad it killed the series), Gatwa as Doctor, crying all the bloody time, drowning in its own continuity. You couldn't pay people to watch it.
This latter period was marked by the showrunner saying the show was doing really well whilst he made worse and worse decisions and it finally became apparent he didn't know what the fuck he was doing.
Sound familiar?
So yes, this is all Starmer's fault. Bad Starmer
*1 OK you have to stretch the chronology here, but this lines up reasonably well. Well, well-ish.
RTD was lying like a bastard about the script for the Xmas special. There never was one.
So not best pleased, no. The future could be good, and it really depends on who wins the franchise bid, but I'm thinking of the death of British Leyland: the owners lose faith, they farm it out to asset strippers, the business dies and we buy foreign cars now.
I don’t think the owners (the BBC) have lost faith. They want a successful Dr Who series and see Dr Who as a big asset.
So do I, but both I and the BBC have the same problem: we really don't know how to bring that about.
I wonder whether the answer is that Doctor Who itself isn’t the asset any more, but the wider universe around it.
The BBC has already dabbled with this before. Torchwood for adults, Sarah Jane Adventures for children, UNIT popping up all over the place. Long before Marvel, Doctor Who had a shared universe.
The risk is that the main show occupies an awkward middle ground. It’s a family-oriented hard-ish sci-fi adventure series, and there really isn’t much else in that lane. Modern TV tends to reward either prestige adult sci-fi (Silo, Foundation, Severance etc.) or family fantasy. Doctor Who sits somewhere in between.
If Amazon or Apple got hold of it, I suspect they’d be less interested in Doctor Who and more interested in a Doctor Who Universe. Multiple shows aimed at different audiences, with the Doctor as the flagship brand.
I give you, The DWCU
I quite enjoyed the War Between the Land and Sea. They obviously decided to make it without the Doctor (he appears to have been on holiday lol) but could easily have been a premium Dr Who series
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
Maybe they should forget the CBeebies animated version - and just regenerate the Doctor as a child...
Already done something similar in that utter shit ‘Timeless Child’
It’s already fucked. It’s utter dross. The second coming of RTD was a disaster as was having an actor in the lead role who didn’t seem too engaged in it.
Never go back, they say and its right. RTD saved Dr Who from obscurity once, but second time round he appeared to have gone mad.
Indeed.
All he did was fuck his legacy, and it was a good legacy.
I watched some of his initial episodes recently and what struck me about them was they were fun. Watching them was fun. It wasn’t a chore. It was a joy.
Totally. In my head cannon everything after "Twice Upon a Time" never happened. Your are on the money with the fun - it was fun. You looked forward to watching Dr Who. Now? I just hope its not shit, and that the sermonising isn't too obvious.
I agree with some of this, though I’d put the rot setting in a bit earlier.
For me New Who peaked with Matt Smith, although I’ve come to appreciate Capaldi’s era more over time. Some of the best episodes of the revival came during his run.
Where I disagree with a lot of fans is on Jodie Whittaker. I thought she was perfectly good casting and could have been a great Doctor. The problem was the writing. Chibnall’s era suffered from weak stories, flat supporting characters and an obsession with lore over storytelling.
The Timeless Child is a good example. My issue wasn’t that it changed continuity. Doctor Who has been rewriting its own continuity since 1963. It was that the revelation was less interesting than the mystery.
RTD’s return never really worked for me either. His first run was fun. Even when it was daft, it was entertaining daft. The second run often felt like it was trying very hard to be important and clever, but forgot to be enjoyable.
At its best Doctor Who should be imaginative, slightly bonkers and above all fun. Somewhere along the way it seems to have lost sight of that.
Chibnall made the classic mistake of having too many companions. It worked in the early years when TV was slow, you could give actors a holiday one week and have the others carry the episode etc. But in the modern ear of 45 minute stories it failed. Add in the companions becoming 'mini-doctors' and it was a disaster. The companion is partly meant to be the viewer in the show. The way in. Things are explained to the viewer via the companion. Take Pyramids of Mars. Sarah asks why can they not just walk away as her world of the 1980s would still be there. the doctor shows her that it wouldn't. Even with Nu who we see what happens when a companion thinks they can be the doctor in Face the Raven.
I have no beef with Whittaker. Its not her fault the stories were terrible and the character she was given to play was awful. Jo Martin came along and showed what could be done with 'gasps' a woman doctor.
And yes - sure - Dr Who canon is forever changing. There had been the Cartmell masterplan towards the end of old Who. And it can change again.
In the sixties, as you rightly point out, they got away with too many companions. JNT tried it and soon abandoned it when Davison took over.
I'm sorry but anyone who thinks other than, that Dr Who is a programme for Under 12s and an insult to intelegence and a complete waste of money.needs to give their head a wobble
Don't watch it then.
Other than that, take your opinion and shove it up the Eye of Harmony
I'm broadly happy with this, with one caveat. My child has Type 1 diabetes, and uses their phone as part of the closed loop CGM and insulin pump. We also have a "follow" app that takes data pumped to the cloud from their phone. I need to speak to the school about how this will be catered for.
They will have to give an exemption, and have probably considered the case.
If they have not done so I would be surprised, since the rough numbers (AI) are 3300+ under 18s in Scotland with Type I Diabetes, and around 80% have such a system. As a comparator there are ~2500 schools in Scotland, of which 360 are state secondaries.
I would suggest that the best prep. will be a phone call to your Specialist Nurse at the hospital clinic. They will have other children locally in the same situation, and may even have one at the same school. They will not be able to talk names for privacy reasons, but should be able to discuss how it is managed routinely.
One potential option, which I use, is that I chose to have a separate control unit - which is a previous generation locked down phone with just the diabetes pump app. I use the Omnipod 5 disposable pump system - I get a box of them delivered every three months and put a replacement on every 3 days. The old ones are returned for recycling.
The situation has changed remarkably in quite a short period of time. At the time I was diagnosed in 2001, it was routine for schools to be unable to medicate (for various reasons), so often one partner would have to go into the school several times a day to inject their child with insulin and be unable to get a normal job.
Often they would opt to Home Educate for that reason.
An internet associate, called Jackie Jacombs, used to coordinate an advocacy group called Children with Diabetes, and they have done a huge amount to achieve that. Pumps are a godsend, especially closed-loop pumps. Most diabetes activists have either suddenly had someone in their circle diagnosed, or are some sort of professional concerned, such as a teacher or a nurse.
Here she is being interviewed in 2009: The survey found that 70% of primary schools with diabetic children require parents to come in and inject them with insulin if the children are too young to do so themselves. Only 16% of schools are willing to give medications and have a policy on drug administration. "This situation is outrageous," says Jackie Jacombs, chair of the UK Children With Diabetes advocacy group. "Not only can the caring parent often not work, but children are denied access to snacks, vital for their health, during lessons and kept out of class unnecessarily."
When my child was first diagnosed, I would regularly attend primary school to administer the novorapid dose by pen. Fortunately for us, I could WFH and lived very close to the school.
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
There is a difference though. You might have children living with you, one of them eats you out of house and home, breaks things, leaves a mess everywhere, doesn’t flush, doesn’t contribute with chores or financially but they are your child and you sort of have to accept it. Then someone invites themself to stay with you and behaves in the same way - you don’t have to accept it like with your child, you ask them/tell them to leave.
We can’t do anything about the shitbags who are British nationals who murder etc but understandably people will ask why we have to add extra shitbags if there is a way we can avoid it.
The people who ask these things generally seem unaware of existing screening done when people apply for visas, the rules around deporting foreigners convicted of crimes, or the increasing rate of deportations under the Labour government.
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
Maybe they should forget the CBeebies animated version - and just regenerate the Doctor as a child...
Already done something similar in that utter shit ‘Timeless Child’
It’s already fucked. It’s utter dross. The second coming of RTD was a disaster as was having an actor in the lead role who didn’t seem too engaged in it.
Never go back, they say and its right. RTD saved Dr Who from obscurity once, but second time round he appeared to have gone mad.
Indeed.
All he did was fuck his legacy, and it was a good legacy.
I watched some of his initial episodes recently and what struck me about them was they were fun. Watching them was fun. It wasn’t a chore. It was a joy.
Totally. In my head cannon everything after "Twice Upon a Time" never happened. Your are on the money with the fun - it was fun. You looked forward to watching Dr Who. Now? I just hope its not shit, and that the sermonising isn't too obvious.
I agree with some of this, though I’d put the rot setting in a bit earlier.
For me New Who peaked with Matt Smith, although I’ve come to appreciate Capaldi’s era more over time. Some of the best episodes of the revival came during his run.
Where I disagree with a lot of fans is on Jodie Whittaker. I thought she was perfectly good casting and could have been a great Doctor. The problem was the writing. Chibnall’s era suffered from weak stories, flat supporting characters and an obsession with lore over storytelling.
The Timeless Child is a good example. My issue wasn’t that it changed continuity. Doctor Who has been rewriting its own continuity since 1963. It was that the revelation was less interesting than the mystery.
RTD’s return never really worked for me either. His first run was fun. Even when it was daft, it was entertaining daft. The second run often felt like it was trying very hard to be important and clever, but forgot to be enjoyable.
At its best Doctor Who should be imaginative, slightly bonkers and above all fun. Somewhere along the way it seems to have lost sight of that.
Chibnall made the classic mistake of having too many companions. It worked in the early years when TV was slow, you could give actors a holiday one week and have the others carry the episode etc. But in the modern ear of 45 minute stories it failed. Add in the companions becoming 'mini-doctors' and it was a disaster. The companion is partly meant to be the viewer in the show. The way in. Things are explained to the viewer via the companion. Take Pyramids of Mars. Sarah asks why can they not just walk away as her world of the 1980s would still be there. the doctor shows her that it wouldn't. Even with Nu who we see what happens when a companion thinks they can be the doctor in Face the Raven.
I have no beef with Whittaker. Its not her fault the stories were terrible and the character she was given to play was awful. Jo Martin came along and showed what could be done with 'gasps' a woman doctor.
And yes - sure - Dr Who canon is forever changing. There had been the Cartmell masterplan towards the end of old Who. And it can change again.
In the sixties, as you rightly point out, they got away with too many companions. JNT tried it and soon abandoned it when Davison took over.
I'm sorry but anyone who thinks other than, that Dr Who is a programme for Under 12s and an insult to intelegence and a complete waste of money.needs to give their head a wobble
Don't watch it then.
Other than that, take your opinion and shove it up the Eye of Harmony
My take on Dr Who is that the solution is to cut out the Big Bang!
The thing that has weakened it is chasing a bigger and bigger calamity with every series, saving London, saving, earth, saving the solar system, then the galaxy, universe, reality!
But many of the best episodes are self contained, almost intimate, Midnight being one of my all time favourites. The same think infected the so called MCU always needing a bigger Boss to fight until all Bosses blend into one.
Focus on character and story not big bang!
As to stand alone parts of the universe I’d like to see a Dalek Invasion series. Not set on Earth, just some novel civilisation or planet being attacked overwhelmed and despite their best efforts crunched. Again focused on characters bravely battling against the inevitable.
Given he was able to fly from Paris to Dublin legally, so perhaps from Sudan to Paris legally, it will be interesting to know more about his background. Doesn't sound like a typical refugee or economic migrant posing as refugee.
He was granted refugee status quite quickly too,
The Belfast attacker flew from Paris to Dublin 10.02.2023 and travelled to Belfast where he claimed asylum, his LTR was granted 28.09.2023.
This was when Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick were Home Secretary and Immigration Minister respectively.
My take on Dr Who is that the solution is to cut out the Big Bang!
The thing that has weakened it is chasing a bigger and bigger calamity with every series, saving London, saving, earth, saving the solar system, then the galaxy, universe, reality!
But many of the best episodes are self contained, almost intimate, Midnight being one of my all time favourites. The same think infected the so called MCU always needing a bigger Boss to fight until all Bosses blend into one.
Focus on character and story not big bang!
As to stand alone parts of the universe I’d like to see a Dalek Invasion series. Not set on Earth, just some novel civilisation or planet being attacked overwhelmed and despite their best efforts crunched. Again focused on characters bravely battling against the inevitable.
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
There is a difference though. You might have children living with you, one of them eats you out of house and home, breaks things, leaves a mess everywhere, doesn’t flush, doesn’t contribute with chores or financially but they are your child and you sort of have to accept it. Then someone invites themself to stay with you and behaves in the same way - you don’t have to accept it like with your child, you ask them/tell them to leave.
We can’t do anything about the shitbags who are British nationals who murder etc but understandably people will ask why we have to add extra shitbags if there is a way we can avoid it.
In any case, I think the ‘roughly the same’ that Bondegezou points to might be a little misleading. This goes back again to the old chestnut about immigrants we wants (students from New Zealand/doctors from India/families from Hong Kong/engineers from America) vs immigrants we don’t (dubious asylum claimants and people landing Dover in boats). As we know, the latter are comparatively small in number compared to the former. But I suspect the latter are massively overrepresented in the crime stats. If my suspicion is correct, if we compare ‘immigrants we don’t want’ to the general population in the crime stats they are vastly overrepresented.
The European Commission is dropping their investigation as to whether Korea's KHNP won the competition to build new reactors in the Czech Republic due to unfair state (Korean) subsidies. Article link in reply.
Another bidder, France's EDF, claimed that it would be impossible to build reactors in Europe at the cost that KHNP bid, unless there were illegal state (Korean) aid.
In addition to a lower cost bid, KHNP offered the Czech's a guarantee that the construction would not be delayed or become more expensive.
The truth, that the French can't accept, is that the Koreans are just better at building nuclear plants, as their record shows. They likely benefitted from the experience they got from building four reactors in the UAE.. https://x.com/HopfJames/status/2064369846616522867
Be interesting if the Koreans got the chance to bid for the Sizewell C capacity...
It's criminal they weren't asked to bid before. Government has wasted tens of billions in delay and procurement incompetence. And offloaded that costs onto the consumer.
That is not a party political issue; just one of basic competence. If there were a party whose platform was genuine pragmatism and basic competence, I'd vote for it almost every election. There isn't.
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
Maybe they should forget the CBeebies animated version - and just regenerate the Doctor as a child...
Already done something similar in that utter shit ‘Timeless Child’
It’s already fucked. It’s utter dross. The second coming of RTD was a disaster as was having an actor in the lead role who didn’t seem too engaged in it.
Never go back, they say and its right. RTD saved Dr Who from obscurity once, but second time round he appeared to have gone mad.
Indeed.
All he did was fuck his legacy, and it was a good legacy.
I watched some of his initial episodes recently and what struck me about them was they were fun. Watching them was fun. It wasn’t a chore. It was a joy.
Totally. In my head cannon everything after "Twice Upon a Time" never happened. Your are on the money with the fun - it was fun. You looked forward to watching Dr Who. Now? I just hope its not shit, and that the sermonising isn't too obvious.
I agree with some of this, though I’d put the rot setting in a bit earlier.
For me New Who peaked with Matt Smith, although I’ve come to appreciate Capaldi’s era more over time. Some of the best episodes of the revival came during his run.
Where I disagree with a lot of fans is on Jodie Whittaker. I thought she was perfectly good casting and could have been a great Doctor. The problem was the writing. Chibnall’s era suffered from weak stories, flat supporting characters and an obsession with lore over storytelling.
The Timeless Child is a good example. My issue wasn’t that it changed continuity. Doctor Who has been rewriting its own continuity since 1963. It was that the revelation was less interesting than the mystery.
RTD’s return never really worked for me either. His first run was fun. Even when it was daft, it was entertaining daft. The second run often felt like it was trying very hard to be important and clever, but forgot to be enjoyable.
At its best Doctor Who should be imaginative, slightly bonkers and above all fun. Somewhere along the way it seems to have lost sight of that.
Chibnall made the classic mistake of having too many companions. It worked in the early years when TV was slow, you could give actors a holiday one week and have the others carry the episode etc. But in the modern ear of 45 minute stories it failed. Add in the companions becoming 'mini-doctors' and it was a disaster. The companion is partly meant to be the viewer in the show. The way in. Things are explained to the viewer via the companion. Take Pyramids of Mars. Sarah asks why can they not just walk away as her world of the 1980s would still be there. the doctor shows her that it wouldn't. Even with Nu who we see what happens when a companion thinks they can be the doctor in Face the Raven.
I have no beef with Whittaker. Its not her fault the stories were terrible and the character she was given to play was awful. Jo Martin came along and showed what could be done with 'gasps' a woman doctor.
And yes - sure - Dr Who canon is forever changing. There had been the Cartmell masterplan towards the end of old Who. And it can change again.
In the sixties, as you rightly point out, they got away with too many companions. JNT tried it and soon abandoned it when Davison took over.
I'm sorry but anyone who thinks other than, that Dr Who is a programme for Under 12s and an insult to intelegence and a complete waste of money.needs to give their head a wobble
Don't watch it then.
Other than that, take your opinion and shove it up the Eye of Harmony
The US military is developing mini-nukes for bases, and emergencies. They are small enough to be moved by trucks, or even airplanes, and produce enough power for 1,000 average American homes, according to a TV story I saw. (I like the fact that the Army and the Navy have competing programs.)
The programs are promising the first deliveries by 2028.
Incidentally, such reactors might be a good for civilian use in parts of the Arctic. (I assume the military reasons for them are obvious.)
I asked the Department for Transport (DFT) for the number of road traffic incidents where the driver had a non-UK licence. I know they collect this data, because police fill it in on a form. But when I asked for the data they said they don’t collate it... DFT’s lack of interest in their own data is not unique. In fact it’s the norm at every stage of the criminal justice system... Data on arrests by nationality and immigration status (e.g. were they here illegally, an asylum seeker, on ILR, or a British Citizen) are not centrally collected. This is despite the fact that many forces do collect the data in one way or another... The MOJ doesn’t publish data on prosecutions or convictions by nationality or immigration status. Again, this refusal to publish the data is despite the fact that it is being collected.... The MOJ does publish a breakdown of prisoners by nationality. But they won’t provide a breakdown by immigration status - so you can’t find out how many of them were in the UK illegally when they offended, or whether they were asylum seekers or on a visa or ILR... And I don’t think country of birth is published for any of this data - so if you have moved here and got citizenship you will show up as a UK national in the FOI data above. Even back in 2021 there were 4.3m people in England and Wales born abroad who had British passports, and another half a million got citizenship since then, so the all-in, long-run impact of migration is understated in the data.
Since we seem to be talking asylum and migration again, I really recommend this podcast from the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/m002wlfn Not finished yet but some parts are astonishing, depressing, infuriating and heartbreaking.
Goes from Middlesbrough to Calais, to Paris, to Istanbul and to Kurdish Iraq. One of those things that really makes the TV tax worth it.
Two other things; it is not plausible to “smash the gangs” as Starmer asserts without speeding up and improving international coordination between the police forces. Secondly, UK is magnetic for a number of reasons (including language, existing communities) but the inability to police illegal work seems to be a big draw.
The US military is developing mini-nukes for bases, and emergencies. They are small enough to be moved by trucks, or even airplanes, and produce enough power for 1,000 average American homes, according to a TV story I saw. (I like the fact that the Army and the Navy have competing programs.)
The programs are promising the first deliveries by 2028.
Incidentally, such reactors might be a good for civilian use in parts of the Arctic. (I assume the military reasons for them are obvious.)
My take on Dr Who is that the solution is to cut out the Big Bang!
The thing that has weakened it is chasing a bigger and bigger calamity with every series, saving London, saving, earth, saving the solar system, then the galaxy, universe, reality!
But many of the best episodes are self contained, almost intimate, Midnight being one of my all time favourites. The same think infected the so called MCU always needing a bigger Boss to fight until all Bosses blend into one.
Focus on character and story not big bang!
As to stand alone parts of the universe I’d like to see a Dalek Invasion series. Not set on Earth, just some novel civilisation or planet being attacked overwhelmed and despite their best efforts crunched. Again focused on characters bravely battling against the inevitable.
No happy ending!
Peter.
..some novel civilisation without stairs:
(narrator: Daleks have been depicted on TV as being able to fly since at least the 1980's)
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
Maybe they should forget the CBeebies animated version - and just regenerate the Doctor as a child...
Already done something similar in that utter shit ‘Timeless Child’
It’s already fucked. It’s utter dross. The second coming of RTD was a disaster as was having an actor in the lead role who didn’t seem too engaged in it.
Never go back, they say and its right. RTD saved Dr Who from obscurity once, but second time round he appeared to have gone mad.
Indeed.
All he did was fuck his legacy, and it was a good legacy.
I watched some of his initial episodes recently and what struck me about them was they were fun. Watching them was fun. It wasn’t a chore. It was a joy.
Totally. In my head cannon everything after "Twice Upon a Time" never happened. Your are on the money with the fun - it was fun. You looked forward to watching Dr Who. Now? I just hope its not shit, and that the sermonising isn't too obvious.
I agree with some of this, though I’d put the rot setting in a bit earlier.
For me New Who peaked with Matt Smith, although I’ve come to appreciate Capaldi’s era more over time. Some of the best episodes of the revival came during his run.
Where I disagree with a lot of fans is on Jodie Whittaker. I thought she was perfectly good casting and could have been a great Doctor. The problem was the writing. Chibnall’s era suffered from weak stories, flat supporting characters and an obsession with lore over storytelling.
The Timeless Child is a good example. My issue wasn’t that it changed continuity. Doctor Who has been rewriting its own continuity since 1963. It was that the revelation was less interesting than the mystery.
RTD’s return never really worked for me either. His first run was fun. Even when it was daft, it was entertaining daft. The second run often felt like it was trying very hard to be important and clever, but forgot to be enjoyable.
At its best Doctor Who should be imaginative, slightly bonkers and above all fun. Somewhere along the way it seems to have lost sight of that.
Chibnall made the classic mistake of having too many companions. It worked in the early years when TV was slow, you could give actors a holiday one week and have the others carry the episode etc. But in the modern ear of 45 minute stories it failed. Add in the companions becoming 'mini-doctors' and it was a disaster. The companion is partly meant to be the viewer in the show. The way in. Things are explained to the viewer via the companion. Take Pyramids of Mars. Sarah asks why can they not just walk away as her world of the 1980s would still be there. the doctor shows her that it wouldn't. Even with Nu who we see what happens when a companion thinks they can be the doctor in Face the Raven.
I have no beef with Whittaker. Its not her fault the stories were terrible and the character she was given to play was awful. Jo Martin came along and showed what could be done with 'gasps' a woman doctor.
And yes - sure - Dr Who canon is forever changing. There had been the Cartmell masterplan towards the end of old Who. And it can change again.
In the sixties, as you rightly point out, they got away with too many companions. JNT tried it and soon abandoned it when Davison took over.
I'm sorry but anyone who thinks other than, that Dr Who is a programme for Under 12s and an insult to intelegence and a complete waste of money.needs to give their head a wobble
Don't watch it then.
Other than that, take your opinion and shove it up the Eye of Harmony
Today we’re announcing an update on plans for the future of Doctor Who.
As part of securing the next phase of the show for future generations, and in line with the BBC’s Charter and Agreement requirements, the BBC will put Doctor Who out to competitive tender this year. Doctor Who remains an important part of the BBC and this tender underpins the BBC’s continued commitment to Doctor Who ensuring audiences will enjoy the show for years to come.
After careful consideration, the BBC, Russell T Davies and Bad Wolf have collectively decided not to go ahead with the previously announced Doctor Who Christmas episode. This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory.
The previously announced new Doctor Who animation series for CBeebies is currently in production.
Details of the tender will be announced in due course.
The BBC retains all IP in Doctor Who. BBC Studios will continue to lead the global distribution of Doctor Who as well as licensing, consumer products, digital and immersive experiences on behalf of the BBC.
Maybe they should forget the CBeebies animated version - and just regenerate the Doctor as a child...
Already done something similar in that utter shit ‘Timeless Child’
It’s already fucked. It’s utter dross. The second coming of RTD was a disaster as was having an actor in the lead role who didn’t seem too engaged in it.
Never go back, they say and its right. RTD saved Dr Who from obscurity once, but second time round he appeared to have gone mad.
Indeed.
All he did was fuck his legacy, and it was a good legacy.
I watched some of his initial episodes recently and what struck me about them was they were fun. Watching them was fun. It wasn’t a chore. It was a joy.
Totally. In my head cannon everything after "Twice Upon a Time" never happened. Your are on the money with the fun - it was fun. You looked forward to watching Dr Who. Now? I just hope its not shit, and that the sermonising isn't too obvious.
I agree with some of this, though I’d put the rot setting in a bit earlier.
For me New Who peaked with Matt Smith, although I’ve come to appreciate Capaldi’s era more over time. Some of the best episodes of the revival came during his run.
Where I disagree with a lot of fans is on Jodie Whittaker. I thought she was perfectly good casting and could have been a great Doctor. The problem was the writing. Chibnall’s era suffered from weak stories, flat supporting characters and an obsession with lore over storytelling.
The Timeless Child is a good example. My issue wasn’t that it changed continuity. Doctor Who has been rewriting its own continuity since 1963. It was that the revelation was less interesting than the mystery.
RTD’s return never really worked for me either. His first run was fun. Even when it was daft, it was entertaining daft. The second run often felt like it was trying very hard to be important and clever, but forgot to be enjoyable.
At its best Doctor Who should be imaginative, slightly bonkers and above all fun. Somewhere along the way it seems to have lost sight of that.
Chibnall made the classic mistake of having too many companions. It worked in the early years when TV was slow, you could give actors a holiday one week and have the others carry the episode etc. But in the modern ear of 45 minute stories it failed. Add in the companions becoming 'mini-doctors' and it was a disaster. The companion is partly meant to be the viewer in the show. The way in. Things are explained to the viewer via the companion. Take Pyramids of Mars. Sarah asks why can they not just walk away as her world of the 1980s would still be there. the doctor shows her that it wouldn't. Even with Nu who we see what happens when a companion thinks they can be the doctor in Face the Raven.
I have no beef with Whittaker. Its not her fault the stories were terrible and the character she was given to play was awful. Jo Martin came along and showed what could be done with 'gasps' a woman doctor.
And yes - sure - Dr Who canon is forever changing. There had been the Cartmell masterplan towards the end of old Who. And it can change again.
In the sixties, as you rightly point out, they got away with too many companions. JNT tried it and soon abandoned it when Davison took over.
I'm sorry but anyone who thinks other than, that Dr Who is a programme for Under 12s and an insult to intelegence and a complete waste of money.needs to give their head a wobble
Don't watch it then.
Other than that, take your opinion and shove it up the Eye of Harmony
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
Like Chas Corrigan ?
Or Tracy Andrews?
The victims parents were members at Gay Hill. My Dad played golf a few times with the father.
Their slogan this year is "Strike out Stigma", which is about people with diabetes not being embarrassed or ashamed to be diabetic, and confident in having a view of themselves as being as valuable as everyone else. The survey demonstrated quite a high experience of it.
In practice for me that was around a decision to inject in public as a matter of course almost from Day 1, and not allowing anyone to question the acceptability of the practice, and creating an expectation that were any adjustments required, they would be done as a matter of course. Having role models around like Steve Redgrave, Theresa May and the very memorable Speaker who's name I have forgotten helps, but it is really about self-acceptance and self-confidence.
Interestingly, I have only once been challenged about taking an injection in public, in a total of ~60k jabs, and that was at a hotel bar where I had ordered a drink, in Melbourne, Derbyshire.
My take on Dr Who is that the solution is to cut out the Big Bang!
The thing that has weakened it is chasing a bigger and bigger calamity with every series, saving London, saving, earth, saving the solar system, then the galaxy, universe, reality!
But many of the best episodes are self contained, almost intimate, Midnight being one of my all time favourites. The same think infected the so called MCU always needing a bigger Boss to fight until all Bosses blend into one.
Focus on character and story not big bang!
As to stand alone parts of the universe I’d like to see a Dalek Invasion series. Not set on Earth, just some novel civilisation or planet being attacked overwhelmed and despite their best efforts crunched. Again focused on characters bravely battling against the inevitable.
No happy ending!
Peter.
..some novel civilisation without stairs:
(narrator: Daleks have been depicted on TV as being able to fly since at least the 1980's)
My take on Dr Who is that the solution is to cut out the Big Bang!
The thing that has weakened it is chasing a bigger and bigger calamity with every series, saving London, saving, earth, saving the solar system, then the galaxy, universe, reality!
But many of the best episodes are self contained, almost intimate, Midnight being one of my all time favourites. The same think infected the so called MCU always needing a bigger Boss to fight until all Bosses blend into one.
Focus on character and story not big bang!
As to stand alone parts of the universe I’d like to see a Dalek Invasion series. Not set on Earth, just some novel civilisation or planet being attacked overwhelmed and despite their best efforts crunched. Again focused on characters bravely battling against the inevitable.
No happy ending!
Peter.
..some novel civilisation without stairs:
(narrator: Daleks have been depicted on TV as being able to fly since at least the 1980's)
Sounds like fake news to me. Not even sure I believe Daleks exist at all any more.
My take on Dr Who is that the solution is to cut out the Big Bang!
The thing that has weakened it is chasing a bigger and bigger calamity with every series, saving London, saving, earth, saving the solar system, then the galaxy, universe, reality!
But many of the best episodes are self contained, almost intimate, Midnight being one of my all time favourites. The same think infected the so called MCU always needing a bigger Boss to fight until all Bosses blend into one.
Focus on character and story not big bang!
As to stand alone parts of the universe I’d like to see a Dalek Invasion series. Not set on Earth, just some novel civilisation or planet being attacked overwhelmed and despite their best efforts crunched. Again focused on characters bravely battling against the inevitable.
No happy ending!
Peter.
..some novel civilisation without stairs:
(narrator: Daleks have been depicted on TV as being able to fly since at least the 1980's)
Classic cliff hanger in Remembrance if I remembrance it correctly.
My take on Dr Who is that the solution is to cut out the Big Bang!
The thing that has weakened it is chasing a bigger and bigger calamity with every series, saving London, saving, earth, saving the solar system, then the galaxy, universe, reality!
But many of the best episodes are self contained, almost intimate, Midnight being one of my all time favourites. The same think infected the so called MCU always needing a bigger Boss to fight until all Bosses blend into one.
Focus on character and story not big bang!
As to stand alone parts of the universe I’d like to see a Dalek Invasion series. Not set on Earth, just some novel civilisation or planet being attacked overwhelmed and despite their best efforts crunched. Again focused on characters bravely battling against the inevitable.
No happy ending!
Peter.
..some novel civilisation without stairs:
(narrator: Daleks have been depicted on TV as being able to fly since at least the 1980's)
Who seriously thinks there is a "deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders"?
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
Well, effectively it is, because that’s what we have. It might be policy to wish it were otherwise, because government can’t think of a nice way of stopping it. If we were in a tank with water levels rising, and our approach were simply to wish that it were not, I think it would be reasonable to say that there is a deliberate policy of uncontrolled flooding.
And the answer to this "crisis" is to entrust the nations immigration policy into the hands of Jenrick and Braverman who were the Justice and Home Secretaries during the Boris wave and let in the people they are now moaning about?
Is that really the best answer? Or perhaps we could notice that immigration has falled 75% since they were last in charge with deportation of criminals up significantly?
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
There is a difference though. You might have children living with you, one of them eats you out of house and home, breaks things, leaves a mess everywhere, doesn’t flush, doesn’t contribute with chores or financially but they are your child and you sort of have to accept it. Then someone invites themself to stay with you and behaves in the same way - you don’t have to accept it like with your child, you ask them/tell them to leave.
We can’t do anything about the shitbags who are British nationals who murder etc but understandably people will ask why we have to add extra shitbags if there is a way we can avoid it.
That's not unreasonable. But of course one of the difficulties we face is that refugees in particular will be fleeing from places where either law and order has broken down, or we don't have a good relationship with the authorities so can't check well. Of course we could just refuse to take anyone from those countries, but I would hope not because I would want someone to take me in if some loony were to be in charge here.
What we can reasonably expect is for the government to be constantly reviewing how successful checks are, and tightening where necessary, and maybe excluding some categories of people (single young men, for example). Equally, we as a society have to recognise that however good our processes, some shitbags will end up here regardless. Any politician who singles out immigrant shitbags out of context over the home-grown ones deserves utter contempt for adding to the problem rather than solving it.
On a more cheerful note, the trailer for "The Social Reckoning" (the legacy sequel to "The Social Network") is out. It looks a bit cliche (small reporter, big corporation, shouting, threats) but the cast is good, despite the recasting from the original.
(No, it’s not the Kerch Bridge, it’s the alternative route through occupied Ukraine to the North, taking out the land corridor. There’s one small bridge left to go, then everything has to go over the Kerch or by sea.)
Who seriously thinks there is a "deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders"?
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
I think we were close to it during the Boris Johnson period. Not before or since.
I doubt that!
Boris didn’t do detail he did performance.
The Boris wave was a consequence of his slab dash slogan using style rather than a deliberate policy. Much like Trump with Iran they just don’t think things through.
A lot of what went wrong from start to finish with Brexit was a lack of a realistic well thought through plan.
Who seriously thinks there is a "deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders"?
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
I think we were close to it during the Boris Johnson period. Not before or since.
I doubt that!
Boris didn’t do detail he did performance.
The Boris wave was a consequence of his slab dash slogan using style rather than a deliberate policy. Much like Trump with Iran they just don’t think things through.
A lot of what went wrong from start to finish with Brexit was a lack of a realistic well thought through plan.
Peter.
I think they were happy to let immigration issues fester and grow with the expectation that it would aid their re-election as the public wouldn't trust Labour to solve it. Hence performative nonsense like Rwanda and constant implementation of policy that they knew would be deemed illegal by our courts rather than any attempt at actually managing the situation.
As it turned out, whilst the public didn't trust Labour (33% GE) it split the right vote with Reform coming through.
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
There is a difference though. You might have children living with you, one of them eats you out of house and home, breaks things, leaves a mess everywhere, doesn’t flush, doesn’t contribute with chores or financially but they are your child and you sort of have to accept it. Then someone invites themself to stay with you and behaves in the same way - you don’t have to accept it like with your child, you ask them/tell them to leave.
We can’t do anything about the shitbags who are British nationals who murder etc but understandably people will ask why we have to add extra shitbags if there is a way we can avoid it.
The trouble is that it is very difficult to know in advance who is going to contribute usefully to society and who is going to be a criminal. Add to that the fact that criminal behaviour is much more obvious than good behaviour. For example, in just the last few weeks I have seen and been very well looked after by a doctor and a dentist of non-British heritage and today have my car serviced by another person of non-British heritage. All of these people are quietly supporting our society, but that never grabs the headlines.
The danger of a populist closure of the border is that you exclude the good with the bad. On the plus side, you avoid a few high-profile murders; on the minus side you damage our economy and likely end up shorting all of our lives due to less availability of care, etc.
Who seriously thinks there is a "deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders"?
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
Well, effectively it is, because that’s what we have. It might be policy to wish it were otherwise, because government can’t think of a nice way of stopping it. If we were in a tank with water levels rising, and our approach were simply to wish that it were not, I think it would be reasonable to say that there is a deliberate policy of uncontrolled flooding.
The boat crossings arent in any sense mass immigration. They are 35-40k per year, about 0.05% of our population.
So, Doctor Who is dead. Out to tender but after the godawful mess of the Disney contract you can imagine companies being reticent.
It needs a break, and in having one they can fix it.
New BBC management decided to resurrect Who in 2028. Cast someone interesting as the Doctor and simply discontinue the RTD2/Disney shit. Start again. Hell, have the new Doctor regenerate from Tennant again. Or from Jo Martin. Whatever, as long as the train backs up and erases RTD2.
First, we need to condemn without reservation the mob violence in Belfast last night. It's a strange world where we think two wrongs make a right and whatever happened with the attack which by the way was heinous and, if proven, the perpetrator needs to feel the full weight of the law, doesn't in any way justify or condone forcing people out of their homes and burning said properties.
We know Northern Ireland has a history of "ethnic cleansing" in this manner and it's something with which the authorities need to take control and stop.
A "long hot summer" then it seems with anyone looking at anyone else in a funny way liable to bring the mobs out on the streets for a bit of impromptu street entertainment. That's the way it is now, apparently? People get angry at the slightest thing radicalised no doubt by the misinformation and disinformation on X and elsewhere and out they come thinking somehow, well, what are they thinking?
If I may say so, your last paragraph doesn't really fit with the first one. A decapitation attempt (which you rightly describe as heinous) cannot be categorised as a slight thing.
And speedily dealt with by the police, with the culprit in custody.
So why the pogrom?
Government policy is to put more people like the person who maimed Stephen Ogilvie or the person who murdered Rhiannon Whyte into our communities. They're not just unfortunate random incidents but the predictable consequence of choices made by the state.
The state made Wayne Cousins a law enforcement officer, not once but twice. Bad people are bad people irrespective of ethnicity or occupation.
Two wrongs hardly make a right. If you take the view that the one of the state's failings can't be fixed because it has other failings, no reform of any sort is possible.
Unfortunately the track record of the UK Somali community isn't great. Young men fleeing a 3rd world war zone often aren't particularly well conditioned to live in a peaceful western society, which probably accounts for their over-representation in the violent phyco category. The easiest solution would be to stop accepting imports of such young men, on the basis that they are more trouble than they're worth.
It's worth noting that as a nation we accepted a load of Ukrainian refugees very willingly, because they were mainly women and children, with broadly western values, fleeing a conflict zone.
You'll need to visit South Shields which has had an established community since the 19th Century. You seem to have picked up a Twitter infection.
The Somali community in SS have, as you said, been there since the 19th Century, and have had several generations to adjust to British culture. Those arriving now from Somalia, less so.
May I disagree with your broad brush about Somalis and other immigrants on one hand but agree with the adjustment comment. I've dealt with immigrants and have helped them making claims for their legal entitlements. They are normal people by and large but do have some traits that require adjustment.
For example, I've helped one with a traffic fine and was amazed he needed insurance and a driving licence. Others have attitudes to woman that would require adjustment, some significantly so. Usually a brush with authority and the courts adjusts peoples' perceptions. So I will circle back this argument to funding the courts and the police.
I’m an immigrant where I live. It’s my job to research the laws that apply here, and if found guilty of anything more serious than dropping litter or speeding I’m liable to find myself deported.
I’ll go straight from the courthouse to the airport, and if I wish to apply to come back that’s at my own expense and from overseas.
Why should the UK be any different?
You know why it's different as you lose your visa, job and home if you transgress in Dubai. Son was there for 3-4 years.
ILR or Refugee status is a different set of laws. And you also know that to change these laws requires people to invest time in campaigning, getting votes, writing the proposed legislation, and winning votes for it.
The result of which is a high-trust society, which means there’s very little acquisitive crime nor public disorder. It’s what happens when people know they’ll be deported if they offend their hosts.
I don't know which Dubai you are living in as it's full of some very shady characters. One acquaintance who had lived there and built a successful business there (which the ubiquitous local silent partner) said it was full of people who would rip you off. Perhaps you've not been there long enough to enjoy that type of company yet.
Who seriously thinks there is a "deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders"?
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
Well, effectively it is, because that’s what we have. It might be policy to wish it were otherwise, because government can’t think of a nice way of stopping it. If we were in a tank with water levels rising, and our approach were simply to wish that it were not, I think it would be reasonable to say that there is a deliberate policy of uncontrolled flooding.
The boat crossings arent in any sense mass immigration. They are 35-40k per year, about 0.05% of our population.
The rest of immigration is not uncontrolled.
If you are dancing on the head of a pin about the meaning of the word ‘uncontrolled’ then, well, I suppose we should be grateful to the good burghers of Gorton and Denton.
(No, it’s not the Kerch Bridge, it’s the alternative route through occupied Ukraine to the North, taking out the land corridor. There’s one small bridge left to go, then everything has to go over the Kerch or by sea.)
I saw on X they have a 1.5 ton weight limit on the Kerch bridge as it clearly hasn't been repaired properly from previous attacks. Of course they could get heavier trucks over as that will be based on an estimate of how many vehicles would be on it at any one time, but it would mean banning civilian traffic and sending over carefully controlled convoys.
Crimea is rapidly becoming not a very nice place to live.
Who seriously thinks there is a "deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders"?
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
Well, effectively it is, because that’s what we have. It might be policy to wish it were otherwise, because government can’t think of a nice way of stopping it. If we were in a tank with water levels rising, and our approach were simply to wish that it were not, I think it would be reasonable to say that there is a deliberate policy of uncontrolled flooding.
The boat crossings arent in any sense mass immigration. They are 35-40k per year, about 0.05% of our population.
The rest of immigration is not uncontrolled.
I think there is a further point here.
The boat crossings reinforce the perception of a lack of control, while historically high levels of legal migration reinforce that perception rather than challenge it.
There is also a scale issue. 40,000 people may be a tiny percentage of a country of nearly 70 million, but people don’t experience immigration at the level of the UK as a whole. They experience it locally.
A few dozen arrivals in a small town, a local hotel being used for accommodation, pressure on GP appointments, school places or housing can be highly visible even when the national numbers look insignificant.
That doesn’t mean every concern is justified, nor that every perceived impact is caused by immigration. But it does help explain why arguments based solely on national percentages often fail to persuade people whose experience is much more immediate and local.
Never liked flying Dalek’s. I know they can but the budget limitations meant they had to be creative and so came up with something better before flying.
I remember watching the Spender Tracy Jekyll &Hyde as a kid. The special effects were scant to say the least but Tracy overcame that with a great performance. Now with CGI we can do amazing effects but things like Alien and Event Horizon feel better because they have had to find innovative solutions.
Original Daleks couldn’t go up stairs in a house, but neither can Tanks! So they would arrive and level every city and town from orbit Land and offer a deal to the survivors, serve the Dalek’s as slaves or be hunted down and butchered by those who slave for the Dalek’s!
Brutal and effective and in keeping with those that thought them up, people who were children in WW2 who saw the Blitz who learned of the Camps and the Burma railway and built their nightmares into the ultimate ruthless enemy!
Flying looks cool but it’s no match for relentless remorseless evil!
Who seriously thinks there is a "deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders"?
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
Well, effectively it is, because that’s what we have. It might be policy to wish it were otherwise, because government can’t think of a nice way of stopping it. If we were in a tank with water levels rising, and our approach were simply to wish that it were not, I think it would be reasonable to say that there is a deliberate policy of uncontrolled flooding.
The boat crossings arent in any sense mass immigration. They are 35-40k per year, about 0.05% of our population.
The rest of immigration is not uncontrolled.
I think there is a further point here.
The boat crossings reinforce the perception of a lack of control, while historically high levels of legal migration reinforce that perception rather than challenge it.
There is also a scale issue. 40,000 people may be a tiny percentage of a country of nearly 70 million, but people don’t experience immigration at the level of the UK as a whole. They experience it locally.
A few dozen arrivals in a small town, a local hotel being used for accommodation, pressure on GP appointments, school places or housing can be highly visible even when the national numbers look insignificant.
That doesn’t mean every concern is justified, nor that every perceived impact is caused by immigration. But it does help explain why arguments based solely on national percentages often fail to persuade people whose experience is much more immediate and local.
Sure, and governments have failed to build the infrastructure the country needs for the last couple of decades.
Again, the people mostly responsible for that failure are the ex Tory retreads now claiming that only they can fix it.
Who seriously thinks there is a "deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders"?
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
Well, effectively it is, because that’s what we have. It might be policy to wish it were otherwise, because government can’t think of a nice way of stopping it. If we were in a tank with water levels rising, and our approach were simply to wish that it were not, I think it would be reasonable to say that there is a deliberate policy of uncontrolled flooding.
The boat crossings arent in any sense mass immigration. They are 35-40k per year, about 0.05% of our population.
The rest of immigration is not uncontrolled.
If you are dancing on the head of a pin about the meaning of the word ‘uncontrolled’ then, well, I suppose we should be grateful to the good burghers of Gorton and Denton.
I am not dancing on a pinhead. Merely asking for people to understand that a government that reduces immigration by 75% over two years is one which is controlling it.
The uncontrolled bit was from the politicians of Reform.
The US military is developing mini-nukes for bases, and emergencies. They are small enough to be moved by trucks, or even airplanes, and produce enough power for 1,000 average American homes, according to a TV story I saw. (I like the fact that the Army and the Navy have competing programs.)
The programs are promising the first deliveries by 2028.
Incidentally, such reactors might be a good for civilian use in parts of the Arctic. (I assume the military reasons for them are obvious.)
The US spent years and lots of money on cleaning up from their Antarctic reactor.
I asked Claude to plot the rate of defence reviews. “…crosses zero in 2045, at which point Britain achieves the Defence Review Singularity—a permanent, continuous review in which each document is superseded before publication. MoD becomes a pure review-generating organism.” https://x.com/shashj/status/2064630195789697525
(No, it’s not the Kerch Bridge, it’s the alternative route through occupied Ukraine to the North, taking out the land corridor. There’s one small bridge left to go, then everything has to go over the Kerch or by sea.)
I saw on X they have a 1.5 ton weight limit on the Kerch bridge as it clearly hasn't been repaired properly from previous attacks. Of course they could get heavier trucks over as that will be based on an estimate of how many vehicles would be on it at any one time, but it would mean banning civilian traffic and sending over carefully controlled convoys.
Crimea is rapidly becoming not a very nice place to live.
What a great plce to vacation!
Apparent;y, tourists have spent a chunk of holibobs travelling over the Kerch Bridge to go back to mainland Russia to find fuel - then driving back to Crimea with enough fuel to get back out at the end of their break.
De facto food rationing already in place in Crimea. Maybe they come back wih a car fuel of pasta...
And the answer to this "crisis" is to entrust the nations immigration policy into the hands of Jenrick and Braverman who were the Justice and Home Secretaries during the Boris wave and let in the people they are now moaning about?
Is that really the best answer? Or perhaps we could notice that immigration has falled 75% since they were last in charge with deportation of criminals up significantly?
Given he was able to fly from Paris to Dublin legally, so perhaps from Sudan to Paris legally, it will be interesting to know more about his background. Doesn't sound like a typical refugee or economic migrant posing as refugee.
He was granted refugee status quite quickly too,
The Belfast attacker flew from Paris to Dublin 10.02.2023 and travelled to Belfast where he claimed asylum, his LTR was granted 28.09.2023.
This was when Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick were Home Secretary and Immigration Minister respectively.
I didn't know this but could have guessed. Question is why didn't they feel the need to do something about it when they actually had the power? It'll be forever a mystery why and why Farage wants these skills of incompetent buffoonery in Reform.
I'm broadly happy with this, with one caveat. My child has Type 1 diabetes, and uses their phone as part of the closed loop CGM and insulin pump. We also have a "follow" app that takes data pumped to the cloud from their phone. I need to speak to the school about how this will be catered for.
They will have to give an exemption, and have probably considered the case.
If they have not done so I would be surprised, since the rough numbers (AI) are 3300+ under 18s in Scotland with Type I Diabetes, and around 80% have such a system. As a comparator there are ~2500 schools in Scotland, of which 360 are state secondaries.
I would suggest that the best prep. will be a phone call to your Specialist Nurse at the hospital clinic. They will have other children locally in the same situation, and may even have one at the same school. They will not be able to talk names for privacy reasons, but should be able to discuss how it is managed routinely.
One potential option, which I use, is that I chose to have a separate control unit - which is a previous generation locked down phone with just the diabetes pump app. I use the Omnipod 5 disposable pump system - I get a box of them delivered every three months and put a replacement on every 3 days. The old ones are returned for recycling.
Tandem T:Slim & Dexcom here, the pump itself can be used to administer bolus but children being children, mine would rather not have to get the pump out when they can put the bolus through the phone app. and we would lose the data to keep a track of their glucose levels. Yes, as you say, I would be surprised if there is no exception made. I plan to speak to the school this week.
Find out the name of the person with overall responsibility for dispensing medicines at the school first and insist on speaking to them. This may be of some help.
(No, it’s not the Kerch Bridge, it’s the alternative route through occupied Ukraine to the North, taking out the land corridor. There’s one small bridge left to go, then everything has to go over the Kerch or by sea.)
I saw on X they have a 1.5 ton weight limit on the Kerch bridge as it clearly hasn't been repaired properly from previous attacks. Of course they could get heavier trucks over as that will be based on an estimate of how many vehicles would be on it at any one time, but it would mean banning civilian traffic and sending over carefully controlled convoys.
Crimea is rapidly becoming not a very nice place to live.
Very rapidly.
Next to the Kerch Bridge there’s a ferry boat for the heavy vehicles. Last week about two dozen fuel tankers all parked right next to each other in the car park by the ferry on the Russian side.
You can guess what happened next. 💥
There’s apparently tens of thousands of stranded Russian tourists there, who can’t get fuel for their cars. It’s only a matter of time until the food runs out.
Reform extend their voting intention lead to 10pts this week, with Labour and the Tories tied for second place.
➡️ REF UK 30% (+1) 🌹 LAB 20% (-2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 11% (+1) ❓OTH 3% (+1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,087 | Fieldwork 5-9/6 | Changes w/ 1/6
Looks like Labour will need that Burnham bounce, assuming he wins Makerfield and becomes their leader
The news has all been very Reform friendly over the last week. Harry Nowak, Northern Ireland (a bit late, I guess) and terrible immigration figures of net 100,000 p a if immigration is your thang.
In real world terms the number of immigrants in the UK is still increasing.
Until the number of immigrants in the UK starts to decrease (which requires negative net migration) then this will continue to be an electoral problem for any government.
In particular until the number of the 'wrong type' of immigrants starts to decrease this will continue to be an electoral problem for the government.
Hence Rupert Lowe hopes a good Restore performance in Makerfield will build momentum for its policy of mass deportations
Fuck that.
I’m not a happy clappy open borders mass inward migration sort, unlike a few here going into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast Beheader, but people legally here with ILR already given should not be scared about what a future U.K. govt would do,to them
Fuck Restore
This is bollocks. No one has gone "into bat for the Epping sex pest and the Belfast header". The argument by myself has been people with absolutely nothing to do with the Epping sex pest or the Belfast header should not be vilified because of the colour of their skin. The criminals deserve to be dealt according to the law. People like Elon Musk get a white supremacist political lift from racially charged political unrest. Why was he and his fans not demanding civil unrest in Cambridge when this happened?
I bet you didn't see that on an Elon Musk X post or a Reform poster.
‘Beheader’ not ‘header’. I chose the word for its alliterative qualities.
Check the posts last October. Especially from our Rog. He was simply making small talk and a lewd joke. But a couple of others too minimised it as well.
You know perfectly well that autocorrect has corrected that for me. It has been correcting Couzens to Cousins all morning too. My bad I should have checked before posting.
So you have given me a good slap for an autocorrect error but you haven't commented on the unacceptable double standard I have highlighted. Like I said murder is murder. Digwa and Chas Corrigan are both murdering bastards. Nigel Farage commented on just the one.
There were 522 homicide victims in England and Wales in the year to March 2025, which is the lowest figure since 2015, and the lowest rate since 1977. There is no broader crisis here. There is no evidence that immigration has led to a problem on those numbers. Every one of those deaths is a tragedy, but we should be celebrating that the numbers are so low.
Most murderers are white, most are British born. But if only the murders committed by immigrants or non-white people get highlighted and spread all over social media by bots, it’s no surprise that people get the wrong impression. This is what Farage/Lowe/Musk/Tommy do. Selectively report, knowing most people never look at the denominator, never look at the full picture.
In a majority white country the majority of murderers being white is hardly a shock.
Indeed. So why do we always seem to be talking about murders by non-white people? Because the populist right pick individual cases out of context to spread an erroneous narrative.
Analyses looking at available data show that immigrants commit about the same amount of crime or less crime than native born people.
There is a difference though. You might have children living with you, one of them eats you out of house and home, breaks things, leaves a mess everywhere, doesn’t flush, doesn’t contribute with chores or financially but they are your child and you sort of have to accept it. Then someone invites themself to stay with you and behaves in the same way - you don’t have to accept it like with your child, you ask them/tell them to leave.
We can’t do anything about the shitbags who are British nationals who murder etc but understandably people will ask why we have to add extra shitbags if there is a way we can avoid it.
The trouble is that it is very difficult to know in advance who is going to contribute usefully to society and who is going to be a criminal. Add to that the fact that criminal behaviour is much more obvious than good behaviour. For example, in just the last few weeks I have seen and been very well looked after by a doctor and a dentist of non-British heritage and today have my car serviced by another person of non-British heritage. All of these people are quietly supporting our society, but that never grabs the headlines.
The danger of a populist closure of the border is that you exclude the good with the bad. On the plus side, you avoid a few high-profile murders; on the minus side you damage our economy and likely end up shorting all of our lives due to less availability of care, etc.
It's the "M&Ms" argument advanced by Donald Trump Jnr. If you can't guarantee there isn't a poisonous one in the packet you don't open it. It views a country as the personal property of its 'proper' native born population. From this comes conflation of nationality and ethnicity, notions of us v them, and a hierarchy of belonging. It's a dangerous path to go down. Let's not.
During the Holyrood election one comment made to me that I like was;
“Scotland hasn’t had a small boat problem for a thousand years and that was the Vikings!”
People do experience it locally, but because it sells papers and papers print to suit the feelings and indeed fears of their readers and sensationalise, what is tailored to the demographic few 100k who buy papers, gets to be the main topic on the main news and the narrative fed to the national.
Yesterday we saw an almost unprecedented cross part show of unity in NI with a call for calm and this morning virtually every papers front page had a picture of the attack and the fact that he was an asylum seeker.
In every newspaper they chose what would sell most not what was those who feared violence had called for.
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cnv9j7zdvz8t
Yes, as you say, I would be surprised if there is no exception made. I plan to speak to the school this week.
Henry Nowak protesters jailed for throwing objects at Southampton disorder
They look exactly as I'd expect. They probably beat up women after England lose too.
When was the last time you were in NI?
We can’t do anything about the shitbags who are British nationals who murder etc but understandably people will ask why we have to add extra shitbags if there is a way we can avoid it.
I bet he wishes he'd thought about that last week.
Another bidder, France's EDF, claimed that it would be impossible to build reactors in Europe at the cost that KHNP bid, unless there were illegal state (Korean) aid.
In addition to a lower cost bid, KHNP offered the Czech's a guarantee that the construction would not be delayed or become more expensive.
The truth, that the French can't accept, is that the Koreans are just better at building nuclear plants, as their record shows. They likely benefitted from the experience they got from building four reactors in the UAE..
https://x.com/HopfJames/status/2064369846616522867
Often they would opt to Home Educate for that reason.
An internet associate, called Jackie Jacombs, used to coordinate an advocacy group called Children with Diabetes, and they have done a huge amount to achieve that. Pumps are a godsend, especially closed-loop pumps. Most diabetes activists have either suddenly had someone in their circle diagnosed, or are some sort of professional concerned, such as a teacher or a nurse.
Here she is being interviewed in 2009:
The survey found that 70% of primary schools with diabetic children require parents to come in and inject them with insulin if the children are too young to do so themselves. Only 16% of schools are willing to give medications and have a policy on drug administration. "This situation is outrageous," says Jackie Jacombs, chair of the UK Children With Diabetes advocacy group. "Not only can the caring parent often not work, but children are denied access to snacks, vital for their health, during lessons and kept out of class unnecessarily."
(There were also examples of good practice).
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/feb/17/diabetes-children
Can someone remind the twit
Yesterday, I visited Hawaii, Alaska, the Grand Canyon, southwestern Texas, the National Mall, and Acadia, thanks to a discovery I made recently*.
Two highlights on my visits: An erupting volcano in Hawaii, and visibility of almost 160 miles at the Grand Canyon.
Turns out there is a network of air quality webcams in our national parks. This map will take you to them: https://www.nps.gov/subjects/air/webcams.htm?site=noca?4403124
The sites have links to other webcams in the parks, including ones that ocasionally show some of the denizens and, in decent weather, show some of the visitors. For example, if the weather forecasters are right, Mt. Rainier is likely to be crowded during the next few days.
https://wnpf.org/our-priorities/parks-we-support/park-webcams/
(*The discovery was accidental; I was looking at Washington state national park sites, clicked on the one for the North Cascades (Newhalem), and saw the map. I think it is the default if the webcam at a site isn't operating. It is operating today, by the way.)
I love the work Big Finish do.
McGann's contributions are amazing. The irony of his Big Finish run is not lost on me.
I was last in N Ireland… I think it was 2024, examining a PhD viva in Belfast. I work regularly with a colleague from there, but usually on Teams. Likewise, it was Teams that took me to a meeting in Galway on Monday.
False allegation prompted police to handcuff shop worker, Sir Malcolm Walker claims
Lily Shanagher"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06/07/police-treated-racism-claim-more-seriously-than-violence
What Tories did spend is so delayed it's either obsolete or crap.
A staggering legacy
Fortunately for us, I could WFH and lived very close to the school.
The pump was a game changer
The thing that has weakened it is chasing a bigger and bigger calamity with every series, saving London, saving, earth, saving the solar system, then the galaxy, universe, reality!
But many of the best episodes are self contained, almost intimate, Midnight being one of my all time favourites. The same think infected the so called MCU always needing a bigger Boss to fight until all Bosses blend into one.
Focus on character and story not big bang!
As to stand alone parts of the universe I’d like to see a Dalek Invasion series. Not set on Earth, just some novel civilisation or planet being attacked overwhelmed and despite their best efforts crunched. Again focused on characters bravely battling against the inevitable.
No happy ending!
Peter.
Even a pissed England batsman would have had a field day against her half track dollies
Welfare
Defence
Immigration
All areas of absolute Tory clusterfuck especially 2020 to 2024
Welfare Tory disaster
Defence Tory disaster
Immigration Tory and Brexit disaster.
All PM had to do way lean gently lean in and straight 6 right back over her head to the desperately sad looking Tory backbenchers behind her.
"Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ
It’s not social media that’s “inflaming tensions”.
It’s not Elon Musk.
It’s not Nigel Farage.
It’s not the ‘far-right’.
It is the very deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders.
This policy has to end or it will destroy Western nations.
6:40 AM · Jun 10, 2026
·
12.1M Views"
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/2064583575530287577
This goes back again to the old chestnut about immigrants we wants (students from New Zealand/doctors from India/families from Hong Kong/engineers from America) vs immigrants we don’t (dubious asylum claimants and people landing Dover in boats).
As we know, the latter are comparatively small in number compared to the former.
But I suspect the latter are massively overrepresented in the crime stats.
If my suspicion is correct, if we compare ‘immigrants we don’t want’ to the general population in the crime stats they are vastly overrepresented.
Government has wasted tens of billions in delay and procurement incompetence. And offloaded that costs onto the consumer.
That is not a party political issue; just one of basic competence.
If there were a party whose platform was genuine pragmatism and basic competence, I'd vote for it almost every election. There isn't.
The programs are promising the first deliveries by 2028.
Incidentally, such reactors might be a good for civilian use in parts of the Arctic. (I assume the military reasons for them are obvious.)
I asked the Department for Transport (DFT) for the number of road traffic incidents where the driver had a non-UK licence. I know they collect this data, because police fill it in on a form. But when I asked for the data they said they don’t collate it... DFT’s lack of interest in their own data is not unique. In fact it’s the norm at every stage of the criminal justice system... Data on arrests by nationality and immigration status (e.g. were they here illegally, an asylum seeker, on ILR, or a British Citizen) are not centrally collected. This is despite the fact that many forces do collect the data in one way or another... The MOJ doesn’t publish data on prosecutions or convictions by nationality or immigration status. Again, this refusal to publish the data is despite the fact that it is being collected.... The MOJ does publish a breakdown of prisoners by nationality. But they won’t provide a breakdown by immigration status - so you can’t find out how many of them were in the UK illegally when they offended, or whether they were asylum seekers or on a visa or ILR... And I don’t think country of birth is published for any of this data - so if you have moved here and got citizenship you will show up as a UK national in the FOI data above. Even back in 2021 there were 4.3m people in England and Wales born abroad who had British passports, and another half a million got citizenship since then, so the all-in, long-run impact of migration is understated in the data.
Anyone on here? Do you @Andy_JS, whom I have always taken to be a serious and considered contributor?
You may think, as I do, that the policy is underfunded and poorly implemented with leaky borders. You may further think the policy is too lax, etc.
But a deliberate policy of mass uncontrolled immigration & open borders? Really?
Goes from Middlesbrough to Calais, to Paris, to Istanbul and to Kurdish Iraq. One of those things that really makes the TV tax worth it.
Two other things; it is not plausible to “smash the gangs” as Starmer asserts without speeding up and improving international coordination between the police forces. Secondly, UK is magnetic for a number of reasons (including language, existing communities) but the inability to police illegal work seems to be a big draw.
Burnham or Strreting v Cleverly or David Davis would be box office in comparison.
She's lucky she's not got Dennis Skinner sat in his old seat
The Diabetes UK page is here:
https://www.diabetes.org.uk/support-us/diabetes-week
Their slogan this year is "Strike out Stigma", which is about people with diabetes not being embarrassed or ashamed to be diabetic, and confident in having a view of themselves as being as valuable as everyone else. The survey demonstrated quite a high experience of it.
In practice for me that was around a decision to inject in public as a matter of course almost from Day 1, and not allowing anyone to question the acceptability of the practice, and creating an expectation that were any adjustments required, they would be done as a matter of course. Having role models around like Steve Redgrave, Theresa May and the very memorable Speaker who's name I have forgotten helps, but it is really about self-acceptance and self-confidence.
Interestingly, I have only once been challenged about taking an injection in public, in a total of ~60k jabs, and that was at a hotel bar where I had ordered a drink, in Melbourne, Derbyshire.
If we were in a tank with water levels rising, and our approach were simply to wish that it were not, I think it would be reasonable to say that there is a deliberate policy of uncontrolled flooding.
Is that really the best answer? Or perhaps we could notice that immigration has falled 75% since they were last in charge with deportation of criminals up significantly?
Why do none of the facts matter?
What we can reasonably expect is for the government to be constantly reviewing how successful checks are, and tightening where necessary, and maybe excluding some categories of people (single young men, for example). Equally, we as a society have to recognise that however good our processes, some shitbags will end up here regardless. Any politician who singles out immigrant shitbags out of context over the home-grown ones deserves utter contempt for adding to the problem rather than solving it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM4LkaXwGuY
https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/2064645197951050183 https://x.com/warmonitor3/status/2064634279305281644
(No, it’s not the Kerch Bridge, it’s the alternative route through occupied Ukraine to the North, taking out the land corridor. There’s one small bridge left to go, then everything has to go over the Kerch or by sea.)
Boris didn’t do detail he did performance.
The Boris wave was a consequence of his slab dash slogan using style rather than a deliberate policy. Much like Trump with Iran they just don’t think things through.
A lot of what went wrong from start to finish with Brexit was a lack of a realistic well thought through plan.
Peter.
As it turned out, whilst the public didn't trust Labour (33% GE) it split the right vote with Reform coming through.
Make of it what you will.
The danger of a populist closure of the border is that you exclude the good with the bad. On the plus side, you avoid a few high-profile murders; on the minus side you damage our economy and likely end up shorting all of our lives due to less availability of care, etc.
The rest of immigration is not uncontrolled.
It needs a break, and in having one they can fix it.
New BBC management decided to resurrect Who in 2028. Cast someone interesting as the Doctor and simply discontinue the RTD2/Disney shit. Start again. Hell, have the new Doctor regenerate from Tennant again. Or from Jo Martin. Whatever, as long as the train backs up and erases RTD2.
Crimea is rapidly becoming not a very nice place to live.
The boat crossings reinforce the perception of a lack of control, while historically high levels of legal migration reinforce that perception rather than challenge it.
There is also a scale issue. 40,000 people may be a tiny percentage of a country of nearly 70 million, but people don’t experience immigration at the level of the UK as a whole. They experience it locally.
A few dozen arrivals in a small town, a local hotel being used for accommodation, pressure on GP appointments, school places or housing can be highly visible even when the national numbers look insignificant.
That doesn’t mean every concern is justified, nor that every perceived impact is caused by immigration. But it does help explain why arguments based solely on national percentages often fail to persuade people whose experience is much more immediate and local.
I remember watching the Spender Tracy Jekyll &Hyde as a kid. The special effects were scant to say the least but Tracy overcame that with a great performance. Now with CGI we can do amazing effects but things like Alien and Event Horizon feel better because they have had to find innovative solutions.
Original Daleks couldn’t go up stairs in a house, but neither can Tanks! So they would arrive and level every city and town from orbit Land and offer a deal to the survivors, serve the Dalek’s as slaves or be hunted down and butchered by those who slave for the Dalek’s!
Brutal and effective and in keeping with those that thought them up, people who were children in WW2 who saw the Blitz who learned of the Camps and the Burma railway and built their nightmares into the ultimate ruthless enemy!
Flying looks cool but it’s no match for relentless remorseless evil!
Peter.
Again, the people mostly responsible for that failure are the ex Tory retreads now claiming that only they can fix it.
The uncontrolled bit was from the politicians of Reform.
I asked Claude to plot the rate of defence reviews. “…crosses zero in 2045, at which point Britain achieves the Defence Review Singularity—a permanent, continuous review in which each document is superseded before publication. MoD becomes a pure review-generating organism.”
https://x.com/shashj/status/2064630195789697525
Apparent;y, tourists have spent a chunk of holibobs travelling over the Kerch Bridge to go back to mainland Russia to find fuel - then driving back to Crimea with enough fuel to get back out at the end of their break.
De facto food rationing already in place in Crimea. Maybe they come back wih a car fuel of pasta...
Facts don't matter.
https://www.prescqipp.info/media/3584/b226-medicines-in-schools-20.pdf
Next to the Kerch Bridge there’s a ferry boat for the heavy vehicles. Last week about two dozen fuel tankers all parked right next to each other in the car park by the ferry on the Russian side.
You can guess what happened next. 💥
There’s apparently tens of thousands of stranded Russian tourists there, who can’t get fuel for their cars. It’s only a matter of time until the food runs out.
Crimea River, as Justin Timberlake once sang.
“Scotland hasn’t had a small boat problem for a thousand years and that was the Vikings!”
People do experience it locally, but because it sells papers and papers print to suit the feelings and indeed fears of their readers and sensationalise, what is tailored to the demographic few 100k who buy papers, gets to be the main topic on the main news and the narrative fed to the national.
Yesterday we saw an almost unprecedented cross part show of unity in NI with a call for calm and this morning virtually every papers front page had a picture of the attack and the fact that he was an asylum seeker.
In every newspaper they chose what would sell most not what was those who feared violence had called for.
We reap what we sow!
Peter.