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We don’t just report off-beat news, breaking news and digest the best and worst of the news media analysis and commentary. We give an original take on what happened and why. We add lols, satire, news photos and original content.

Daily Mail praises Ronnie Corbett with brilliant caption error

Ronnie Corbett has died. I think he’s probably laughing at this Daily Mail caption error right now.

 

I think he's probably laughing at this caption error right now.

Posted: 31st, March 2016 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment (1)


The world’s worst airline passenger

Any question posed in a headline can be answered ‘no’. The Metro’s Toby Meyjes asks: “Is this the worst airline passenger ever.”

 

airline passenger

 

No. The person in that pictured is not even the worst airline passenger of the day. But this chap might be:

 

passenger worst

 

Previously: Entebbe, 9/11 etc…

 

Posted: 31st, March 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids | Comment


Psychoactive Substances Act could ban sugar rushes

Psychoactive drugs act

 

The ban on legal highs might be impossible. The Guardian says “the government’s blanket ban on legal highs that was due to come into effect on 6 April has been postponed for at least a month… The Psychoactive Substances Act, which has reached the statute book, has been delayed following claims that its current definition of a psychoactive substance is not enforceable by the police.”

The story goes that it’s tricky telling which substance is psychoactive. It’s not. It’s all of them. The WHO defines:

Psychoactive substances are substances that, when taken in or administered into one’s system, affect mental processes, e.g. cognition or affect. This term and its equivalent, psychotropic drug, are the most neutral and descriptive term for the whole class of substances, licit and illicit, of interest to drug policy. ‘Psychoactive’ does not necessarily imply dependence-producing, and in common parlance, the term is often left unstated, as in ‘drug use’ or ‘substance abuse’.

The paper adds:

The legislation aims to ban any substance intended for human consumption that is capable of producing a psychoactive effect, with a list of exemptions of substances in everyday use such as alcohol, nicotine and caffeine.

The exemptions might be termed as: stuff the legislators like to take.

Poppers, also known as alkyl nitrite, were excluded entirely from the legislation after the government’s advisory committee on the misuse of drugs ruled that it did not have a direct effect on the brain.

 

guardian sugar

 

A Home Office spokesperson adds:

“The landmark Psychoactive Substances Act will fundamentally change the way we tackle these drugs and put an end to unscrupulous suppliers profiting from their trade. Our message is clear: offenders will face up to seven years in prison.”

Is the profit the thing they don’t like, or is it the drugs?

Meanwhile, about that sugar tax…

Posted: 31st, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)


Former BBC Radio DJ in social media horror

Simon Bates local news

 

Local News of the Day deals with a social media nasty. The Mid Devon Gazette tells us:

Twitter profile slates BBC Radio Devon presenter and Butterleigh resident Simon Bates

Adding:

A TWITTER account calling for BBC Radio Devon’s Simon Bates to stay on holiday for good has been set up by a passionate listener. The campaign started Tweeting on Monday, March 21 and has so far attracted 11 followers…

Eleven people read the “quite scathing” tweets of the sort you can see above. What proportion of Bates’ listeners that constitutes, we ‘re not told – but let’s assume it’s all of them. After all, it’s in the papers…

 

Posted: 30th, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


‘Shocking THIGH GAP jewellery’ gives women dicks

The Mail says Soo Kyung Bae has created “shocking THIGH GAP jewellery to highlight women’s ‘unhealthy obsession’ with super-skinny legs”.

Er, no, Daily Mail. Hanging a long pendant between a woman’s legs make her and you look a like a dick.

 

dick

 

 

Looking like a dick is what happens when you get your news from the Metro. The jewellery is not real. It’s just a campaign to get people talking about ‘thigh gap’ and how bad it is to crave a different body not suited to your build. In other news, you can read in the Mail:

  • The thigh-gap workout
  • Leggy Lawrence! Jennifer showcases her lithe pins

And on it goes.

Posted: 30th, March 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids | Comment


Photo of the year: fake suicide belt hijacker poses for photos with Aberdeen man

"An Aberdeen man posed for a photo with a hijacker who used a fake suicide belt to take control of an Egyptian plane."

 

Click! Aberdeen man Ben Innes, 26, poses for a photo with a hijacker who used a fake suicide belt to take control of an Egyptian plane and hold him hostage.

An Egyptian hijacker who forced a domestic flight to land in Cyprus used a fake suicide belt, officials said.
His motives remain unclear but the Cypriot president said the incident was not terrorism-related.

Laugh, innit.

Posted: 29th, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)


Adam Johnson joins prison’s Crazy Gang

Adam-JohnsonCan we rejoice in the news that “Footie paedo Adam Johnson ‘faces bloody razor torture’ in prison showers”? The Sun has heard that prisoners want to scar Johnson, the former Sunderland and England footballer jailed for sexually abusing an underage girl .

LAGS have warned shamed footie ace Adam Johnson faces being tortured with razors in the prison showers following his child sex conviction. The paedophile, 28, is reportedly on suicide watch at HM Prison Leeds as he begins a six-year sentence for grooming and sexual activity with a 15-year-old girl.

Torture and suicide are too good for him, eh. Of course, new prisoners are routinely place on suicide watch. As for the talk of Johnson being tortured inside a British prison, well, the source is unimpeachable:

One convicted killer warned the former England star against pulling any “millionaire strops” and urged him to get out of the sex offenders’ wing as quickly as possible if he wanted to avoid serious injury.

And, presumably, seek comfort in the company of murderers, thieves and budding jihadis?

Charles — who is nearing the end of a manslaughter sentence served in some of Britain’s toughest jails — …said: “They held him down, cut him across the nips, his face, his c**k and then one of the lads stuck a blade in his a**e.”

Nothing says you’re right-minded like sticking a knife in a man’s bum. But Charles has some better news for Johnson, who, given his interest in less usual sex acts, might consider such treatment tame, on a par with the stuff meted out to new recruits by Wimbledon FC’s self-styled ‘Crazy Gang’ or enduring an hour of Jimmy Bullard-style ‘banter’. Says Charles:

“He ain’t touched a baby or a ten-year-old but the longer he stays tucked up with that kind of scum the more suspicious other prisoners will get. Get on a normal wing, talk to a couple of the faces there and show them his papers and then just get on with it.

That’ll be £65,000 for the advice, Adam.

 

Posted: 29th, March 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids | Comment


Uber driver rips off drunk driver; proves Uber is winning

uber

 

Going the pretty way, sir?

An Uber driver charged a drunk passenger £102.17 for a journey, after taking him on a 20-mile detour around London while he slept.

Daniel Kaizen ordered a minicab from Old Street to Wood Green, north London this weekend, a five-mile trip which he said he was told would cost around £15.

But the late-night detour around the capital meant that his journey took five times longer than he expected and the bill came to over £100.

Nothing new in being ripped off by a taxi driver. But the good bit is that thanks to technology the driver’s behaviour is all on record. Uber keeps on winning.

Posted: 29th, March 2016 | In: Money, Reviews | Comment


Teenage baby snatchers sentenced for Facebook plot

A shocking story on the Sun’s cover about a plot to steal a baby. Shantel Ullah, 20, says a teenager knocked on her front door posing as a social worker and tried to abduct son Dontae. Over pages 4 and 5 we read that Shantel handed the two-week-old child over but “snatched” him back when the smartly dressed teen began to act oddly.

The teenager then walked away.

We learn that the would-be kidnappers obtained Shantel’s details through a Facebook page offering new mums free baby clothes. And that the two girls age 17 and 18 have admitted “conspiring to kidnap Dontae and two other babies”. One, we learn, wanted a mixed-race bay to convince her Jamaican lover she had given birth to his son.

The pair pleaded guilty to conspiring to kidnap at Derby youth court. And they can’t be named because they are under age.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted: 28th, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


‘Chris is Risen’: Jesus is rebranded in York

chris is risen

 

Let us pray for Acomb Parish Church, in York, where “Chris is Risen”.

Says Assistant Curate Ned Lunn: “The pastor at the Baptist Church is actually called Chris. He’s got to get up for a sunrise service at 6.30am on Easter Sunday. His predecessor didn’t manage to get up for the service last year.”

Posted: 27th, March 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment


Jeremy Corbyn gets negative ‘boost’ in satisfaction ratings but Farage wins

Big news. The Indy says “Jeremy Corbyn overtakes David Cameron in leadership satisfaction ratings”. 

The Ipsos MORI poll showed Mr Corbyn up ten points and David Cameron down ten points after last week’s Budget

Corbyn is popular?

Mr Corbyn is now on net -11 while Mr Cameron is on net -25 with the pollster.

Phew! No, he’s not. Unpack your bag, Jews of Britain. Things will be ok for a while yet.

There has been speculation that Mr Corbyn’s satisfaction rating with the pollster – his highest with any firm – may also be exaggerated by Conservatives saying they are satisfied with what they perceive as his poor performance.

Who was polled?

Other pollsters ask different question formulations – including whether a leader is “doing a good job” – which would likely shed light on whether the shift represents a real move in support.

Ha!

The boost for Mr Corbyn however comes amid a number of pollsters showing Labour drawing nearly level, level, or slightly above the Tories in voting intention.

A -11 rating for an Opposition leader after a divisive budget is a ‘boost’?

The Indy does not mention that George Osborne’s satisfaction ratings equal his worst ever following the budget. And the paper completely fails to mention that Nigel Farage is the real winner:

 

farage satisfaction

 

 

Posted: 26th, March 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment


Weapon grade lunacy: Swedish women wear hijabs to show support for Islam

How can you tell everyone that after Islamists murders people in Brussels you are not a racist? Easy. You can wear a hijab:

 

swedish women hashtag hijab

 

File under: when cultural appropriation is right-on, sister.

Posted: 26th, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)


Survey news: porn users more egalitarian than porn banners

 

porn-mail

 

Porn. It’s a cancer, right? Well, news is that it might be useful:

According to radical feminist theory, pornography serves to further the subordination of women by training its users, males and females alike, to view women as little more than sex objects over whom men should have complete control. Composite variables from the General Social Survey were used to test the hypothesis that pornography users would hold attitudes that were more supportive of gender nonegalitarianism than nonusers of pornography. Results did not support hypotheses derived from radical feminist theory.

Pornography users held more egalitarian attitudes—toward women in positions of power, toward women working outside the home, and toward abortion—than nonusers of pornography. Further, pornography users and pornography nonusers did not differ significantly in their attitudes toward the traditional family and in their self-identification as feminist. The results of this study suggest that pornography use may not be associated with gender nonegalitarian attitudes in a manner that is consistent with radical feminist theory.

Masturbation on the NHS!

 

Posted: 26th, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Emory University students panic after someone writes the word “Trump” on a sidewalk

best ever donald trumpSo toxic is Donald Trump that even seeing his name reduces students to jellies. To Georgia, USA:

Emory University students say they are “in pain” and “afraid” after someone left pro-Donald Trump chalk messages on their Atlanta campus, according to the student newspaper. “I’m supposed to feel comfortable and safe” here,” The Emory Wheel quoted one unnamed student as saying. “But this man is being supported by students on our campus and our administration shows that they, by their silence, support it as well. … I don’t deserve to feel afraid at my school.”

The chalkings appeared overnight, saying “Trump 2016,” according to the newspaper. About 40 students held a protest demanding action from the administration, chanting “You are not listening! Come speak to us, we are in pain!”

That Emory comedy club. What a hoot. It is a parody, right? Wrong:

“I legitimately feared for my life,” Paula Camila Alarcon, a freshman at Emory who identifies as Latino, told The Daily Beast. “I thought we were having a KKK rally on campus. It was deliberate intimidation. Some of us were expecting shootings. We feared walking alone,” freshman Jonathan Peraza added.

Grab the safe space mop and bucket:

College president Jim Wagner met with the students, who expressed anxiety that the writings were threats to their safety rather than political speech, considering Georgia’s Republican primary was held earlier this month.

“The students shared with me their concern that these messages were meant to intimidate rather than merely to advocate for a particular candidate, having appeared outside of the context of a Georgia election or campus campaign activity,” Wagner wrote in a university-wide email Tuesday. “During our conversation, they voiced their genuine concern and pain in the face of this perceived intimidation.”

Jim Wagner might be beyond parody. How the hell did he get a job in education?

Posted: 26th, March 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)


Dear Jamie Oliver, please help us ban apples and pears

Sugar is bad for you. It must be taxed. In the eyes of Jamie Oliver and anyone who listens to him, tax is a way to punish people. So the price has been raised. Now, let’s ban fruit:

A banana contains four teaspoons of sugar!

An apple contains five teaspoons of sugar!

An pear contains four and a half teaspoons of sugar!

A bunch of grapes contains five teaspoons of sugar!

A slice of watermelon contains four and half teaspoons of sugar!

An orange contains four teaspoons of sugar!

The NHS says “Children should have no more than 19g of sugar a day.” But they should also eat five pieces of fruit a day, including fruit juices.

 

 

Posted: 26th, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Matthew Doye: locked away in the Met’s trawl for Islamophobia

tweet matthew doyle

 

This week the Metropolitan Police arrested Matthew Doyle for tweeting: “I confronted a Muslim woman yesterday in Croydon. I asked her to explain Brussels. She said ‘Nothing to do with me’. A mealy mouthed reply.”

When I read that I saw irony, a lampooning of the berks who seek to blame an entire race or religion for the actions of a few. Did the confrontation actually happen? If it did, it would take an utter pillock to then boast about it on twitter? It must be a parody, a neat skewering of fools?

The police saw the tweet as an example of alleged hate speech, nicking Doyle on suspicion of “inciting racial hatred”. The police then locked him up, removing the tweeter from his keyboard for the good of society.

Good? Surely not.

Doyle deleted his comment, but not before it had been retweeted, held aloft by the right-reminded as an example of Islamophobia and used to advertise the Met’s anti-racism credentials.

 

Screen Shot 2016-03-25 at 09.04.51

 

As his name rode high on the news cycle, we got to know more about Mr Doyle. He works in PR – something that recalls the joke about Max Clifford: “If he’s so good at PR, why does everyone think he’s a cunt?” Other comments on his twitter feed have been broadcast in the media. He appears to very much an irony-free idiot, a pillock’s pillock. The HuffPost featured more from his social media feeds:

Screen Shot 2016-03-25 at 09.14.42

 

Screen Shot 2016-03-25 at 09.28.28

 

Doyle was ridiculed:

 

Matthew Doyle

Screen Shot 2016-03-25 at 09.02.49Screen Shot 2016-03-25 at 09.02.20

 

Isn’t it enough that we know of Matthew Doyle and his talents in PR? He might win the EDL contract, but it’s unlikely any other outfit will be hiring him. But to make his stupidity a crime is bizarre. Are we so divided, fearful and weak that an idiot’s idiotic tweet constitutes a criminal offence? The answer is yes. And that’s depressing.

Posted: 25th, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)


Women have higher IQs than men, even the dyed blondes

dumb blondeAccording to the elitists at Mensa, the average IQ is taken as 100. Mindful of that, we read the Mail’s report on blondes:

They’re not ‘dumb blondes’ after all: Women with the natural hair colour are MORE intelligent than brunettes and redheads

The study showed that blonde-haired women had an average IQ of 103.2

This was compared to 102.7 for brunettes and 101.2 for those with red hair

Which means that everyone tested was above average. Which implies, surely, that women have higher IQs than men – unless the grey-heads are all thick.

 

Posted: 23rd, March 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids | Comment


Daily Star replaces ‘banned’ Easter eggs with chocolate balls

easter egg banBig news in the Daily Star.

PC Chocolate makers ban ’Easter’ from eggs. CHOCOLATE firms have banned the word “Easter” from their eggs to avoid offending non-Christians…

Really? Are Rastafarians that upset by ‘Easter’?

Cadbury is now selling a Dairy Milk “Egg Hunt Pack” while Nestlé advertises Aero’s “chocolate egg with bubbly bars”.

No mention of the word Easter on either of those treats.

Sainsbury’s has also joined the political correctness trend by selling its own brand “milk chocolate egg”. The E-word is apparently so offensive…

The E-word. We get the F-word, the N-word and the C-word, but the E-word is a new one. One day ever letter will get its own taboo word.

This prompted “angry and frustrated” campaigner David Marshall to set up the Meaningful Chocolate Company, in which his Fairtrade charity “Real Easter Egg” puts the religious message on to the packaging.

As epithets go “angry and frustrated” is pretty good. But does the anger create good eggs? Is anger and frustration what Jesus would have wanted? Says Mr Marshall:

“It’s deeply disappointing and shameful that some of the biggest companies in the country are censoring the centuries’ old tradition. It shows they’re insensitive and uncomfortable with the Christian faith.”

Deep into the story we hear from Nestlé, whose spokeswoman “argued”:

“There has been no deliberate decision to drop the word Easter from our products.”

A Cadbury spokeswoman “stressed”:

“We do not have a policy to drop Easter from our eggs.”

So, no policy to remove the word Easter from eggs, then.

On the Sainsbury’s website, the products desription for the Cadbury’s eggs tells us:

Easter egg trail pack. This fun Easter egg hunt pack contains 10 Cadbury milk chocolate hollow eggs and a bag of treatsize Mini Eggs as the main prize

On the Cadbury’s website, we get:

 

easter egg  cadbury

 

Such are the facts.

Posted: 23rd, March 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids | Comment


Rob Ford: I couldn’t remember taking drugs because I was drunk

rob ford rip

 

Rob Ford, the former mayor of Toronto, has died. He was just 46. In his obituary, CBC includes this:

Ford staunchly denied that he smoked crack and questioned the existence of the footage, which prompted Gawker to begin a crowd-funding campaign to buy the video. The story not only made Ford an international celebrity and the object of mockery on late-night talk shows, but it also triggered a criminal investigation, which eventually led police to acquire a copy of the video. After months of denying he was in the video, Ford confessed in November 2013 to having smoked crack, adding that it had likely occurred during one of his “drunken stupors.”

He wasn’t wrong. It’s just that he couldn’t remember taking drugs because he was drunk.

Posted: 22nd, March 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment


PJS and YMA gag tabloids over ‘open relationship’

This is an odd one. The Telegraph writes:

The Court of Appeal has allowed a well-known entertainer to keep his extra-marital “threesome” secret in a move which heralds the return of the court injunction.

Are all three parties gagged?

Judges said the man, who can only be named by the initials PJS, was entitled to secure a legal ban on a tabloid newspaper which wanted to report the “open relationship” enjoyed by him and his wife, known as YMA.

As we wonder if PJS wear pjs in bed and ho anyone can be married to Yamaha Motor’s Australia, you also wonder how something open can remain closed?

Posted: 22nd, March 2016 | In: Celebrities, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment (1)


Gawker get body slammed by Hogan sex tape judgement

hulk-hogan-tattooTrying times at Gawker media:

These damages come on top of the $115m already awarded to Hogan last week which concluded a nearly two-week trial in St Petersburg, Florida. There, jurors heard how Hogan, 62, had not been contacted by the website before it posted a nine-second video clip of the wrestler having sex with the wife of his friend, DJ Bubba “The Love Sponge” Clem. Hogan has said he didn’t know he was being taped.

Gawker Media itself was hit with a $15m judgment, while its owner, Nick Denton, was personally ordered to pay $10m in damages.

Ouch. That’s one pricey / lucrative shag.

Turkel said Gawker Media’s gross revenues in 2015 were $48.7m and that founder Nick Denton has a total of $121m, including a $3.6m Manhattan condo. Gawker Media is worth $83m, the lawyers said.

How much of that $121m is tired up in Gawker stock? And with this hanging over the company, isn’t that same stock now worth a whole lot less?

Posted: 22nd, March 2016 | In: Money, Reviews | Comment


Jeremy Corbyn’s aide calls for an army of tea-drinking surrender monkeys

tea corbyn

 

As the Tories row over Brexit and disability payments, the Labour party obliterates casus belli, picks up the one working gun in the British Army and aims at its feet.

Britain would be safer if its defence policy was to have “cups of tea” with Isil terrorists rather than bomb them, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s key allies on Labour’s ruling body has said. Christine Shawcroft, who sits on the party’s National Executive Committee and is a senior figure in Momentum, said that soldiers should “get the teabags out” to solve the Syrian crisis rather than resorting to air strikes.

Mugs away!

She warned that media stories about Mr Corbyn’s non-interventionism were having a negative impact and imagined a voter saying: “That Jeremy Corbyn you know, faced with terrorists he’d sit down and have a cup of tea with them or something.”

Does Hamas break for teatime?

Ms Shawcroft went on: “Now I mean, you know, maybe we should try it! Bombing them and attacking them has got us nowhere, why don’t we get the teabags out?

You know I did read a while ago about when the EDL were going round picketing outside mosques… One particular mosque in the Midlands somewhere just opened the doors and said would you like to come in for a cup of tea? And they went in for a cup of tea and now they’re friends with the EDL. Straight away the EDL are now like oh, well actually these people are not the monsters you know that we’re being told all this time, they’re actually human beings that you can sit down and have a cup of tea with.”

Proper English tea grown in Yorkshire, we’ll bet. None of that foreign muck.

“So you know I think we should bear in mind that having cups of tea might actually be the best kind of system of defence and national security that you could have, but there we are.”

Chimpanzees and scalding hot water might hold them off for a while. But will they stand a chance against Isil’s Rich Tea biscuit tanks? Those things can absorb a tea bombardment.

 

Posted: 21st, March 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)


February was the warmest month ever, so they say

warmest february ever

 

Big news in the Guardian: “February was the warmest month in recorded history, climate experts say.”

Brr! It was cold in the northern hemisphere. And can you balance things out so easily?

 

Posted: 21st, March 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Madeleine McCann and Ben Needham get the cash; Charlene Downes is an afterthought

ben needhamMadeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child.

The Sun has a loaded headline:

Joy for Ben Needham’s mum as cops given extra £450k to find missing son – while Maddie hunt totals £11M

Are the two cases of British children who vanished on overseas trips connected? Why else would Madeleine McCann’s name be invoked in a headline about Ben Needham?

SOUTH Yorkshire Police have been given an extra £450,000 to find missing Ben Needham as the 25th anniversary of his disappearance draws near. Police were granted £700k by the Home Office last January for more resources into the investigation, but that money will have run out by the end of the month.

Good news. The disappearance of Ben Needham is an open sore. But then this:

The amount given to Operation Ben still pales in significance compare to the £11 million spent on Madeleine McCann’s search fund.

A great deal of money has been invested / spent on the hunt for Madeleine McCann. Good. Let’s hope we get to know what happened to her. The problem is not what is spent, rather what is not. Do you think it unfair that the case of one missing child gets more public cash than another because, like the media and police who stand accused of picking blondes over blacks and rich over poor, there is bias at work?

If you want to compare what is spent on what, it might be better wondering how much has been spent on the hunt for other children who vanished in the UK, like, say Charlene Downes? She disappeared 12 years ago from her home in Blackpool, Lancashire, when aged 14.  There is a £100,000 reward on offer for information leading to, well, something. Was she murdered, as Paige Chivers was? Paige went missing from her Blackpool home on 23 August 2007. She was 15. Three days later her feckless father reported her missing. The police operator recorded the year of Paige’s birth incorrectly – as 1962 not 1992 – and that she had left home voluntarily. Police were looking for a 45-year-old woman who had left home of her own accord. On 7 September the error was rectified.

Paige had sought help from Robert Ewing, 37 years her senior. Ewing, a known paedophile, had groomed Paige for sex. To keep her quiet, he murdered her. In July 2015, Ewing was convicted of murder at Preston Crown Court. His co-defendant, Gareth Dewhurst, 46, was convicted of disposing of her body three days later.

How much cash was spent investigating the disappearances of these two girls from impoverished backgrounds? How much police work has gone into either investigation?

The BBC provides notes:

Less than a fortnight before her disappearance, Ewing “tested the water” with police when he contacted them anonymously and said a “problem child” had turned up on his doorstep after being thrown out by her father. The prosecution said Ewing had wanted to see what official reaction there would be to a 15-year-old girl turning up on the doorstep of a 52-year-old man. “The answer he learned… was very little,” said Brian Cummings QC.

Back to the Sun’s story of stolen lives and money:

But it is still a promising step for Ben’s heartbroken mum Kerry Needham, as the government agreed to hand over more cash to find her long-lost son. Kerry said: “Please end the pain my family are suffering. I know he’s out there somewhere, please call the detectives and put an end to it.”

Ben was 21-months-old when he disappeared on July 24 1991 as he played outside the house his grandparents’ farmhouse in Kos.

Resources are finite, of course. But where police chose to spend their money and time should not be a decision triggered by media pressure.

Posted: 20th, March 2016 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comments (2)


London mayor candidate Zac Goldsmith pits Hindu against Muslim in a hideous flyer

Zac Goldsmith, your Tory candidate for London mayor, woos the anglo-Indian vote with his flyer.

 

zac goldsmith flyer mayor

 

If you find that hideous – the idea that people only vote for a candidate from within ‘their own community’ – then we’re in agreement.

In any case, this divisive approach to politics doesn’t work. We, for instance, know a number of white, prep-school-educated Islington-immigrants who think a vote for Jeremy Corbyn (one of their own) less attractive a prospect than being tied to a radiator and forced to drink Terry Waite’s urine.

Posted: 19th, March 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment