226 Responses to Midweek 26th August 2026

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  1. Fedup2 says:
    August 27, 2026 at 1:23 pm

    BBC in full natural disaster mode –

    The usual ritual – unknown cause – therefore blame green crap – why wasn’t it stopped ? What’s happened to the British tourists ? How much uk taxpayers ‘ cash being given ? Why is response so slow -? Will it happen again ? Ditto above – repeat for the next one …
    Meanwhile ONS Stats say 1 million yoof are unemployed – best not bother with that .., it’s boring … right BBC ?

       2 likes

  2. Fedup2 says:
    August 27, 2026 at 1:33 pm

    Head of British Gas says there’s no / little reserves for the coming winter … and too dependent on foreign imports – but dont worrry – bodybags will come to the rescue …

    I just don’t get how basic needs are not governed properly ….

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  3. tomo says:
    August 27, 2026 at 1:45 pm

    UK-school.jpg

    https://x.com/DearRebelAda/status/2092620040445018275

    Worth a scan of the replies

    Trying to bring in selective blasphemy laws too – screeching for tolerance until the pottier ROP crazies / adherents sense that they’ve the upper hand.

       2 likes

  4. Fedup2 says:
    August 27, 2026 at 1:53 pm

    Michael Howard writing in the telegraph about BBC Bias

    STARTS Most of the criticisms of the bias of the BBC tend to focus on examples of explicit bias, actual or perceived, on issues of party politics on the news programmes such as Today or Newsnight.

    Less attention is given to other programmes which, more insidiously, seek to influence the attitude of viewers or listeners on issues which may not seem to be, and are sometimes not, directly related to party politics – but nevertheless form part of people’s general opinions which, in turn, feed into their politics.

    One example is a recent series of programmes on BBC Radio Four devoted to the proposition that it is morally wrong to want to bequeath any money to your children.

    Another, which is what prompted this article, is a current series, also on Radio Four, about falling crime. This programme, presented by Mark Easton, sets out to prove that the fall in crime which has been happening over the last 30 years has nothing to do with the increase in the prison population or the number of police officers.

    It proclaims its dedication to honesty yet includes misrepresentations of me and other politicians to which we have been given no opportunity to respond.

    Here is what actually happened. The fall in crime, according to the British Crime Survey, began in 1995 though the recorded crime figures had begun to show a fall slightly earlier. I was home secretary at the time.

    When I was appointed by John Major, who is also criticised in the programme, I was told by Home Office officials that crime, which had been rising for the previous 50 years, was bound to continue to rise and that there was nothing I could do about it.

    My job, they said, was to manage public expectations in the light of this inevitable increase. I didn’t take this advice. Instead I put in place a number of measures which I hoped would reverse this trend. But I wasn’t confident I could do it.

    In my first debate in the House of Commons as home secretary, I was asked by Tony Blair, then my shadow, whether I would accept as the indicator of my success, whether crime would rise or fall. To my regret I dodged the question but, when I left office in 1997, nearly a million fewer crimes were committed annually than when that debate took place in 1993.

    What were the measures I put in place? First, I introduced a widespread use of CCTV cameras, which had led to a fall in crime in Northumbria where they had been introduced by John Stevens, its chief constable and later commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.

    This had the effect both of deterring criminals from committing crimes knowing they would be caught on camera, and making it easier to apprehend those who were not deterred.

    Then I established the first national DNA database in the world, building on, but going further than, the recommendations of a recent report from a Royal Commission. This made it easier for the police to track down those responsible for the most serious crimes, including murder and rape.

    I also changed the so-called right of silence, not abolishing it but making it possible for the silence of an accused in response to questioning to be referred to at any subsequent trial and taken into account in the verdict of the jury.

    Previously a burglar could, for example, claim at his trial that the house he had entered was, he thought, the house of his brother in law and no one was allowed to ask him why he hadn’t said so at the time. As many police officers told me, this change significantly increased the number of criminals who pleaded guilty rather than contesting their trial.

    And, of course, I made a 1993 speech in which I said “prison works”. By this I meant that if serious, prolific and persistent criminals were in prison the public would be protected from them – a proposition that is impossible to refute.

    And, far from releasing prisoners early, I was able to end the humiliating practice of slopping out, which had been a blot on our prison system for so long and which continued in Scotland for some time thereafter.

    It is sadly true that imprisonment is not the key to rehabilitation, a defect it shares with other sentences, but that key has proved frustratingly elusive despite the well-meaning efforts of so many to find it.

    The changes I made were vehemently opposed by the civil liberties lobby, which was given extensive media coverage by Mark Easton and his colleagues. Could this have something to do with their resolute refusal, even today, to admit that these changes might, just possibly, have something to do with the fall in crime?

    None of them, apart from the rise in imprisonment, have been so far mentioned by Mr Easton in his programmes. Yet they have all remained in place for more than 30 years regardless of the political party of my successors in that office.

    Had I been given the opportunity to reply to Mr Easton’s criticisms, I would have been able to mention these reforms. And the failure to offer me that opportunity is surely a breach of the BBC’s own guidelines.

    Is there any wonder that so many people have lost faith in the BBC’s ability to provide balanced coverage of the issues which are of such concern to the public?ENDS

    Obviously Lord Howard is deluded about le dos of crime – ie – whether people bother reporting it any more – but it will be good to hear a response from the likes of comrade Easton ….

       1 likes

  5. tomo says:
    August 27, 2026 at 1:59 pm

       1 likes

  6. tomo says:
    August 27, 2026 at 2:00 pm

    We have to remove these fuckwits

       2 likes

    • MarkyMark says:
      August 27, 2026 at 2:04 pm

      She did this by going on holiday to France – she must weep and repent daily.

         1 likes

      • tomo says:
        August 27, 2026 at 2:19 pm

        She got dumped by the voters of Leicester and actually writes for The Morning Star…

           1 likes

        • MarkyMark says:
          August 27, 2026 at 2:23 pm

          Trade Unionist| Socialist| Feminist| Pan-African

          2.7K liked!

          “Claudia Webbe
          @ClaudiaWebbe
          Previously Independent UK Member of Parliament (MP) Leicester East 2019-2024| Patron @STWuk| Trade Unionist| Socialist| Feminist| Pan-African
          Leicester, England
          linktr.ee/claudiawebbe
          Joined June 2009
          11.1k
          Following
          122.2k
          Followers”

             0 likes

  7. MarkyMark says:
    August 27, 2026 at 2:06 pm

    “The report also called for research into why a significant number of perpetrators of child grooming are of “Pakistani and/or Muslim heritage”.[4] A Home Office report published in December 2020 concluded that existing evidence did not prove a link between ethnicity and grooming gangs.”
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_child_sex_abuse_ring

       0 likes

  8. MarkyMark says:
    August 27, 2026 at 2:06 pm

    John Healy did such a bad job he now works at Sainsbury’s – ha hah ah

    “There was a girl in Rotherham. Twelve when the first man raped her. Fourteen when social services pulled her from school and called it “consensual.” She was doused in petrol and told to burn if she talked.

    She was one of 1,400.

    Between 1997 and 2013, while the Alexis Jay Report later confirmed industrial-scale child sexual exploitation in Rotherham Metropolitan Borough, John Healey sat in Parliament representing that same borough. Twenty-nine years. Three constituencies. Same streets. Same schools. Same suffering.”
    https://x.com/InTheTrenchesUK/status/2092548726535356438

    …………………..

    In 2015, three Rotherham Labour MPs, Kevin Barron, Sarah Champion and Healey, started a defamation legal action against UKIP MEP Jane Collins after Collins falsely alleged in a UKIP conference speech that the three MPs knew about child exploitation in Rotherham but did not intervene. In February 2017, the MPs were awarded £54,000 each in damages.[19]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Healey

    three MPs knew about child exploitation in Rotherham but did not intervene. In February 2017, the MPs were awarded £54,000 each in damages

       1 likes

  9. tomo says:
    August 27, 2026 at 2:14 pm

    People across the UK can now sign up for Government phone alerts by SMS or email when local pollution levels are forecast to be high.

    PRasNews https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/national/uk-today/26500110.government-launches-new-opt-in-phone-alert-service-across-uk/

    Chris Whitty , Angela Eagle and The Press Association still dancing on the coffin of Ella Adoo-Kissy-Debrah

       1 likes

    • MarkyMark says:
      August 27, 2026 at 2:18 pm

      “SMS or email when local pollution levels are forecast to be high.” AND DO WHAT?

      The “Nudge Unit,” officially named the Behavioural Insights Team, is a UK-born global organization that uses psychology and behavioral economics to improve public policy. Created in 2010 inside No. 10 Downing Street, it designs subtle, low-cost changes—like reminder texts for taxes—to help people make better choices without force.

         1 likes

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