WTF is going on now
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c65y7nl29k0et
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HebrideanUltraTerfHecate
@HebrideanHecate@spinster.xyz
pleroma 2.6.50-969-gdcf4b774.main+soapbox59 year old Hebridean Rad, walked this path since I was 13, you won't get me off it now! Has passion for unsuitable swishy coats, poetry and books, lots and lots of books, and cats, musn't forget the cats. Is known as Esme Weatherwax for a reason.
Creag an Sgairbh
Virescit Vulnere Virtus
Creag an Sgairbh
Virescit Vulnere Virtus
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm207eze5wwko 🤬
A care home worker who was secretly filmed causing distress to an 81-year-old resident with dementia faces being struck off.
A Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) panel has found eight allegations against Amina Sani proven, including that she threatened to call the police after the man became distressed at the prospect of being showered against his will. Sani denied the allegations, claiming she had not been trained properly and was inexperienced due to it being her first job in the UK. The incidents at Castlehill Care Home in Inverness last year were filmed by the man's daughter and later featured in a BBC documentary.
In a statement, the home's owner, Morar Living, said it acted promptly when concerns were brought to its attention. It said there was "no truth" in Sani's claim she was not trained properly. Among the allegations the panel found proven was that Sani told the man: "We will call the police and they will take you to court" or words to that effect. It also found Sani allowed a male cleaner to hold the resident's arms down and restrain him while she carried out intimate personal care on 10 April last year. A second carer, Oluwabunmi Salami, admitted allegations that she raised and lowered the resident's bed without warning, causing him distress earlier in the hearing.
Christie told the hearing she installed the camera after becoming concerned about her father's care. She said: "I had numerous concerns regarding his care. I'd had four complaints upheld by the Care Inspectorate already. "The biggest concern was neglect. He was smelly, he was dirty."
Replying to
@carolen@spinster.xyz These judges are complicit.
Replying to
@flick@spinster.club @Yonic@spinster.club I see. Often wondered about it.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/09/23/the-converse-lynching-hysteria-proves-woke-never-went-away/
That one still image was all it took to prompt an online meltdown that dominated trending discourse across TikTok and other social-media platforms. ‘This is a white-supremacy dog whistle’, one deranged woman declared to her millions of viewers on TikTok. ‘This is a KKK, white-supremacy, lynching dog whistle. These companies… have been putting out white-supremacy dog whistles since the beginning of [the Trump] administration because it is gaining them attention.’ In another example of America’s mental-health crisis, one white woman on TikTok – who claims to be ‘nonbinary’, because of course she does – was so eager to virtue-signal to her fellow white allies that she filmed herself lighting her Converse shoes on fire. The unhinged video quickly went viral and racked up nearly six million views. Inside her echo chamber of adoring white ‘allies’, she was lauded as stunning and brave, with no one pointing out the obvious: she had already paid for the shoes, and so her stunt accomplished nothing other than creating a minor fire hazard.
Replying to
@LaylaAlexandrovna@spinster.club Politics, you get rid of one bastard and another one climbs in the window.
Replying to
@flick@spinster.club 😆 WTF?! Is that a set up? 🤣
https://unherd.com/newsroom/it-is-absurd-to-condemn-charles-dickens-as-racist/
The fact is that if your standard of aesthetic judgement is whether you happen to agree with a novelist or not, the merits of a novel will hurtle, implausibly, from greatness to its opposite, eating up and spitting out a succession of masterpieces as you go. A few decades ago, Huckleberry Finn was considered by some to be the greatest of all American novels. Now you’d sooner find a critic advocating the genocide of the people of Idaho than admitting to admiring it. It appears impossible to the junior curators of a provincial museum that anyone might enjoy and even admire a novel without considering whether they would agree with its author on all subjects. Indian readers were apparently untroubled by Dickens’s views on their society. In the very extensive network of English-language subscription libraries in India in the late 19th century, Dickens remained the third most popular author after Walter Scott and Edward Bulwer-Lytton for decades. The only thing worth saying about the unresisting imbecility of the curators of Rochester is that they are trying to dismiss the savage creator of Wackford Squeers, Old Turveydrop, Mrs Gamp, Uriah Heep and hundreds of others. What a page Dickens would have written about the sanctimonious individuals who take a monthly salary and comfortably denounce one of the greatest novelists who ever lived. Dickens hated hypocrisy and dishonesty more than anything. Here, he would have riches to feast on.
Replying to
@virvallis@spinster.xyz https://spectator.com/article/is-nicola-sturgeon-the-least-curious-woman-on-the-planet/
Peter Murrell is a strangely shiny man. He has the air of an undertaker who’s been siphoning off the corpse lacquer to use on his own face. The erstwhile self-proclaimed ‘money man’ for the SNP arrived at court yesterday carrying a burglar’s hold-all, which for someone who was arriving to plead guilty to being on the rob was a fun touch. After years of presenting themselves as the great moral alternative to all the wickedness and corruption in Westminster it is finally becoming clear that the senior echelons of the SNP were on the make in the grubbiest way possible. Murrell, who was also First Gentleman to the Grand McKrankie herself, Nicola Sturgeon, will be sentenced in June after an almost inconceivably OTT buying binge using party funds. Among his purchases was £2,618 on salt and pepper shakers. Where was he buying this stuff, that basic household goods could have such a high price? A sort of special hyper-inflation John Lewis? A Weimar Republic TK Maxx? He also hilariously bought Grand Theft Auto V for £42.99, which rather makes us sketch writers think we’re destined to be replaced. Not by AI but by just plain old reality.
With Murrell now guaranteed to go down, whither Sturgeon? The former first minister has hilariously described being bought shed loads of jewellery as ‘profound personal trauma.’ She is still trying to maintain that all of this has come as a terrible shock and betrayal. We are being asked to take seriously the image of Sturgeon having to step over the boxes of jewellery, the crates of Mont Blanc pens and the new Jag and luxury motorhome just to gain entrance to their home and then ignoring all of them to ask Peter whether he did anything interesting at work that day. Perhaps the rumours are wrong, and Nicola just gets by as the least curious woman on the face of the planet. There’s an almost laughable brazenness to the SNP – partly because they seem to keep getting away with it. The main parties are so unpopular in Scotland that this be-kilted Zanu PF keep being returned to run the place, lining their own pockets as the country gets sicker and poorer. Whether the Murrell scandal is enough to stop Scotland turning into a full-on McBanana republic remains to be seen.
https://archive.ph/0Rz25
https://universitedesfemmes.be/evenements/le-tribunal-de-la-gestation-pour-autrui/
The surrogacy court! Surrogacy, an emancipatory issue for women?
On June 10, the Women's University, in collaboration with the international association CIAMS, invites you to one of its "tribunals", offering the public different points of view on a topical subject, in a democratic spirit. This event will focus on surrogate mothers and surrogacy. The event will be placed under this question: does this practice constitute an emancipatory issue for women? During this "tribunal", an adversarial exchange will take place during a mock trial, during which different arguments and opposing opinions are developed by jurists, a major witness and women rights defenders.
The public will be invited to vote as a jury! Come and listen, feed, meet, say!
With:
– Oriana Simone, judge in Brussels, and Jacqueline Herremans, lawyer at the Brussels Bar.
– René Frydman, gynaecologist and obstetrician, University Professor
– Valérie Lootvoet, sociologist, Women's University and Ana-Luana Stoicea-Deram, co-president of the CIAMS.
Under the chairmanship of Jennifer Sevrin, Jurist, in charge of studies and political action at the League of Families.
Practical information WHEN? Wednesday, June 10 | at 6 p.m.
WHERE? Maison Amazone, 10 rue du Méridien, 1210 Saint-Josse
FREE but registration required below.
ALERT: Rise in 'surrogacy fairs' internationally
Companies are organising fairs dedicated to surrogacy, which we describe as veritable 'baby fairs'.
In response to this explosion in the reproductive market, citizen and feminist initiatives are emerging to denounce and challenge these events.
Please let us know about any local actions, campaigns or tools, arguments or strategies you are aware of.
Please write to us at abolition.surrogacy@gmail.com.
We hope to organise a seminar soon to share experiences on this subject.
😑 Evil personified
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/30/there-is-no-way-to-stop-this-biotech-barbie-cathy-tie-on-her-mission-to-genetically-modify-babies
Gene editing has the power to alter the trajectory of human evolution for ever; the direction it takes will depend on who wields the editing tools. “There is no public funding available for researchers in the space,” Tie explains. “Everything is privately funded.” It’s up to entrepreneurs to demonstrate the potential benefits for humankind, she says, so regulators may soften their hardline stance and allow them to rewrite human DNA. For anything to change, there needs to be wider public acceptance of gene editing. With that in mind – and in the spirit of the openness she claims as her USP – Tie has invited me to join her in the run-up to her party as she takes on what she calls the “fear dressed up as caution” about her field. Her goal, she says, is to save humanity from the cruel tyranny of heritable diseases. But, as her birthday celebration demonstrates, Tie doesn’t do things by halves. If she succeeds, what next? Money is flowing into human genetic engineering. Since Tie arrived in New York last August, some of the richest men in the world have begun investing in her rivals. Gene editing startup Preventive launched in October with the stated aim of “preventing disease before birth”, and OpenAI’s Sam Altman and his husband, Oliver Mulherin, along with Brian Armstrong, the CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, are among its investors. Seven months before Preventive’s launch, Armstrong coined the term “the Gattaca stack” – after the dystopian 1997 sci-fi film about a near-future society dominated by genetically engineered super-beings – in a post on X describing technologies he says will be routinely used to create the babies of the future. Gene editing “for disease prevention, or enhancement” was included in Armstrong’s list. For him, at least, this is about improving babies, as well as avoiding disease.
It would be easy to take Tie at her word that she only wants to use gene editing to alleviate human suffering. But a little over a year ago she was using this technology to biohack pets – trying to create glow-in-the-dark rabbits, hypoallergenic cats and even dragons that would be sold on to consumers – with her first ever gene editing startup, the Los Angeles Project. “I’m personally really interested in the unicorn,” Tie said at the time.
Replying to
@virvallis@spinster.xyz Absolutely, but there's some folk can't be told, and hell mend them.
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/jk-rowling-last-laugh-brutally-37205390
In an early statement, the now ex-MSP denied any knowledge of the crimes and described how she felt "deceived and let down" by her long-term hubby and that she would be making no further comment. But just a few hours later, she defended herself again after rivals and party members suggested there was no chance she knew nothing.
It led to a brutal putdown by the Harry Potter author who said: "You appear not to understand the difference between 'instead' and 'as well'." This was a perfect troll as Ms Given furiously hit back: "I'm well aware of the difference. I used 'instead' because she seems to be getting more heat than he is, but you know that already. Tag me next time, s*ebag."
Ms Rowling then responded to a comment which read: "I think it’s misogynistic to think the wife is too stupid to understand their household income and not notice a sudden influx of cash." She wrote: "Every other day a new motorhome appears in my mother-in-law's drive and Neil hands me another bucket full of jewellery and cosmetics. I can only assume he's got himself a part time job I'm too busy to ask about."
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/crown-office-urged-come-clean-37206025
The Crown Office has been urged to come clean about why it decided not to charge Nicola Sturgeon alongside her husband in relation to Operation Branchform. The former First Minister has twice insisted her innocence since Peter Murrell pled guilty to embezzling £400k from the SNP. Ms Sturgeon claimed that she had no idea he was embezzling cash from the SNP as they didn't share a bank account and were both independently wealthy. But this defence has been questioned by critics who have queried why she wouldn't ask her husband why he was buying such obviously expensive goods. Concerns were raised during Operation Branchform about the head of the Crown Office, Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain, also sitting within the government Cabinet, and often right beside Ms Sturgeon during meetings. She did recuse herself from any decision being made about the case, but still served as the SNP Executive's main legal adviser.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6j9k1l72wkgo
Anthropic has raised eyebrows by announcing it will ban users from "sustained and needless" abusive behaviour towards its AI. The Claude-maker said on Thursday it was updating its usage policy to let its tools end interactions where people are "cruel" - something it said it had done in "rare" cases prior. It will now be included on a list of forbidden conduct which also contains bullying others, promoting self-harm and creating non-consensual intimate imagery. While Anthropic said the policy would only apply in "extreme cases" of repeated abuse, it has reignited debate over how we should communicate with AI tools. The company said it would not apply to "common versions of user frustration, pushback, dark creative themes, or model testing and research" - suggesting it would only apply in clearly deliberate instances.
But what Anthropic would consider "abusive or cruel behaviour" towards its models remains unclear. Screenshots of the new policy have been widely shared and commented on across social media - with some praising it as advancing good manners or "model welfare". But others criticised the plan, with one person calling it "deeply wrong, external" and another suggesting it might undermine abuse directed at humans and animals. "You can't be cruel to numbers and maths," wrote Dr Barry Scannell, technology partner at Irish law firm William Fry, on LinkedIn, external.
https://thecritic.co.uk/the-dark-reality-of-blasphemy-laws/
Consider what it says about a god if this can be framed as justice. What kind of deity would look across a world seething with violence and corruption and decide that what is downright intolerable is a man being rude online? In the UK, of course, de facto blasphemy laws have been established. A teacher is still in hiding after showing his students a cartoon of Muhammad. Children can be suspended from school for accidentally scuffing a copy of the Quran. Some Muslim public officials, as my esteemed colleague Tom Jones wrote last year, are openly campaigning for the prosecution of blasphemy. Labour MP Tahir Ali asked Keir Starmer if he will introduce laws to ban “desecration of all religious texts and the prophets of Abrahamic religions”. (Curiously, no one from the main Abrahamic religion in the UK was asking for this.)
Such religious hypersensitivity is often dressed up in the language of minority rights. Don’t be fooled. Look at Saudi Arabia, where the full power of the state is coming down upon the head of a lone migrant worker. Yet some in the UK have expressed approval. “Well done Saudi Arabia,” posts Dr Rahmeh Aladwan, “We do not accept insults to any of our beloved prophets.” Some online have pointed out an irony here. Dr Aladwan has “free speech” in her X bio. She has been resisting her own prosecution in the UK on the grounds of “inviting support for a proscribed group” by allegedly posting pro-Hamas comments. You don’t have to support Aladwan’s prosecution to acknowledge the morbid absurdity of such an individual applauding the execution of a man over a social media post. Yet it is typical for third worldists to adopt the language of liberalism in Europe while endorsing totalitarian cruelty elsewhere. (Decades ago, this was the opportunistic two-step of communists.) The West’s own language of rights and freedoms is used against it not out of principle but as a blunt tool. Again, let’s hope that more sober and rational minds prevail in Saudi Arabia and that poor Anojan is freed. But let’s not forget the intellectual and spiritual darkness that is trying to consume him.
⚠️TUTSHILL: GIRLS ATTACKED
A 22YO man has been charged after two teenage girls were sexually assaulted in Tutshill, Gloucestershire on 22nd May.
Aaron Grimshaw, from Sedbury, has been charged with two counts of sexual assault.
He was remanded in custody & due in court today.
6 years is NOT enough. They will let him out before it too.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq4g1zlvrx33o
Following the trial, Swain was also convicted of a course of prolonged abuse against a second victim, who was a teenager at the time.
Det Sgt Euan Stobie said: "Swain is a dangerous individual who subjected women to horrific, violent attacks, which has understandably had a profound impact on them."
Replying to
@flick@spinster.club Oh, excellent.
I am on my knees with insane cats in here. Son being here is not pleasing them, and the thing is he would let them have any amount of pets and bed shares and all. Jeeze, nature aside, I could throttle than bloody woman we got them from for not socialising them. Wilf is the worst, oh my God, the carry on of him, complete stress bunny meltdown. Kept them in on Monday, hoping to get them to smell him and etc, nope. Let them out yesterday, would not come on, eventually managed with Tom, but all he needs to hear is movement and he starts up again, even after purring and accepting snacks. Wilf came in late yesterday evening. Thought will try Dreamies, even though don't like them, as worth try, so let Tom out as he comes back, went up to see Wilf, doing a mole under duvet, stress licks and faint stress purring, son offers him some, faint nibbles but not a lot.
In the end we left him to it, this is utterly ridiculous, they are bad with anyone who comes in but worst ever seen them. Anyone I have in here is an animal lover and used to cats etc, yet my friend here they have come and sniffed at happily, which was a first for Wilf. I have to say, it is becoming rather tiresome. They are used to being out in the day so hate being confined, and he isn't eating much as hiding away. If I let them out it is a worry that he won't come in at all and I don't want him out at night. In all my years of keeping them I have never once had this nonsense. They were never ill treated in their lives either.
Lord Hermer has referred the sentences of the 3 boys convicted of rape to Court of Appeal
"No one should be in any doubt at all about the determination of this government to tackle the scourge of violence against women & girls"
I have nothing BUT doubt
https://x.com/attorneygeneral/status/2059244384286036216/video/1
Replying to
@carolen@spinster.xyz Oh, he was in Love in a Cold Climate, he played Tony.
The immortal words that rang round the Co op today.
"For God's sake, Mother, will you stay still, it's like trying to catch a rat in a byre!"
Offspring was helping with the shopping, but I kept wandering out of sight 😆
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@flick@spinster.club Oh that's not good, is it, worrying.
Replying to
@EatKnitSleep@spinster.club Exactly!
I think one would have to be heavily masochistic to go see BB.
⚠️ WOLVERHAMPTON CANAL ATTACK
Police have launched an urgent appeal after a woman was sexually assaulted in broad daylight near a canal in Wolverhampton on Sunday afternoon [24th May].
The attack happened near Fox’s Lane at around 3:15pm, with police later cordoning off the Birmingham Main Line Canal while forensic enquiries were carried out.
Officers are appealing for witnesses to come forward - but no suspect description reported.
How are people supposed to come forward with info when they don't know who they're looking for?
https://unherd.com/2026/05/how-to-end-the-age-of-slop/
Strawberina and her husband Banannito are expecting. The baby is born, but — shock horror: it’s a zucchini. Banannito breaks down in tears as Strawberina’s twisted affair with the scheming Zuchinito is exposed. We live in bizarre times. For all of the tech industry promises that AI will unlock an age of abundance and innovation, it seems that so far, its greatest achievement is the mass proliferation of AI-slop anthropomorphic fruit TikTok micro-soap operas, which have gained billions of views in just a few months. An infinite tide of AI-generated video is torching our retinas and our souls. Is this it? Is this really the future of culture? An endless torrent of AI slop, engineered by an invisible Slopbeast.
Most agree we should reject the Slopbeast. Humanity is built for greater things than amusing itself to death in TikTok pleasure palaces. However, few agree on how we move forward. The difficulty is that changing culture requires changing norms. Yet, if we have no sense of what should replace our current norms, then the task feels impossible. At both the individual and collective levels, few have any idea what humans ought to be beyond pleasure-seeking machines.
Replying to
@Yonic@spinster.club @flick@spinster.club and boy, they deserve to!
Do you think there is a lot of inside stuff going on? Not just here but in many places, like bank scams and all the rest of it.
The courts are taking the absolute piss now 🤬
Joshua Hindle, 30, who brutally attacked and strangled a woman in her home inflicting cuts, bruises and bite marks on her face, has walked free. The woman had asked Hindle to leave her property, he took her phone, smashed her phone against a wall and then attacked her. Defence said had a "good work ethic and was low risk of reoffending". In her victim impact statement, the woman said she can no longer trust anyone, feels vulnerable in her own home, and it no longer feels safe. Recorder Kenderik Horne handed Hindle a 16-month prison sentence suspended for two years, 25 "rehab days" & just a 10 year restraining order
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3j4790elkx7o
"It's the same problem as always," she says. "A lack of homes." She adds: "Landlords are taking advantage of the situation to raise rentals, and then there's also Airbnb."
Jorge Moreno, a 19-year-old film-dubbing student who has also been living in a tent here in central Madrid for the last few days, agrees.
"There are so many homes standing empty because they have been bought by vulture funds and investment funds which hike up the rent of people living in properties until they get rid of them," says Jorge, who lives with his mother and fears it will be a long time before he can afford a home of his own. "They've been making a business of housing for a long time," he adds. "But it's an abusive business which stops Spaniards from being able to live in a decent home."
His and Pierina's diagnoses are frequently voiced by fellow protesters, ordinary Spaniards and even the Spanish government.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DYvAdTvktWc/
The dark reality of child sexual abuse within Sharia law. Girls endure horrific physical trauma, leading to devastating lifelong consequences. A disturbing truth we must confront.
Will they douse them in petrol too, and considering they have burned the bloody schools to the ground where will they teach.
Replying to
@virvallis@spinster.xyz Oh, you bet.
Replying to
@flick@spinster.club @Grumbleshroom@decayable.ink Great Aunt Orf was English, called it a maiden, everyone else called it a pulley. Handy things, wish I still had it, and the Rayburn below!
https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/09/17/paloma-faiths-deranged-tirade-against-ed-sheeran/
Paloma conceded that canning the tour might be tricky for Ed for ‘insurance’ reasons, but nevertheless said it is ‘ideologically’ the right thing to do. She also rebuffed his argument that, as a writer of love songs for preteens, he doesn’t feel the need to blunder into politics. ‘When he said that it really upset me, because there are so many children in Palestine’, thundered Paloma, before adding, incredibly: ‘I say Free Palestine to my children every night. I feel children should be exposed to politics.’ Poor little blighters. Before I call social services, it’s worth reflecting on what Paloma is saying here. Because it has been echoed in many a mental TikTok video over the past 24 hours. Namely, that pop stars aren’t simply duty bound to express an opinion on the big issue of the day, they must express The Opinion. They must toe the ideological line on Palestine or face shaming and lurid accusations of ‘complicity’. Keeping schtum isn’t enough. This is the ‘silence is violence’ slogan of BLM draped in black, white, red and green.
This is a terrible idea, for many reasons. It debases popular culture, turning even teeny-bopper pop concerts into little more than an extended lecture. And it debases politics, dragging discourse down to the level of the mindless celeb platitude. It means no area of life is safe from the diktats of the omnicause – including bed time. This is at least as much of a problem for creative freedom as some pro-Israel figures foolishly trying to fight the rise of Israelophobia with cancel culture.
https://x.com/PeterSweden7/status/2101439038645535230
The first self proclaimed ”independent sharia court” opened in Sweden, and this happened already last year. This is an arbitration service that is offered by a private company where people can choose to have their civil disputes settled under sharia law instead of Swedish law. And if both parties consent to the sharia law arbitration, the rulings issued by this ”sharia court” can be legally binding under Swedish arbitration laws. People will need to pay a fee to use this firm and hearings will be private. The firm already has collaborations in both Stockholm and Malmö. This means that awards issued under this sharia law can be enforced and sent to the Enforcement Authority in Sweden, just like a real court judgement. The founder of this firm has a background in both the center-right Moderate party, before leaving for the former Communist party. However, he left this party and joined the Green party. But he was kicked out by them.
He was also in the foster home business, where his company focused on housing unaccompanied minors that arrived in Sweden. Sweden paid his company around $5,400 per month (with today’s exchange rate) for every unaccompanied minor that they housed. The fact that Sweden has now gotten the first self appointed sharia court, should act as a reminder how Sweden has been changing. There are already many areas in Sweden where parallel societal structures have formed, areas where police say that there are systemic violations of religious freedom. Furthermore, there are reports of self appointed ”morality police” that enforce strict rules on women and attempt to impose sharia like rules in certain areas of Sweden.
There has even been reports of these ”religious enforcers” patrolling the streets and attacking women that they deemed to have the ”wrong” clothes that did not follow their religion. In other words, there is growing religious extremism in Sweden. Police have also warned that in some areas, there is a ”local social order” that challenges the Swedish democratic social order and Swedish law. It is clear that we are seeing parallel societies forming in Sweden that adheres to another law than Swedish law. And now people can use an arbitration service to get legally binding sharia law rulings in Sweden. This would have been unheard of in Sweden just some years ago. Now it is happening.
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/comment/every-aspect-peter-murrell-scandal-37203841
Almost as jaw-dropping as the litany of luxury goods he snaffled was the reaction to his guilty plea from his ex-wife Nicola Sturgeon. The former First Minister wants us to believe that she never suspected a thing, despite vast sums of the stolen cash being used to feather the marital nest she shared with him. Did she never stop to ask her husband whether, or how, they could afford the new cars – never mind that £125,000 motorhome parked on his mother’s driveway? This is Nicola Sturgeon, the supposed master of detail, not some naïve dafty. Together, she and Murrell had a vice-like grip over the SNP for years. They controlled their party from top to bottom. Those who stepped out of line were quickly dispatched and buried in the political equivalent of a shallow grave. John Swinney was sometimes the trigger man. Other times, he dug the hole. Did it never once dawn on Sturgeon to seek out a bank statement or a credit card bill to see how the family finances were bearing up as the luxury goodies were stockpiling?
From the Salmond inquiry to the ferries corruption and, at Sturgeon and Swinney’s orchestration, the deletion of Covid WhatsApps … who could trust anything from this toxic party? It’s hard to believe Operation Branchform would have lasted so long, or cost so much, if everyone in the party had co-operated with the investigation from the off. Remember when Murrell’s mouthy successor as SNP chief exec sneeringly boasted that no-one would be charged – in what appeared to be an attempt to lean on the police? As my party’s former justice spokesman and a journalist who spent years fighting for crime victims, I know how glacial and self-serving Scotland’s justice system is.
https://thecritic.co.uk/lawlessness-is-contagious/
Alas, this isn’t limited to the roads. A similar picture is playing out in many different areas of society. Retail businesses are slammed with high rates and employment costs while the shop next door employs illegal workers and flouts trading standards at will. Tax payers are fined for submitting a few days late while others fail to register at all. Planning permission is ever more complicated while travellers set up sites and even businesses with impunity. Workers have to work harder and harder to afford the essentials of life while others simply help themselves and walk out of supermarkets unchallenged. The inevitable result is mass non-compliance. Having worked in economic development across sub-Saharan Africa I have seen the challenges of a low trust society: an economy weighed down by high security costs, uninsurable risks and uncertain contract enforcement while the government passes endless rules that never become anything more than words on a page. Through our aid budgets we have spent decades and billions of pounds trying, and largely failing, to understand how one builds a higher trust society. What we do know is how to destroy one. Unless laws are visibly enforced and everyone can see they are being treated alike, we are on the road back to Kampala.
Replying to
@virvallis@spinster.xyz He did indeed! Now if mine had suddenly produced one I would be certain to be asking questions.
Replying to
@flick@spinster.club I never even knew it was a thing, just mental.
All I can think of is a loss of bone density in the joint alignment. Changes to the muscle support or something but crazy stuff.
Botox makes shoulders smaller by temporarily relaxing the trapezius muscle (the large muscle running from your neck to your shoulders), causing the unused muscle bulk to gradually shrink over time
Apparently 🤦 I could see someone getting it done due to a medical reason like muscle tension and headaches coming from that and such like things but not vanity.
https://www.personamedical.co.uk/treatments-bexleyheath/specialist-treatments/shoulder-slimming-bexleyheath/
Public outcry has forced the Attorney General to refer the sentences of three teenage boys who were spared jail after raping two schoolgirls in separate attacks to the Court of Appeal.
The two girls, aged 14 and 15 at the time, were raped by two 14-year-old boys weeks apart in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, with a then-13-year-old also convicted over his role in the second incident.
But despite the horrific nature of the attacks - which saw one of the girls gang-raped at knifepoint with the assaults filmed and one uploaded to social media - all three were handed youth rehabilitation orders and walked free from court.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckz7z5e4ljjno
A woman has said she fears being unable to afford a new home if she is forced to sell up to the council as part of a regeneration scheme. Blackpool Council has been awarded £90m from the government for the project, which it said would "clear up to 300 poor-quality properties" in the Revoe area and replace them with "up to 230 new, high-quality, energy-efficient homes". Anna Penfold-Sadler lives with her partner in a three-bedroom property on Rydal Avenue. She said the £85,000 cash offered by the council for her home, plus £15,000 compensation, would not be enough to find a similar home. The council has said it wants to bring back the Central Drive area - one of the most deprived in England - "back to its heyday" with the regeneration project. Penfold-Sadler, who said much of her street was now boarded up, said: "We have spent a lot of money on the house and are also paying off a £47,000 mortgage.
"We've looked at other properties comparable to this, in our area, and they would cost around £120,000. We can't afford it. "And if the house is cheaper, it would be because it will need lots of work, so we'll still be out of pocket. "Our fear is that we could end up in a house which is not inhabitable." She said it was a "big worry", adding: "We don't want to move out of this area, it's where our lives are." Penfold-Sadler argued that the homes should have been renovated rather than demolished.
https://unherd.com/newsroom/cosmetic-surgery-is-the-new-self-harm/
The rise of this treatment — sometimes referred to as “bleph” on social media — is a sign of a wider trend. Women no longer just have the option of boob jobs, tummy tucks or lip filler, but can choose from a whole menu of interventions: brachioplasty to remove “bingo wings”, Botox to make shoulders narrower, and labiaplasty for that porn-star look. It’s clear that the pursuit of Kardashian curves and contoured cheekbones comes with medical risks: infection, pulmonary embolism, fat embolism, facial paralysis. Since 2019, at least 28 Britons have died from complications following cosmetic procedures carried out in Turkey. Even when performed by regulated doctors in the UK, successful procedures come with high rates of dissatisfaction and do little to improve self-esteem.
So why is cosmetic surgery accepted as just another form of “self-care”, rather than facing the unpalatable truth, which is that this is self-mutilation inflicted by the egregiously vain or the mentally unwell? In saner times, influencers such as Clavicular, who smashes his jawline with a hammer to give himself a more chiselled look, or Amy Childs, who claims to have been “addicted” to surgery since the age of 18, would be referred to a psychiatrist rather than boosted on a public platform. Yet in 2026, everything about our shallow, self-absorbed culture has become inverted: freezing facial muscles or scooping out cheek fat is apparently not a form of self-harm but self-love.
Replying to
@flick@spinster.club Is it just me or does anyone else find Prue Leith an absolute pain in the arse colossal annoyance?! I grind my teeth when I see her.
The waste will be huge, and then they will go home and eat crap there anyway. I mean I don't like the idea of terrible food being fed to a captive audience of any sort, but this isn't really about nutrition, is it, it never is, and sweeteners are nasty shite. They will roll out things that won't be wanted, they always do, not oh, that looks nice.
Replying to
@carolen@spinster.xyz Judge Tan Ikram CBE, the judge who denied Danny Tommo bail and said he was "satisfied there is a real possibility of an immediate custodial sentence", has a history of being placed in politically motivated cases. . Sentenced a man to 20 weeks in jail for posting a racist joke in a WhatsApp chat. . Let off the OnlyFans girl who threw milkshake at Nigel Farage. . Let off two women for terrorism charged after glorifying 7 October massacre. . Was himself given a disciplinary after liking a post on LinkedIn that stated Israel was a terrorist state. Although obviously not a crime, it did bring into question his impartiality. . He was given a CBE by Boris Johnson in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to judicial diversity. He has spoken out about what he sees as the problems due to the lack of ethnic diversity in the police and the judiciary.
Two 16-year-old girls in Plymouth, UK, were followed, photographed, and swarmed by about 20 balaclava-wearing men in their 20s/30s of apparent Middle Eastern/African ethnicity in broad daylight near the Hoe; more men exited a white van as the girls tried to escape
The girls safely reached the Gypsy Moth pub where staff protected them until pickup; the incident was reported to police under log 564, with the OP urging vigilance and safety training for children
Peter Bleksley, a former Met Police detective, joins Camilla Tominey and Tim Stanley to discuss whether parents should be held criminally responsible for their children’s crimes. Following the announcement of government plans to revamp parenting orders, Mr Bleksley argues that more discipline is needed in modern parenting and that longer jail terms work as a deterrent for repeat offenders.
David Lammy, the Justice Secretary, revealed the plans last week to give courts extra powers to punish breaches of parenting orders as part of efforts to prevent a repeat of the Southport murders. An inquiry castigated the parents of triple killer Axel Rudakubana for failing to act on his erratic and violent behaviour.