Nicely Nicely Jones

Just a guy getting by.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

1/x Finding myself temporarily lacking in the scratch department and what with things being tough all over, I find myself at Maury's eating the blue plate special, like many citizens who are lacking in the scratch department are wont to do.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@NoContextBrits Of course. Use the money so my friends can buy me drinks. Sorted.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@GilesRocholl @PrivateEyeNews Nope. Still is. And its normally , not always but most of the time, right.

As here.

[Private Eye Magazine @PrivateEyeNews]

Among those currying favour with Elon Musk, it has become an article of faith that the “mainstream media” ignored the UK’s grooming gangs scandal until the brave truth-tellers of X uncovered it, er, last week.

Give over. Feminist writer Julie Bindel first wrote about the disappearance of Charlene Downes in 2004, a year after the Blackpool teenager went missing. And if anyone deserves credit for bringing this story to wider attention, it’s Andrew Norfolk of the Times, who doggedly reported on cases across the north of England, starting in 2011, despite legal pressure and accusations of racism. He won Private Eye’s Paul Foot Award for investigative journalism in 2012, with the citation pointing out at the time — almost thirteen years ago — that his work “has prompted two government-ordered inquiries, a parliamentary inquiry and a new national action plan on child sexual exploitation”. Norfolk then bagged the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2013.

Subsequent cases, including those in Rotherham, Telford, Huddersfield, Oxford and Oldham, also received widespread coverage. The news even made it to America, with the liberal New York Times running typically ponderous headlines like “Life in an English Town Where Abuse Flourished” and “Indifference to Child Rape” in 2014. That year, columnist Ross Douthat wrote that “what happened in Rotherham was rooted both in left-wing multiculturalism and in much more old-fashioned prejudices about race and sex and class”.

Full story in the new Private Eye, out now.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@Tim_Mc_Garry Sigh. Why are we surprised? Pretty much every DUP policy position (with the exception of RHI) for the past 20 years can be summarised thus:
"The answer is no. Now what is the question?"
Keep fighting the good fight - or at least having people laugh at those in charge.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@RobertMSterling I did spend some time there. Oh dear. They've really got to you, haven't they? Never mind. Ignore them. They won't miss you.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@mcuban @costplusdrugs The UK NHS does a pretty good job negotiating good branded and generic drug prices from manufacturers, because they are buying for the nation and so have some commercial clout. It helps that the UK does a lot of pharma innovation and manufacturing so we know the business model.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@DMaxwell78207 Thank you. I will check in on this in four years time.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

So Trump will be president and America will once again be led by the toddler-in-chief. It will be bad, but I hope it plays out for the full four years.

Because I can think of only one thing worse.

President Vance.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ME1869 @Mij_Europe (a) You were the one arguing for people to be blocked (b) you disregard Fox, Sinclair, NewsMax and OAN (c) you disregard the BBC board being packed by Tory party (right wing) apparatchiks (d) my point was Musk claims that Twitter is for free speech but then works to drown it out.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ME1869 @Mij_Europe You don't get it, do you? He lets us tweet out to our few hundred (or fewer) followers. At the same time, he can say what he wants to 350m followers. Free speech in a town square is all very well, but it's hard to speak freely when only a few people are allowed megaphones.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@neelurao26 @ATRightMovies You are in for a treat!

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @evgrey360 @joanybaby77 @BoveFromAbove I haven't muted you and you were able to reply to my tweet. What's your concern?

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @evgrey360 @joanybaby77 @BoveFromAbove And your point is...?

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @BoveFromAbove He doesn't own it. The UK state does.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @BoveFromAbove And some in gov love helping people. And some love black coffee. That's how government works. Net zero aspires to save the planet based on hard evidence. The alternative is planetary disruption. I'm sorry you feel that saving the world isn't worth your inconvenience, but tough.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @BoveFromAbove 2/x The great thing about science - proper science - is that it is credible because it can be disproved. Rigorous evidence can prove even the experts wrong. But the evidence needs to be very, very good. Evidence for climate change? Very strong and robust. For denial? Not so good.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @BoveFromAbove 1/x Oh. I see... 'The fallacy of experts'. But of course. We can't have experts weighing in because I (or someone on youtube) knows better. Authority in science is earned. So yes, if a professor who has studied something for 40 year says X, then chances are, X is correct.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @BoveFromAbove 'Debate' among scientists is a thing - not always courteous. But science has an advantage over other forms of discourse: its debates have winners because they have recourse to theory, hypothesis, experiment and replicable evidence, rather than youtube videos.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @BoveFromAbove Both may true. So what? If it were true, how do these phenomena explain the current sudden and severe rise in global surface temperatures better than the mechanism described through the pollution model?

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @BoveFromAbove I rather fear that the explanatory science between solar phases and climate change is indistinguishable from belief in a higher power - even if it could explain the speed of sudden and sustained spike in temperature the Earth is experiencing.

[Nicely Nicely Jones @NicelyJones]

@ammejo1 @joanybaby77 @BoveFromAbove Cars were unaffordable for the masses for thirty-five years until the 1920s. Look: saving the planet may lead to us all having to change our lifestyles somewhat, much like steam power forced people from the fields and sewage made it possible for city living not to kill people.