Storm in a tcup

Loves dogs, rugby and pottering. Very grumpy re the world today

[DefenceGeek 🇬🇧 @DefenceGeek]

Given the Treasury's past history with major/critical MoD projects, I fear this will not be a good thing...

[Times Politics @timespolitics]

Prosecutors agreed to drop a series of allegations against Peter Murrell that would have heaped further embarrassment on Nicola Sturgeon in exchange for the former SNP chief executive’s guilty plea, it has emerged https://t.co/hqZBHAC97d

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

Prosecutors agreed to drop a series of allegations against Peter Murrell that would have heaped further embarrassment on Nicola Sturgeon in exchange for the former SNP chief executive’s guilty plea, it has emerged https://t.co/zHHmlx81vr

[Storm in a tcup @Norm4]

@RmSalih Totally agree. Their bodies should be displayed on gibbets on the cliffs of Dover

[Storm in a tcup @Norm4]

@Kplisa64Lisa @PatrickChristys @GBNEWS As her most successful contribution to society is editing Jackie, a teenage magazine and appearing on Big Brother, one can safely conclude that her contribution to current affairs is as useful as a 12 year old

[Jack Aspinall @jackaspi]

Every single British university has essentially the same content as this on their websites:
1. Explicit objective to produce 'equality of outcome' or equivalent.
2. Promotion of career advancement mechanisms that are selective based on race.

Call me an old-fashioned liberal, but I believe we should judge everyone equally, irrespective of their ancestry.

[Steven Swinford @Steven_Swinford]

Exclusive from @billcurtis0 and @matt_dathan

A number of officers in the force responsible for the arrest of Henry Nowak felt “controlled and pressured to feel certain ways” after receiving mandatory diversity training, a survey has revealed

The courses taught Hampshire & Isle of Wight constabulary officers and staff about racism, “unconscious bias”, “privilege and the importance of being an ally”

A staff survey found that one in seven officers and staff (15 per cent) had felt “controlled and pressured” to adopt certain ideas in the sessions and the same number thought “mistakes would have been held against me”. A fifth said they feared being “rejected for saying the wrong thing”

The revelations are likely to provoke fresh questions about the role of equality and diversity guidelines in the actions of police officers, after video that showed officers in the same force handcuffing Nowak, 18, for alleged racial abuse while he lay dying from stab wounds

https://t.co/cfBojs33Eb

[Paul Embery @PaulEmbery]

Tim Stanley is spot on here.

[Toby Young @toadmeister]

BP is preparing to quit the North Sea after more than 60 years as Labour ramps up taxes on oil and gas. https://t.co/gE3ViPvoS3

[James Treadwell @James_Treadwell]

Wait till people find out who the College of Policing have been paying to advise them on racism (and how much!) @rorygeo broke this long back, and pretty much everyone ignored it. Now remember, two tier policing is not a problem!

https://t.co/10VPk3LQCO

[alexmassie @alexmassie]

John Swinney is handling the Murrell affair very badly.
So badly, in fact, that we are left to conclude he opposes a new inquiry because he fears what it might find.
At some point, SNP people are going to start wondering if he is part of the problem…
https://t.co/zsxYAQG8Ul

[The Free Speech Union @SpeechUnion]

In October 2024, the Free Speech Union came to the aid of Rick Prior, the elected Chair of the Metropolitan Police Federation, after he was suspended for saying that rank-and-file officers had become so fearful of complaints of racism — and potentially losing their jobs — that they no longer dared challenge allegations of racism, particularly when made by people of colour.

According to Prior, some officers were reluctant to intervene when they suspected a crime was being committed if the perpetrator was a black or brown person for fear of being accused of racism.

Fortunately, with our support, Rick Prior won his

Given the circumstance of Henry Nowak's death, it's clear that Rick Prior was right to raise these concerns.

The police have overcorrected in response to the perception that the force is institutionally racist, and that needs to be addressed.

People like Rick Prior — and other elected federation chairs — must be free to speak out about what they believe has gone wrong and propose common-sense solutions without risking suspension or dismissal.

The lack of free speech within policing on these issues has contributed to the current state of affairs in which officers appear to be more concerned about not following up accusations of racism than protecting people from violent criminals.

Watch the Free Speech Union’s General Secretary, Lord Young, below 👇

[Sebastian Milbank @SebMilbank]

This is important. The Vickrum Digwa case is not about race or religion: it is about culture. As with Axel Rudakubana, a family appears to have prioritised kin solidarity with preventing violence or upholding the law. We need to address this as a society

[Clarissa Reilly @clarescastle]

We can’t go on like this. “Who can we tax to pay more benefits to others”, rather than pay for our own defence?

[Sam Taylor @staylorish]

In a predictable turn of events, the vast majority of @ScotNational readers are absolutely fine with being defrauded by the SNP.

[James Mitchinson @JayMitchinson]

🚨 Reporting restrictions lifted:

Asian paedophile gang jailed for a combined 188 years.

‘The men involved have taken more away from me than I can ever describe. Looking back, I feel sad for my 12-year-old self.’

When will this end?

[TheSimonEvansX @TheSimonEvansX]

Sorry, Giles, but the Police do have exactly such a manual, as many replies have pointed out to you. This isn't confabulated nonsense, a reactionary paper tiger. This is a well-established documented fact.

And referring to the capacity of the Police to get it wrong "in the heat of the moment" suggests you haven't even watched the bodycam footage.

The signal failure of the police in the footage is to recognise that there *was* any "heat" to which they needed to respond. A man lying prone and bleeding out at their feet was treated as another tiresome administrative burden to which they needed to attend while apologising to his killer for the sadly necessary rigmarole of it all.

[Rory Geoghegan @rorygeo]

A reminder that Baroness Casey's Review of the Metropolitan Police had a section titled "Evidence of racism in the Met" and gave an example of police saying "all lives matter".

[Hilton Holloway @hiltonholloway]

This is what Straw and Co said they were targetting.

[Mark Wallace @wallaceme]

For context, UCL's Institute of Education predicted last August that the impact of VAT on education would be 30,000 fewer private pupils *over 5 years*. This is year one.