Top Tweets for #COUNTYLINESCCE

I'll be honest with you – My entire “game plan” for TheTinMen for the past six years has simply been to create as much content as I can, at the highest possible quality, with the most reliable statistics, and the rest will sort itself out. Who knows – Maybe some publisher or newspaper will sponsor me, maybe a brand steps in, or perhaps a rich angel investor with a blank cheque will slide into my DMs… To be honest I didn’t think too much about it. My time was spent trying to build a proof of concept; one that shows these issues matter, and that there’s enough of us caring and talking about them to do something about it. The problem is, as I now realise, these topics are not particularly popular with the mainstream. And that those in this space with the pockets deep enough to help fund me, splash about in the shallow end of kind slogans and hashtags, and I, neck deep in the mud of ugly advocacy, would only dirty up their shiny shoes by association. Who knew that talking about men and boys who are raped, and abused, who are betrayed by our government, by our politicians and the charity sector, by our legal and education system, would be so unpopular? Sadly, ‘men are 41% of abuse victims’ doesn’t look quite so good on a tote bag, does it?

How are shops getting away with selling vapes to kids in the UK? Frontline trading standards officers tell Channel 4 News some businesses defy evictions and have links to organised crime. An enforcement team from Dudley in the West Midlands that’s closed down nearly 40 mini mart style shops in a year says it’s also discovered chilling signs of child exploitation at many of the businesses they’ve taken action against. The previous owner of the shop featured in this report, who we filmed, told us he disputes the Trading Standards allegations and denies the shop has acted illegally.