Why Did Labour Release Those Prisoners?

Following part one of the current Government messing up (read all about both parts here) the Telegraph ran a story with the headline:

‘I’m a lifelong Labour voter now’: Prisoners praise Starmer after early release

One inmate said the scheme was a good idea. On the one hand, of course they would say that. Most of the people being released who aren't homeless are going to be happy about it. If you are shocked by that you have never seen a prison break film.

The way the Telegraph, any many other papers with a similar story, have written it, they’re trying to stir the poop. What are they saying? “I bet Labour only did this to get more voters?”

Let’s have a little think. We’re chronologically the furthest point from another election. This is the worst time to be recruiting new voters. Ken Clarke has always said the moment right after an election is the time to be unpopular, but even he must look at the way Labour have played it and thought, “Yeah, but don’t take the piss with it.”

Do you need to convince people in prison to vote for Labour? I’m not trying to be nasty but surely if you’re in prison you’re more likely to be a Labour person than a Tory person. That’s correlation not causation. If you’re from a less well off background you might be more likely to be driven to a life of crime. Also, if you do the kind of crimes Tory voters do you don’t go to prison. You pay back the tax you should have paid crack on with your life.

And would you risk losing so much national popular support to go after the former prisoner vote who might not be the most likely to get out there and vote anyway. Some criminals don’t vote in every election because they’re busy doing a 5-stretch, but I’m not sure they’re the most dependable voter block.

It’s just a snide way for the newspapers to imply a sinister motive behind Labour’s move other than a failing prison system.

The proof that it isn’t a conspiracy is in the newspaper article. The convicted drug dealer, who was freed from prison under the Government’s early release scheme, said on Tuesday that it had made him “a lifelong Labour voter”.

Keep doing drugs and that won't be very long.

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Warning Labels... On Food!?

Smoking in the UK has reached some impressively low levels. There are about 6.4 million adult cigarette smokers in the United Kingdom. It's still way above the levels in 1586 just before Sir Walter Raleigh come home with a lot of duty free but it's still nice to see it drop.

It's hard to pin down the exact reason that we are smoking less. It could be the cost. It could be social pressure. It could be because you have to ask the shopkeeper to open a dodgy cupboard to hand you your packet like you're a sad old perv in an adult shop wanting a specialist item. It's probably a mixture of all the anti-smoking policies brought in, which will include the warning pictures on the packs.

For years, if you bought some smokes, you were given a small picture of what one of your body parts would look like if you carried on smoking. It's such a popular idea that we may see it on other products.

Campaigners are now saying we should using hard-hitting warning labels on food that can make you fat. The obvious choice would be pictures of naked obese people but using those images as a cautionary tale would seem offensive to the larger-boned community.

It also could require making the food packets larger to fit the picture on, which might mean larger portions, more people gaining weight, and the cycle continues.

All of these plans to tackle the UK's growing growing sideways problem think education is the key. If we could only teach people that healthy food is healthy for them and junk food is bad we'd have a nation of slim folk again. But I doubt there is anyone who doesn't know by now. If you walked up to anyone in the street and showed them a burger and a carrot everyone would know which could make you fatter. It's not that part of our brains that instructs us to eat.

This is evident when you have a GP telling you that you need to lose weight while his gut wears his shirt like a bank robber wears tights. These GPs sometimes have the audacity to use the phrase, “We need to do something about this BMI.” You're left thinking, “I'd better do something about it. I'm not sure you have a good track record of winning that fight.”

There's no way these GPs lack education on healthy eating habits but the information isn't enough to beat the cravings.

A warning label system is already effectively being used with the traffic light symbols you'll find on food. Sadly, it doesn't take long till an unintended response to the badges kicks in. If you pick up a pack with at least one of the salt, sugar or fat categories earning it a red light there is some part of your brain that knows it can look forward to a little treat. If you're holding something that's green across the board you know you're still going to be craving a snack five minutes later.

The one area where this could work is in forcing the manufacturers to change. We greedy, lizard-brained punters won't be slowed down by a warning label but if you're in the business of making a foodstuff you might not want to have to pop a skull and crossed bones on it. You might tweak the recipe instead. This is similar to how to sugar tax on fizzy drinks didn't lead to only the rich being able to have a Fanta, but the drinks having less sugar in general.

The British Heart Foundation, who floated the warning label idea, is also proposing other action to tackle the UK’s increasingly bad diet. We could see a ban on junk food firms sponsoring sport.

Currently energy drinks Carabao is linked to the English football’s League Cup, McDonald’s sponsors the Football Association’s youth football development programme, and KP Snacks are an official team partner of the Hundred cricket competition with the slogan, “Cricket – You'd have to be nuts to sit through this”, probably.

Surely sports sponsorship is the best case scenario. The people who are being tempted with bad foods are also being shown inspirational scenes of fit people being active. The other end of the spectrum would be burger restaurants sponsoring mobility scooter dealerships. That's the area where real damage will be done.

It's not the first time such ideas have been proposed but it's the first time in a while that a Labour Government has been in place to hear them. This is an administration that's been in power 1.29 Liz Trusses and already we have heard of beer garden smoking bans.

The goal is a good one. Something needs to be done as heart conditions have moved up the ranks of most common cause of death. This will have been caused, in part, by the number of smoking-related deaths dropping off. We could drive heart disease back down the league table without cutting our junk food intake if only we could get more people smoking again.

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Is Silent Praying Thought Crime?

Isabel Vaughan-Spruce, a woman arrested after praying outside an abortion clinic, has received a payout from police. She received £13,000 from West Midlands Police. The annoying this is that it really means she received £13,000 from the tax payers, because that’s where the money comes from ultimately.

They settled her civil claim "without any admission of liability", but if they had her banged to rights you would have assumed they wouldn’t have dropped the case. That’s not really how the police work.

The big question is can you tell that someone is praying silently? If you can it still breaches the exclusion zone near the clinic. If you can’t then how will anyone know who to arrest?

And how does the distance work? Surely you could pray from anywhere seeing as the one you’re praying to is omnipotent. It feels like there could be a solution to this that keeps everyone happy and means we don’t need to pay out tax payers’ dosh.

Here’s a section from a recent TV spot covering the story.

@mrstevenallen

Arrested for praying... silently?

♬ original sound - Steve N Allen

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Prisoners & Pensioners: Labour’s PR Fail

This Government has walked into some avoidable traps. How do they not see this coming?

1,700 prisoners will be released early. It’s because of prison overcrowding and it’s not like they could have built many prisons since July 4th when Labour got in power, so while this could be all about the previous lot’s failing, Labour have managed to really own this.

Only prisoners given a prison sentence of less than 4 years will be eligible to be released at 40% of their term rather than the 50% stage when they would have been let out anyway. That’s a maximum of 4.8 weeks difference, but they haven’t pushed that angle at all.

Some Gov.uk figures show that around 25% of prisoners reoffend anyway. That’s the normal rate before this scheme was brought in, so there will definitely be some reoffending. But when it happens now it will be all over the newspaper front pages. A story that wouldn’t have even made the newspaper inner pages will be the biggest political story in town. “Labour’s Lawless Legacy” or something like that.

Meanwhile the MPs were busy voting on cutting the winter fuel payments from pensioners, depriving them of between £200 and £300 a year. Today is also the day when the news tells us the state pension set to rise by £460 next year. You don’t have to be a whizz at maths to see how you could spin that story.

Frame the debate as “should ALL pensioners get winter fuel payments” and all you need to do is argue about what the cut off point should be and you’ve won. Using the Pension Credit boundary as the means test is the problem. Somehow Labour have managed to really own this move and let it be framed as them hating OAPs because the old folk vote Tory.

Each year there are tens of thousands of deaths in the winter where cold is considered a factor. Again, not one of those stories would make it into the papers, but this winter as soon as the papers find one case the front pages will be screaming “Cold Keir Killer Crisis” or something like that.

If you are a Labour government you must know that most of the newspaper in the UK aren’t your biggest fans. They’ll be looking for you to slip up so they can write about how bad you are. The problem with thinking you’re doing the right thing is that you can be tempted to simply ignore those who disagree with you. It’s not party political, we could call that The Lizz Truss Effect, but why hand over such easy wins?

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The Pope V Pets – Who Wins?

You see them on social media. People who post pictures of their dog that don't have the owner and pet vibe. They have a different feel. You look at the posts and think, “This is oddly familial.” There are undertones of parent and child, maybe step-child seeing as they probably don't have a genetic link. The vibe of parent and step-child isn't better; we all remember Woody Allen.

It turns out there is someone else who doesn't like these people. It's The Pope.

Pope Francis criticised couples who have pets instead of children. The Pope used the words, “This can't go well”. He has definitely seen pictures of doggy mommies who let their little pups kiss them on the lips. That really can't go well. David Beckham once caused an internet upset when people saw a picture of him kissing his daughter on the lips. That was innocent and, more importantly, it's unlikely that David's daughter had spent the afternoon licking her balls.

The Pope's angle is about people having more children. We see a lot of news recently about the falling birthrate but it is in the nature of every religion to promote its followers having many children. It's basic recruitment. If you are a devout follower and you have a child you will bring it up to be a devout follower. The church should get Michael Parkinson to send you a Parker Pen as a thank you gift.

The reason that all religions want you to go forth and multiply is because any religions that preached, “Thou shalt focus on having disposable income and holidays. Maybe just have a few cats,” wouldn't be around today to be counted.

This is meant in a nicer way than it will sound, but a religion telling you to have offspring is like a computer virus including the command to copy. Without that step it really wouldn't work.

The Pope was on a visit to Indonesia and praised those who had a large family while contrasting those to the childless couples who opt to care for cats and dogs. He didn't bother with any nuance. It's not always the case that every couple can have children. IVF can be expensive and it's not as if you're allowed to eat a child if you struggle in the cost of living crisis, so there are many things in the pro pets columns he's missing.

It's a theme he's been on for a while. A few years ago he told the story of a woman who asked him to bless her dog and he called that dog her “baby”. Francis said, “I lost my patience and scolded her.” So we're hoping it really was a dog and not an unfortunately hairy child who really needed a miracle.

Cats and dogs aren't the problem. The quadrupeds aren't replacing children. You can prove this by seeing a family that has children and a pet dog for example. The problem is money. We hear how hard it is for younger people to get on the property ladder. They live with parents into their thirties or rent a room in a house with other strangers. Both situations don't lend themselves to starting a family. You can't have a home birth with a birthing pool in the shared lounge of a houseshare. Someone will end up leaving a passive-aggressive note.

Yes, it can give you the ick when you see someone call a dog, “My baby,” but it's just a figure of speech that people use about their classic car or wine collection. It's hyperbole and doesn't have to mean the couple will never have children.

Don't blame the pets. Stick to handing out wine and telling people not to use contraception. Sooner or later those two will lead to a baby coming along.

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Why We Shouldn’t Care About MP Scandals

One thing that is synonymous with British politicians is scandal and for some reason it’s mainly sex scandals. Sure, they also have a history of taking money from companies to ask questions in the House of Commons but the one thing we know will happen is an MP will do something that’s naughty and get caught.

Who knows how many aren’t getting caught. If your place of a work had a subsidised bar you might also get caught out being a wrong ‘un.

With names like Chris Pincher and William Wragg being in the news for various pleasures of the flesh we ask if we should be surprised, and if we’re not surprised should we even care?

If an MP is arranging some sex meet-up is it any of our business? And if we didn’t judge those who do would it become impossible to blackmail someone for such an act?

Here’s part of an interview on Times Radio with Steve N Allen explaining more.

@mrstevenallen

Why we shouldn't care so much about politician's illicit scandals for our own sake. (From Times Radio)

♬ original sound - Steve N Allen

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EE Says Don't Buy Phones

Are you addicted to your mobile phone? I am. I will probably check my devise several times while I write this. I’ll let you know the tally at the end but if I, as a fully grown adult with will power, can struggle to put it down how can we expect children to not be damaged by such technology?

The network provider EE made the news by telling parents of primary school children not to buy smartphones for their kids. At first glance it seems strange for a company to be telling potential customers to not buy their products. The full advice from EE also suggested that it would be better to buy them a non-smart device, a brick phone as they are called, that can only make calls, send texts and probably play Snake.

I’m sure your local EE outlet will furnish you with a burner phone although I’m not sure your kids need the same kind of phone that people smuggle into prison to commit crimes on.

There is a strong chance that this act of apparent commercial self-sabotage is exactly the opposite. If you’re in the business of selling something that people are starting to consider harmful to children, you might want to make it clear that you’re not in favour of letting the young ones get their hands on your kit.

There isn’t loads of data proving the harmful effects of phone use. Some research has found a link between screen time and disrupted sleep, which is quite serious for school children. Messed up sleep can impact the next day’s learning.

Some studies found a link between social media use and the mental health in teenage girls. I didn’t have access to Instagram when I was at school and I also wasn’t a teenage girl, but just the thought of having to deal with the mean girls at school who can use those apps to reach beyond the playground is terrifying. If I’m honest, I still cross the street to avoid a bunch of teenagers in case they pick on my trainers.

Even without lots of studies it feels like smartphones are too much for children. You must have seen it, if you’re out for a meal and the family on the table next to you put a phone in front of a toddler to sedate it. It works. They can tap on a phone for hours but that doesn’t feel natural. You’re secretly hoping the kid has found the right links to tap on to buy hundreds of pounds worth of games credits.

It is possible to bring up a child without giving them a phone because that’s how we were raised. I spent most of my childhood begging my parents to put a landline phone in my bedroom. Not a separate line, just a cable that let another phone be plugged in. I never got it but that’s for the best as I turn out as a painfully introverted type who hates speaking on the phone anyway, so it would have been a waste.

I managed to navigate childhood without having an array of apps in my pocket.

I have enjoyed the fact that maths teachers used to say, “You have to learn this. You won’t always have a calculator in your pocket,” and these days we do. But don’t buy your child a smartphone or a brick phone. Just buy a basic calculator. It’s safer and you can still have hours of entertainment typing 58008 on it. That is also the number of times I checked my phone.

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Amazon Delivers By Drone

People are predicting the death of the High Street… again. It’s not been well for a while but where else will you get your stuff? Oh, that’s right, the internet.

Amazon is preparing to debut what the newspapers have been calling its “futuristic new device”. It’s a drone. It’s not that futuristic. It’s what divorced dads have been playing with on weekends for years now.

The Amazon drone rollout is part of a test across various industries, including off shore wind and the police, to see if drone flying out of the line of sight of the operator can become part of day to day life.

So, it will either be the way that items are delivered to your door, if this goes well. Or, the way 17 people will be decapitated in the news tomorrow. Only time will tell.

Amazon is hoping to launch its Prime Air service in the UK by the end of this year. How will a drone be able to knock on your door or leave the parcel in a safe place? Let’s be honest, it won’t. It will be able to carelessly drop it over your garden gate, so it might replace the need for Evri drivers.

Amazon has already identified what it has described as a “lightly-populated suburban area” for its trial run. That area has not yet been made public. But if you live in a lightly-populated suburban area, maybe wear a hat.

There’s no point resisting. This is like the moment letters were replaced by email or the self-scan till come out. You can moan but you’ll be using it in a few years time. And there’s no point making an enemy of Amazon. They know where you live and they have drones now.

Meanwhile... oh, this is awkward, why not click on the sponors of this post, and, oh...

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Oh, update!

After posting this on the site I was contacted by an expert on this topic. Here's the quote I was sent from Barbara Pareglio, Senior Technical Director, Smart Mobility Lead, GSMA on the role 5G technology plays in ensuring drone technology integrates safely into the UK airspace.

“Drones are helping organisations across industries from logistics, manufacturing, agriculture and public services to do tasks faster, safer and cheaper. And the role 5G technology plays in elevating drone performance is paramount. With 5G networks and wide area coverage, drones can operate beyond visual line of sight, opening up possibilities for multi-drone missions, automated flights, and improved cost efficiency for a range of commercial industries and organisations.

“When it comes to safety in automating deliveries and materials handling for logistics companies, 5G’s low-latency capabilities ensure seamless communication and mitigate risks to humans by providing relevant data like people density over the flight path. 5G also enables advanced communications and edge application hosting for better performances, as well as image and video traffic aggregation.”


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Humza Yousaf’s Free Cell-Phones

While Humza Yousaf isn't the first former First Minister to have questions asked about money, in this case at least it was just a stupid idea that cost the Scottish taxpayer £6m.

The Scottish Government forked out that much cash to give criminals free Nokia phones during the Covid pandemic. A new report has found that... well, you can probably guess. They were used to commit crimes.

Well, in Humza's defence, how was he supposed to know that people in prison for committing crimes were the kinds of people who'd commit crimes?

Enough Nokia phones were bought by the Scottish Prison Service to give every one of the approximately 7000 prisoners in custody two phones each. Why would they need a spare phone? Were they having an affair?

While it was £4.1m on the phones. (BTW, 7k prisoners, 2 phones each, 14k phones. £4.1m on 14k phones means it was £293 per phone – even I could have got them cheaper phones from the shop on the High Street that sells vapes.) The rest of the money was spent on boosting the phone signal so they could get clear reception on their free phones. This must be upsetting if you're living in Norfolk and you can't get more than one bar even if you wave your phone in the air. They'll be mad as soon as they manage to get enough signal to see the internet.

While the phones were restricted the problem was it was possible to swap out the sim card. Traditionally in prisons any mobile phones have to be smuggled in using nature's pocket. That's easier when all you have to do is cram a sim card up there.

The Nokia 8310 looks like it could go up there OK (£20.98 on eBay – I told you I could get a better deal) and the off-brand Zanco Tiny T1 (46.7mm x 21mm x 12mm) would be a pleasure. All of these plans hit a problem when you realise you need the charger and we have a three-pin plug in the UK.

There were more than 8000 security breaches, including drug deals, hit jobs and the fire-bombing of family homes.

So they scrapped the scheme to give prisoners free mobile phones. Instead they gave them free landlines into their cells. The thing that I begged my parents for and never got, the criminals now get for free.

This all took place when Humza Yousaf was justice secretary, so before Nicola Sturgeon resigned and her husband was arrested. It leaves you wondering, was this all long-term planning to make sure they could still stay in touch if the worst happened?

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This Noise Will Make You Lose Weight

There’s some good news if you wanted a quick way to lose weight. I mean, that good news is the fact that they have invented some drugs that do they now, but let’s pretend we don’t know about those and look at this. A new ‘random noise’ technique could help you lose weight by slashing cravings and emotional eating.

Zapping the brain with "random noise" could starve cravings and stop emotional eating. It’s important to point out that it is electrical signals and not just noise. Don’t just play a zoo format breakfast show in your ears in the hope of it making you slim.

So, yeah, electric shocking your brain helps you lose weight. I have seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and I believe you.

The study found that using electrical brain stimulation for 20 minutes per day just six times reduced appetite, willingness to eat, and hunger for two weeks.

Two weeks? So all we know if that it works for a fortnight. That won’t help you get beach ready. But I always say, everyone is beach ready if you stop caring about the other people on the beach.

For all we know, taking part in a trial can change your eating habits for two weeks. I’ve had milk in the fridge for longer than that and at the end of that time the milk would also help you stop feeling hungry.

The therapy, called transcranial random noise stimulation (tRNS), works through simple skull caps and has already been found to lessen depression.

You might look slimmer and fitter but that skull cap might put you off. Just as all our devices have gone wireless we find a need to plug ourselves in.

But do it. Why not? At least you won’t go on and on about your diet to people who don’t care.

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Strictly Come Dancing Is In Trouble

Some have been calling it a massive blow to Strictly Come Dancing as the BBC show has only managed to sign just 6 women amid the bullying scandal.

Oh no, don’t. Stop, no. That’s terrible. How will we cope?

Now that you have recovered from the shock, the news is that Strictly will have the fewest female celebrities in the show’s history, which has sparked fears the bullying scandal has put women off signing up.

If you haven’t been following, there have been accusations of bad treatment by some of the professional dancers as they tried to teach the celebs. It’s appalling if true and sadly unsurprising. “Fiery” is a problem with dancers. Bruno couldn’t finish a sentence without jumping out of his chair, so it’s not a shocker that some other dancers mix up passion with being an arse.

Normally the should would have 7 or 8 women, this time they have 6. Are you telling me they couldn’t find 2 female celebs who’d do it to boost their career?

On I’m A Celeb the next time it’s on there’ll be two celebs willing to eat kangaroo ball to get back on the game show circuit, they’d be willing to be shouted at by an Italian.

Celebrity SAS involves celebs being shouted at, so that’s basically what Strictly is. I suppose the clue was in the title.

It is sad. Remember when the Strictly curse was about having an affair with a hot dancer?

Fire from Gladiators is one of the women. She’s a former Olympic sprinter and bobsleigh athlete. Whichever male pro-dancer bullies her, I wish him a speedy recovery.

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Oh God, Robert Jenrick

Robert Jenrick was criticised for saying people shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ should be arrested. Does he think Allahu isn’t akbar? Is that the issue?

He had a busy day doing the media rounds so he was bound to say something that got him in trouble. He went on to talk about far-right protests, tried to not say Muslim protests, he called them secular protests and then on Sky News says people should be arrested for saying “Allahu Akbar”.

He forgo the context. It matters. Context tells you if you is said is a problem or not. Shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre is a problem but saying it in a quiz show where you have just been asked to name one of the elements is different. See, it’s all about context.

In general its an Arabic phrase that means God is great. So it’s not a 100 miles away from saying, “Oh, God!” or, “Lordie Lordie!”, “Mon dieu!”

He said: “I thought it was quite wrong that somebody could shout ‘Allahu Akbar’ on the streets of London and not be immediately arrested.

Did he mix this up with the people shouting Jihad? Months back there was a news story about protesters shouting about jihad and people were saying, “Oh, it means struggle.” Again, context is key. If you’re shouting it while trying to find a parking space it’s very different to shouting on an anti-Israel march.

But, the bottom line is, you can’t ban people from shouting out God’s name. How else are you going to finish sex?

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Don’t Say Asylum Seekers

Judges have been told to avoid saying ‘asylum seekers’ and ‘immigrants’. Well, you ain’t gonna get a show on GB News, then.

The new guidance sets out politically correct terms. It’s the classic story. Every so often we get a story of new words added to the dictionary and then old words banned in another story. One in one out.

Judges in England and Wales have been advised to avoid terms such as “gays” and “lame”. When I was growing up you’d call something lame if it was a bit naff. The generation above me did that with the word gay, so it’s good that we have movement on what is seen as acceptable.

Some of it is less useful. In the new edition of the Equal Treatment Bench Book it advises that “person seeking asylum” is now preferred to “asylum seekers”.

Now, hang on. I’m all for being polite but that two things mean exactly the same. And I know this as a GCSE English holder. Sorry, a person who holds a GCSE English.

It also says “immigrant” and “refugee” should only be used where such terms are factually correct. Well, yeah. If you’re calling someone an immigrant when they’re not, you shouldn’t be using that term. That’s how words work.

Homosexual is also banned. Surely any euphemism is far more offensive.

There’s no point causing offence where it doesn’t have to be caused but we do need a system where a judge isn’t worried about picking the wrong word when dealing with the case.

Fortunately we’ll never know if this is better or worse than the way things were as that would require our courts getting round to processing any asylum cases. By the time that happen there’ll be another edition out.

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