Thursday 31 January 2008

Jan 31st

[Sorry - no podcast yesterday - I was working in Taunton Tues night and got back very late, some of yesterdays stories featured today though!]

Health

Statistics released by the Office for National Statistics say that the number of children being born to immigrant mothers has risen sharply over recent years. Really? And this comes as a surprise? Turns out some Polish people have noticed the differential between the rates of pay in their own country and the UK, plus the fact that it’s totally legal to move to the UK and actually come over. Worse still, shock horror, some of them fuck.

What are the shock-horror headlines suggesting? A ban on shagging migrants? Two sets of maternity wards – nice ones for the mothers who can prove Anglo-Saxon or Celtic descent and then cattle sheds for anyone with a bit of an accent? And of course the focus is all on foreign-born mothers, no-one bothers to mention that a fair few of these babies probably have British fathers.

Meanwhile the aghast journalists tell us, British women are having less babies. Yes, we all know how badly the NHS’s standards are falling and we don’t want to do that. Bearing in mind that there’s another story out today that a drug addicted mother has had 14 of her children taken away from her by social services. Could it be that Britain is generating the WRONG KIND OF BABIES! And we’re still forgetting that women don’t just get pregnant on their own.

Maybe the solution is to target men. Posters in gent’s toilets: Don’t be a shit, only shag a brit. Don’t be like these mugs – say “no” to girls on drugs.

Science

A group of medical researchers believe they may have found a way to reverse memory loss in patients. The process involving deep brain tissue stimulation was originally being trialled as a means to combat obesity. However the process backfired when the patient suddenly remembered how much he liked chips.

Crime

Maxine Carr, the accomplice to the Soham murders is to marry and is rumoured to be pregnant. The news revealed in the Daily Mail doesn’t say very much for the effectiveness of the police efforts to change her identity and allow her to live in obscurity. I hate the Mail. Here’s their actual comment on the story “The news will devastate the parents of Huntley's ten-year-old victims, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.” But the parents of Wells and Chapman wouldn’t know about the news if it wasn’t all over the Daily Mail.

Papers

My other favourite paper The Daily Express leads today with “council tax up to pay fatcats £50,000 a year”, claiming that 30,000 people working in town halls across the country now earn more than £50,000 a year. Now given that there are 45,000 towns in the UK, that’s not even one well-paid councillor each, but of course the Express glosses over that to describe these people as “faceless bureaucrats. So presumably half the money is disability allowances to help them cope with having no faces.

Finance

The US central bank is desperately trying to ward off a recession, cutting interest rate by a further half a percent. They also called up George Bush and pleased with him not to do anything or say anything. At all. Ever.

International News

An Afghan journalist has been sentenced to death for reading an article about women’s right. Boy I’m glad we invaded Afghanistan and threw out those evil Taleban eh? They must be really grateful to us for bringing them freedom, human rights and democracy. The Independent coverage of the story featured a picture of a woman in a burqa with the caption “The burqa is seen by many as a sign of female subjugation” which is a bit like saying “shooting people in the head is seen by many as a sign of violence”.

Travel

A transatlantic flight has to make an unscheduled landing after one of the pilots started behaving strangely, shouting, swearing and asking for God. A lot of religious groups are allowed to overlook employment discrimination laws. They keep gay people and women and so on out of positions of power in their communities because they still live by rules invented a couple of millennia ago. Well now I want a special airline for atheists, where all the pilots don’t believe in an afterlife.

Tuesday 29 January 2008

Jan 29th

Politcs

A senior Tory MP has been forced to apologise after paying £45,000 expenses to his son. Derek Conway listed his son Henry as his “parliamentary assistant” while the boy was in fact away studying at university. The fraud came to light when investigators noticed that conservative party policies were completely rubbish and anyone who had watched a few episodes of Montel Williams could have done a lot better.

International news

Israel has apologised for banning the beatles when they planned to visit the country in 1965. Many beatles classics as we now know them in fact contain lyric changes instigated by the band after the Israeli ban. Few now remember the classics: Baby You Can Drive My Car, But Get Out Quickly, I Wanna Bomb Your Settlement and With A Little Help From My Wahabist Sympathisers.

Entertainment

Russell Brand peed in to a cup during his weekly radio show. The move was seen as vital since otherwise his penis would have missed a whole week of news coverage.

Crime

A major trial is being launched to see whether nutritional supplements reduce anti-social behaviour in prisons. This comes after a smaller recent study seemed to imply a link, it is not yet clear however whether the nutrients made the prisoners calmer or whether they simply used up all their anger and aggression punching the picture of Gillian McKeith on the boxes.

They say the problem is not prison food which is highly nutritious, especially with all the spunk from the sex offenders working in the kitchen, but in fact the problem lies with prisoners making poor choices. Presumably starting with the choice they made to borrow all that jewellery without permission from the shops and go on holiday right after completely forgetting about the heroin-filled condom mid after-noon snack they’d had the day before...

Terrorism

Four men have pleaded guilty to offences linked to a plot to kidnap and murder a Muslim member of the British armed forces. Ringleader Parviz Khan said he intended to behead his victim “like a pig”. Except of course Muslim’s don’t eat pork so don’t kill pigs.

Religion

Pope Benedict has made a speech to academics at the Vatican warning them against the “seductive” powers of science. Oh good. He said “No science can say who man is, where he comes from or where he is going”. To which any half-decent scientific academic would reply “Close relative of the chimp, East Africa and nowhere very interesting if we don’t get global warming sorted out soon.”

Benedict then told the conference “Man is not the fruit of chance or a bundle of convergences, determinisms or physical and chemical reactions ... what’s that? Or, sorry, news just in, man IS the fruit of chance, a bundle of convergences, determinism and physical and chemical reactions.”

Monday 28 January 2008

Jan 28th

Topicals Jan 28th

News in brief

An exhibition looking at the history of underwear has opened at a Black Country museum. Items on display include the actual pants worn by Tony Blair during his 1998 appearance on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman. The curator of the exhibition said “You can’t talk about clothes without talking about underwear” Which sounds like she’s got a weird for of tourettes “I got a new scarf for Christmas. Bra! Knickers! Pants! She added “I hope young people will come and see exactly what their mothers and grandmothers wore back in the day”, which might have the added benefit of reducing underage pregnancy in the area. “Your grandmother would have worn these suspenders...”, “Erm, maybe not tonight...”

Education

MacDonalds is to launch it’s own nationally recognised A-level-type qualification. Repeat after me class “Vous Voulez des fries avec votre BigMac?”. Anyway this disproves the myth that all kids can do after a UK state education is work at MacDonalds. No – they can’t even do that.

Last year they complained about the dictionary definition of McJob, saying that defining it as “an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects” was insulting and out of date. They also asked to change the definition of “insulting” to “accurate” and “out of date” to “still true”.

Animal Welfare

Now I’m not a big campaigner for animal rights, but there was one BBC headline that struck me as needlessly cruel today. “Five legged cat to lose two paws”. So the poor thing is going from one leg too many to one too few. Couldn’t they just give it a couple of weeks with the right number of legs in the middle there? In fact the two legs to be removed are deformed. Vets say this is the result of inbreeding – incidentally the same factors explain why prince Philip is only able to speak out of his arse.

Crime

A man has been jailed for six years after admitting to blackmailing Tescos. Philip McHugh demanded £1m from the supermarket last year. I just don’t understand HOW you can blackmail Tescos. Has he got photos of it in bed with Asda? He actually made bomb threats to more than ten different branches of the store. The effect on local people was noticeable – they looked healthier and fitter and reported having less heart attacks.

Health

A report out today says that while junk-food eating children are more likely to misbehave in class when a teacher is present, once the teacher leaves it is those children eating a healthy diet the so-called banana louts - who are more likely to be naughty. Possibly because they can give the junk food eating kids a really good kicking.

Immigration

Mills and Boon have started publishing in the UK in Polish. The new novels are much better written than the originals and available at half the price.

International News

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has called on other regional countries to join him in forming a military alliance against the US. It’s amazing Chavez can walk around so easily with balls that big. He’s like “hey you, you with the massive nuclear arsenal, go fuck yourself”.

And finally

A South Korean singer has offered to prove on live TV that he hasn’t been castrated by a Japanese gangster. I don’t think I need to write a punchline do I?

Thursday 24 January 2008

Jan 24th

Politics

An estimated 22,500 police joined a march in central London to protest over pay. Well initially only six showed up so they smashed a window, and another 20 arrived, then they started a riot and another 2,000 arrived. Finally a Brazilian guy in a puffa jacket shouted “Allah Akbar” and that brought every other met officer.

Imagine though being a petty criminal near Westminster yesterday? Like you’ve just nicked a £2 blouse out of Primark and you sprint round the corner to see 22,500 police officers marching your way.

Transport

A man who leads his girlfriend round with a dog collar has been prevented from boarding a bus in West Yorkshire. Dani Graves and his slave, sorry fiancé, are claiming discrimination, The bus company says the lead is a threat to passenger safety, which is bad news for anyone on the bus when the trainers from the local pit bull centre decide to take Rex out to the park.

The woman Tasha Maltby said the lead was her idea and previous boyfriends had called her a “weirdo” for suggesting it. And that’s news?! Try it now – go ask your partner if they wouldn’t mind leading you around on a dog lead. Then if they don’t call you a weirdo, call the press, and the police.

Asked about their relationship Mr Graves said “She’s kindof like a pet. I do everything for her. You wouldn’t expect your cat or dog to do the washing up or cleaning round the house”. True but you would expect your pet to shit in a sand box in the kitchen.

Seriously though I’m actually with the couple on this occasion, if they’re both genuinely consenting to the arrangement, what is it to us. The press seem obsessed with describing them as Goths and saying that they dress in black and all that. If having something round your neck was dangerous on buses then businessmen would have to take their ties off before boarding.

Health

Scientists say they are close to finding a way of transplanting a kidney without the need for drugs. Cos normally they’d want at least a dab of nose-candy before attempting a tricky procedure like that.

Environment

A new ship has been unveiled which is partly powered by a giant kite. If successful the owners of the MS Beluga SkySails plan to launch a sister fleet powered by yo-yos, diabolos and buzz lightyear.

Health

Fat people could be paid to lose weight under new government plans to tackle obesity. So if you’re short of cash, get down to the nearest all-you-can-eat place and load up now. The plans will offer vouchers for healthy food followed by cash prizes for those who succeed in losing weight. Great thinking because the real reason for obesity in this country is nothing to do with the rise of convenience food, the appalling way the public are treated by the food industry and the rise of the TV and playstation generation. But it turns out it’s just the lack of a financial incentive.

Other measures being proposed include so-called lunchbox police (which sounds like a dodgy chippendales tribute act) to check if children have been given a healthy lunch. Seems dumb to me, I know when I was at school the easy way to tell if kids have a healthy lunch is if they throw it away and go buy chocolate instead at the nearest newsagents.

They’re also suggesting kids have compulsory cookery lessons. They’ll only be able to make dough and instant mash of course because of the ban on knives in schools. And advising that schools give kids at least five hours of sport every week, which is actually more than the England football squad do.

Crime

A lot of coverage today of statements from Natasha Steel. In case you’re wondering who that is – she’s been listed almost everywhere as Natasha Hogan because it seems only natural for the papers to assume that she would want to keep the name of her ex husband after he murdered her son and had his defence team try to tell her it was her fault. She’s got bigger things to be upset about at the moment though as her ex-husband has been essentially let off after throwing both of her children off a 50ft balcony. John Hogan’s lawyers described him as “the best Dad [his son] could have had”, which just doesn’t ring true for me. I’ve never been in a branch of Clinton Cards and seen a mug that read “World’s best Dad, hey thanks for throwing me off a balcony to my death.”.

Fashion

The burlesque artist Dita Von Teese has been announced as the new Wonderbra model. Amazing how much coverage this issue need really...

Personally I find the woman who essentially takes her kit off for money and then claims it’s somehow liberating to take slightly less of your clothes off in a middle class cocktail lounge, extremely annoying. At least the women who work at Spearmint Rhino can legitimately claim they need the money and don’t have any choice. She legitimises an industry that’s exploiting women all over the world.

Also I’ve never seen her in a bra, she’s forever showing us all how she doesn’t really need one. Is the new range going to include nipple tassles?

And remember wonderbra’s are basically padded bras. They’re designed to make boobs look bigger – so here’s the message from Wonderbra – are you the most successful stripper in England? Sorry still not good enough, you need a padded bra.

Wednesday 23 January 2008

Jan 23rd

Science

One thousand people are to have their complete genome mapped as part of a major new study. The first volunteer will be Jade Goody. The lead scientist says she has been deliberately chosen to save time since they have already mapped the code for the fruit fly.

Health

Ministers have told the food industry that labelling is the key to tackling obesity. Really? You don’t think it’s getting people to eat less crap? I mean I don’t know many fat people who are there going “I don’t understand how I’ve gotten so heavy, I guess I must have misunderstood the label on that rich chocolate truffle gateaux – I thought it counted as one of my five-a-day”. The best way to use labelling to combat obesity is to make the labels on all food over 100cals weigh 20kgs. Then carrying the food home would burn of the energy.

Now I agree that food labelling is terrible. These days if your food wasn’t made on farm equivalent of a Guantanamo bay isolation cell there’ll be a special label to tell you so. But if it was, then they just, aaah, won’t mention it.

Politics

George Bush has spoken at an anti-abortion rally in the US. His words clearly had a big impact with two thirds of those who saw him saying they now believed abortion should be compulsory. What he said at the rally was “You’re here because you know all life deserves to be protected. I’m proud to be standing with you.” What he meant was “I’m going to need a lot more cannon fodder for my illegal wars”. He went on to say “America [can do] better than this” which is exactly what most Americans have been thinking since the day he took office. He went on, “We will continue to work for a culture of life”, then he popped out, authorised a few executions, did an oil trade with king Abdullah and told his defence officials to stop wasting all that money on body armour for the troops in Iraq. When he got back he decided to bamboozle the crowd with science, this time saying “Each unborn child is a separate individual with his or her own genetic code”. Sure but a bacon sandwich has it’s own genetic code. And if you’re definite right to life on the basis of unique genes then it’d be ok to kill one of each set of identical twins. Although if you’ve seen as many horror films as I have, you might be up for that – why do they never cast the twins as the nice ones?

Lifestyle

A survey whose results were released today says more people are comfortable with the idea of pre-marital sex than ever before. The survey conducted by Brad Pitt and Abi Titmuss revealed 70% of the population had “no objection” compared to only 48% in 1984 when John Prescott conducted the survey.

A disgusting 30% of the population described themselves as prejudiced against other races, amazingly the same percentage as ticked the box for “I read the Daily Mail”. The authors of the report (that’s Brad and Abi, pay attention) say they put this down to the reaction to Sept 11th the reaction of the press that is.

Papers

Daily Express headlines today include “Girl Attacked by Frenzied Knifeman” as though most knife attacks are very casual affairs with breaks for tea and muted applause for particularly complicated artistic stabs.

Then on page 34 their headline screams “We’re Breeding A Generation Of Teenage Killers”. Which is interesting, and ironic, because if anyone is trying to engender a culture of poverty and panic, it is the Express. Also if that’s true – if we are building a secret murderous child-army, surely that’s big enough for the front page. Instead the front page says Britain’s Muslims are Too Extreme. I’d love to have seen them out on the streets surveying people “Would you like your local Muslims (a) Very extreme, (b) quite extreme or (c) not extreme at all?”

The story behind it is that Iraq’s deputy prime minister visited a Mosque in the UK and said that the preaching and books used were shocking and “would be illegal in Iraq”. And Iraq has such a better track record on law and order than the UK. We should definitely follow their example.

Tuesday 22 January 2008

Jan 22nd

Finance

George Bush has announced a financial rescue package to prevent the Us from tipping into a recession. As usual the thrust of the plan is to stop taxing rich people. Financial markets around the world reacted going “Aaah, Bush has noticed the economy and is doing something, sell! Sell! Sell!”

Interviewed about the crashing markets one trader said “Getting drunk won’t help because there’ll be more of the same tomorrow”, ironically highlighting how those working on minimum wage for the companies he trades feel.

Crime

And the case of John Hogan. This is the father who threw his young son off a hotel balcony before jumping off himself with his daughter– the son died, Hogan and his daughter survived. Yesterday the defence told the court that the murder of the young boy was – wait for it – his mother’s fault. Apparently poor innocent Mr Hogan was suffering psychosis and schitzophrenia and thought he was “taking them to heaven”. Meanwhile his wife “shouldn’t have told him she was leaving him” and caused the incident due to her lack of “emotional intelligence”.

Now firstly he thought he was “taking them to heaven” – can that mean anything other than “deliberately killing them”. Secondly I think packing up and leaving a guy like this shows a great deal of emotional intelligence.

The defence also accused her of insulting the accused’s family. Apparently she called them a “family of death” just because both his brothers have committed suicide, one of them after burning down his family home.

Just when you would think it was about time to leave the poor bereaved woman alone they accused her of sending “flirty” emails to an old school friend. Right, when did logging on to friends reunited constitute incitement to murder?

Health

A doctor who joked about putting leeches on a patients genitals is due to face a fitness-to-practice panel at the GMC. Now I’ve been working as a comic for about four years now and I’ll be honest I still never heard that joke. Doctor doctor, I’m here for my check-up. I’ll put some leeches on your genitals then. An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman were putting leeches on their genitals. It is also alleged that he formed an inappropriate emotional bond with the patient. Yeah cos girls love a guy who jokes about putting leeches on their genitals. Have we entered some sort of wormhole here and ended up in a weird parrallel universe?

Entertainment

And the BBC reports Amy Winehouse has taken some crack. Of course she’s taken some crack – look at her!

Environment

Finally the environment and I’ve been told by a couple of listeners that I should do something about the floods, so I’ve got a jiffy cloth and I’m off to Yorkshire. Well before I go I’ll just tell you a little bit about the extreme weather. The Daily Express had about five pages on the subject and magically managed not to mention climate change once. As well as the floods, some areas had snow storms – a student in Newcastle commented “way-aye, as terrible, i’ve ‘ad to put a pair of socks on with me mini skirt and boob tube”.

Monday 21 January 2008

Jan 21st

Europe

And some French blokes – Edouard Balladur and Valery Giscard D’Estaing (who seems not to have noticed he’s got a girl’s name) have dared to suggest Tony Blair might not make the best EU president. They point out that he opposed the Euro, the European Constitution and then led his country into a needless and bloody war that almost all of his European colleagues had the good sense to avoid. Put that way I guess putting Mr Blair in charge of the EU would be a bit like letting Paris Hilton take over Northern Rock.

Politics

The Tories have announced they have chosen a successor to Ann Widdecombe. Her replacement Helen Grant is apparently very experienced for the role – having played the wicked witch of the west two seasons on Broadway.

Also in politics Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has been for a kebab. Basically this was a publicity stunt to try and prove that the streets of Peckham are safe to walk at night, in spite of her policies on crime. The thing is she was so confident about her safety, she took a minder with her. He had been instructed to do whatever was necessary to save her life, so presumably as they left the shop he ripped the kebab from her hand and threw it away.

History

One of the last two surviving French veterans of world war one has died. This is great news for the other one, Lazare Ponticelli who issued the following statement “It was all me, I did it all on my own, I killed all the Germans myself one by one with a pen knife. The other soldiers were rubbish.”

Education

Plans have been unveiled to introduce metal detectors into schools in Britain to prevent youths from bringing knives and guns to school. If the scheme is successful it could be spread to community centre, buses, trains and even prisons. Or to save time they could just install the detectors straight into hooded tops.

International Politics

The Canadian Foreign Minister has apologised after accidentally releasing a list of countries where prisoners are at risk of torture. Apparently the US and Israel were mistakenly on the on the list, when everyone knows they don’t torture. Ha ha ha. What a silly suggestion. In a related incident the Canadian Sports Minister issued a list of sports popular with young people and forgot to include water-boarding.

Art

The first official portrait of Tony Blair has been unveiled. The artist Jonathan Yeo has previously painted Rupert Murdock, The Duke Of Edinburgh and Beelzebub. He said Mr Blair had a “tigger-like” energy and said he thought he was happy that Gordon Brown’s prime ministership wasn’t going very well. Isn’t that just a touch childish? I mean it’s ok to be six and be happy that your playmates aren’t any better at finger-paining than you but this is running the country we’re talking about... Just as well the seats in the House of Commons are fixed in place or presumably they’d all be pulling them out just as their colleagues were about to sit down. Prime Ministers question time will soon start with David Cameron going “pull my finger”.

Newspapers

It’s usually the tabloids that pose the most ridiculous questions for their readers. The customary phone-ins on “Should we give all the good stuff in Britain to the French?”, etc. Today the Independent have run their own front pager, fortunately without the premium rate line. They ask: Should Richard Branson be allowed to make a fortune at our expense with Northern Rock?

And if there was ever a tabloid-style story well suited to the Independent, this is it: Jeremy Paxman has complained that Marks and Spencers underwear doesn’t give enough support. Cue innumerable photo-shopped pictures of Paxo’s head glued on to the body of a male underwear model. And quote allegedly the most terrifying political interviewer in the country “This is not just about the weak gusset issue”.

Paxo has quite a good point here though. Essentially the number of shops which can be actually relied upon to offer decent quality goods is falling like a stone. I mean no-one goes to Matalan or Primark and expects a garment tough enough to weather a spot of drizzle but it seems now that every store cuts every corner it possibly can and then acts innocent, hoping Jamie Oliver isn’t looking.

Now I normally flick through the Daily Mail just to get a bit of a mixture of stories for the podcast. However one story sort of leapt out over the weekend. Fascist columnist Richard Littlejohn had a piece about the Ipswich murders. Now I quote, about the women who were killed , firstly “in their chosen field of "work", death by strangulation is an occupational hazard.” Which seems odd partly because he’s used the word “chosen”. I’m not entirely convinced that they ended up working as street prostitutes because hairdressing didn’t seem challenging enough. Mummy when I grow up I want to be addicted to heroin. And secondly, another direct quote “in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.”

If any listeners happen to know where Mr Littlejohn lives do please share that info, because I’m sure he understands that in the business of writing noxious offensive bullshit, getting punched in the face every morning as you leave the house is an occupational hazard. And in the scheme of things Richard, your death would be a great loss. A really REALLY GREAT loss.

Friday 18 January 2008

Jan 18th

Todays podcast text:

Main Story

An airplane was forced to make an emergency landing at Heathrow. Some passengers were a little bit hurt. The pictures were pretty scary-looking but there wasn’t really much else to the news. That didn’t stop the press though. The BBC interviewed a passing cab driver who commented “it was so low, you would think you could reach out the window and touch it”, mind you he also thought £4.50 was a reasonable fee for waiting two minutes and later added, “That Robbie Williams, he’s gay, mark my words.”

The reasons for the crash are as yet unclear but some experts have speculated that a new trainee co-pilot may have driven the pilot to make the early landing by asking “are we nearly there yet” every five minutes since the plane left Beijing”.

As a result all short haul BA flights from Heathrow to destinations like Manchester and Paris were cancelled for the day. This was a bad move; they should have been cancelled forever. I know it’s not strictly relevant to the news story but really, there’s a climate crisis on, anyone who flies from London to Manchester should be shot and carved up for the rest of us to eat.

Education

A teaching union survey suggests more than half of teachers believe internet plagiarism is a serious problem among sixth-form students. One teacher, a Mrs Cooper from Devon said “I have been handed two identical essays on Romeo and Juliet as well as a piece of work which still contained website adverts”. So evidently standards of cheating have declined seriously since I was at school. A second teacher, a Mr Wells from Norfolk said “I have been handed two identical essays on Romeo and Juliet as well as a piece of work which Play Your Game At Poker 888.com...”

More seriously though, thinking back to my days at school. It seems likely the internet could be putting school swots out of business. Gone are the days when after handing in your own A* essay, you could spelling-mistake it up a bit, take out the clever conclusion and trade it in with a student who valued a B- more than his dinner money.

Technology

A scientist says he has produced embryos that are clones of himself and a lab colleague. Next week he plans to work on a trapdoor bridge over a piranha-filled pond surrounded by an evil robot army.

Hopefully the next clones will be of George Bush and Gordon Brown and after indoctrinating them with liberal pacifist ideals they’ll be able to take over unnoticed while the real Bush and Brown languish in strait jackets twitching each time they hear peace and stability have spread somewhere else in the world.

Politics

David Cameron has responded to the ongoing anger about the death of Gary Newlove, who was kicked to death by three teenagers, one of whom was out of bail at the time, by saying we need to “take a look” at the bail process. Take a look? Don’t we need to reform it so that those who are a danger to the public are kept out of the way? Cameron is starting to sound like a cowboy builder, “Got trouble with your bail system ‘ave you love? I’ll take a look at that for you if you like.” Didn’t politics used to be about policies and manifestos?

Newspapers

The Sun reported health and safety inspectors have clamped down on a pantomime production insisting that six wooden swords, two plastic cutlasses and a plastic pistol be kept under lock and key. Obviously the panto season has long since finished so frankly anyone using the old “it’s behind you” excuse this late into Jan is probably planning a bank job. The Sun’s message as usual is that health and safety is a waste of time and we should just allow companies to save a few pennies for executive bonuses by operating unsafe practices and putting their employees lives at risk. It’s not a joke, I just wish it was.

The Sun usually has nothing good to say about immigrants to the UK from Poland. Today however marked a change in that policy in interviews with Ilona, a trainee beauty therapist from Gniezno and Kamila, a physiotherapy student from Poznan. The Sun said the two women were likely to be idolised by millions. What did they do to deserve this? Yup, appeared on page three with their tits out...