UK British News Megathread - aka CWCissey's news thread

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https://news.sky.com/story/row-over-new-greggs-vegan-sausage-rolls-heats-up-11597679 (https://archive.ph/5Ba6o)

A heated row has broken out over a move by Britain's largest bakery chain to launch a vegan sausage roll.

The pastry, which is filled with a meat substitute and encased in 96 pastry layers, is available in 950 Greggs stores across the country.

It was promised after 20,000 people signed a petition calling for the snack to be launched to accommodate plant-based diet eaters.


But the vegan sausage roll's launch has been greeted by a mixed reaction: Some consumers welcomed it, while others voiced their objections.

View image on Twitter


spread happiness@p4leandp1nk
https://twitter.com/p4leandp1nk/status/1080767496569974785

#VEGANsausageroll thanks Greggs
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7
10:07 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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Cook and food poverty campaigner Jack Monroe declared she was "frantically googling to see what time my nearest opens tomorrow morning because I will be outside".

While TV writer Brydie Lee-Kennedy called herself "very pro the Greggs vegan sausage roll because anything that wrenches veganism back from the 'clean eating' wellness folk is a good thing".

One Twitter user wrote that finding vegan sausage rolls missing from a store in Corby had "ruined my morning".

Another said: "My son is allergic to dairy products which means I can't really go to Greggs when he's with me. Now I can. Thank you vegans."

View image on Twitter


pg often@pgofton
https://twitter.com/pgofton/status/1080772793774624768

The hype got me like #Greggs #Veganuary

42
10:28 AM - Jan 3, 2019
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TV presenter Piers Morgan led the charge of those outraged by the new roll.

"Nobody was waiting for a vegan bloody sausage, you PC-ravaged clowns," he wrote on Twitter.

Mr Morgan later complained at receiving "howling abuse from vegans", adding: "I get it, you're all hangry. I would be too if I only ate plants and gruel."

Another Twitter user said: "I really struggle to believe that 20,000 vegans are that desperate to eat in a Greggs."

"You don't paint a mustach (sic) on the Mona Lisa and you don't mess with the perfect sausage roll," one quipped.

Journalist Nooruddean Choudry suggested Greggs introduce a halal steak bake to "crank the fume levels right up to 11".

The bakery chain told concerned customers that "change is good" and that there would "always be a classic sausage roll".

It comes on the same day McDonald's launched its first vegetarian "Happy Meal", designed for children.

The new dish comes with a "veggie wrap", instead of the usual chicken or beef option.
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It should be noted that Piers Morgan and Greggs share the same PR firm, so I'm thinking this is some serious faux outrage and South Park KKK gambiting here.
 
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Heinrich Maneuver said:
Nevermind that, smash or pass gents?
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Never seen her before, only heard her talk, and I was baffled why this particular retard was the muslim Reform chose to humiliate its voters with. It's the muslim party, of couse, so I expected that, but not that they'd try so hard to be repulsive.

But now I understand. Would absolutely run the ol' "I'll make you mayor, baby" on her, with a whole fake campaign and everything.
 
No-Eyed Square Guy said:
Never seen her before, only heard her talk, and I was baffled why this particular retard was the muslim Reform chose to humiliate its voters with. It's the muslim party, of couse, so I expected that, but not that they'd try so hard to be repulsive.
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The unfortunate reality of London is that no real right-wing party could truly win in a city that had its demographics completely transformed.
 
Carpe Jugulum said:
The Prevent video game that treats every teenager like a far-Right extremist - Telegraph (archive).

Phone fag sorry no cut and paste
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LXXVII Brigade said:
What the fuck? why are people unable to grasp why people have "Far-Right" views? This is just going to radicalise school kids more. Why are they so retarded?

"If Charlie has made all the “red” decisions, he or she is referred to Prevent and Channel, a government scheme for those who provoke “terrorism concerns”, and given a mentor."

Reading that article while listening to the Paper Please death theme was funny as fuck though.
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All that government funding and they've just recreated 'Dave's Dilemmas' for the ZX Spectrum, but with Muslims instead of drug use.
 



Twitter may face a ban in the UK and on app stores because of its hosting and AI creation of non-consensual sexual images of women and children. Elon Musk responded to concerns over his child porn and his solution is to put the creation of it behind a paywall so that only subscribers can create it, the UK Gov aren't impressed by this. Time for the police to be checking the hard drives of Twitter blue tick users huh.
 
Dont remember any calls for Reddit to be blocked when it was openly filled with child porn, or now when it's hidden behind obscurely named ephemeral subreddits.

I dont see any calls for Facebook, snapchat, instagram or whatsapp to be banned despite them being used by paedophiles to groom children.

This is nakedly, cack-handedly political and nothing to do with somebody using a tool to create an image. Labour simply aren't clever enough to making it look any other way.
 
Otterly said:
Is it that difficult to just program grok to say ‘no you fucking pervert’ and return a picture of a woodchipper to any requests to alter pictures of children?
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Simple answer: Not really.
More complex answer: Yes, but not really.

Generative AI models don't have to be trained on the things they produce. There only has to be overlap. If a model understands what a bikini is and understands what a child is, there doesn't have to be a single image of a child in a bikini in the training data for it to generate an image of a child in a bikini. The entire point of model training is to get it to understand concepts individually so that it can then improvise putting them together based on your request. And cutting out this sort of thing at the model level without making a generally useless model is actually a pretty difficult problem to solve. But what you can do is is cut it out at the prompt level. The model may be capable but you have the preceding layer learn to identify dodgy prompts and refuse to pass them on.

You can also post-generation analyse and image with other models trained to detect CSAM or other things and flag them on output as well. Many companies take this approach. It tends to have a lot of false positives, though.

I'm simplifying and you want elements of all approaches. And prompt filtering is also imperfect. I recall a while back some public models would refuse a request to generate a picture of a Black person eating a watermelon but you could ask it to produce a Nigerian man eating a watermelon or something like that. But perfect is the enemy of the good and all that, filtering this stuff at the prompt level is the way to do it. It's not entirely trivial but with the resources these companies have, doable.

EDIT:

I'm actually going to go a little further on this though it's a bit of a tangent to British news. I'd "can you stop Grok doing this" is bordering on a wrong question. Obviously you do NOT want public AI tools generating child porn on request and these companies need to have ways to stop that. And not just CSAM but other bad stuff. But if someone is dumb enough to do this on a free public service they're low-hanging fruit that can hopefully be picked up and dealt with quickly. The far more difficult issue is that anyone can just rent some compute resource and with a modest amount of technical knowledge set up their own image generation. The overlap of what you need for legitimate purposes and what you need for illegitimate purposes, is near total. Trying to deny access to such resources for one but not the other requires a level of overreach that would make banning Twitter look like Anarchist Utopia in comparison. You can try and restrict access to adult-orientated models. Again, a lot of over-reach is required for this but you can force it to be kept out of general communication channels a bit. But it's also getting easier and easier to train and produce such models yourself. Easier is the wrong word. Cheaper. Probably the best ways to deal with this stuff is the same way they deal with other CSAM - sting operations, informants, etc.

TL;DR: I don't know if this is a pretext for banning Twitter or if politicians actually think this will cut down on CSAM. It can be both depending on their individual level of technical understanding (low for most MPs). But either way, I think it'll have minimal impact on actual amounts or access to CSAM. You need more of a Broken Windows policy change to enforcement to really change the culture I think. Go after sites like Reddit for their various abuse sub-reddits, all those furry and other porn accounts on Bluesky. Things like that. I actually heard someone say that Twitter was "no good for porn now" since Musk took it over and that "Bluesky is where the best stuff is". Start chasing down all these small ones, hit 'em, make 'em think twice. You have the information you need for a lot of them. And AI tools can help batch list a lot of them ready for you! That'll shift some attitudes and also isolate the producers. When you've mowed the lawn a bit more you can see better the worst weeds to pull out.
 
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diroama said:
Dont remember any calls for Reddit to be blocked when it was openly filled with child porn, or now when it's hidden behind obscurely named ephemeral subreddits.

I dont see any calls for Facebook, snapchat, instagram or whatsapp to be banned despite them being used by paedophiles to groom children.

This is nakedly, cack-handedly political and nothing to do with somebody using a tool to create an image. Labour simply aren't clever enough to making it look any other way.
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And that makes what Twitter is doing okay, how? Hell, all they would need to do to stop a ban is just stop it from being used for making child porn and would be no risk of a ban.

I do think the UK gov is too soft on other platforms, but they are trying to do something right here, and hell, all social media should be banned for under 16s anyway.
 
Overly Serious said:
I'd "can you stop Grok doing this" is bordering on a wrong question.
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No you’re right. The answer perhaps then is to pick up the people asking grok to do it and put them in a wood chipper, as we should be doing with anyone we find making/distributing csam
But it’ll be hilarious watching them ban x. We’ve seen screenshots of labour MPs moaning about x. They don’t want people using it, so they’ll ban it. They’re deranged.
 
Product Placement said:
And that makes what Twitter is doing okay, how? Hell, all they would need to do to stop a ban is just stop it from being used for making child porn and would be no risk of a ban.
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So, to be clear, you want access to a platform that is owned by somebody critical of the British government, to be banned by the British government, because some users misused a tool it provides?

Does that seem "okay" to you? Or does it not seem a bit convenient?
 
Cho Chang's Granddad said:



Twitter may face a ban in the UK and on app stores because of its hosting and AI creation of non-consensual sexual images of women and children. Elon Musk responded to concerns over his child porn and his solution is to put the creation of it behind a paywall so that only subscribers can create it, the UK Gov aren't impressed by this. Time for the police to be checking the hard drives of Twitter blue tick users huh.
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Go home prevent, you’re drunk.
 
diroama said:
So, to be clear, you want access to a platform that is owned by somebody critical of the British government, to be banned by the British government, because some users misused a tool it provides?

Does that seem "okay" to you? Or does it not seem a bit convenient?
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If he refuses to stop letting his AI make child porn, then yes. Not sure why he should get a free pass on that just because he is critical of the British government. He has a simple out, really is no defending him on it.

It really doesn't matter if the UK gov is only using this as a convenient reason to ban it, when it is something that Musk shouldn't have allowed in the first place and should have pulled until it was sorted out. He has given them a legit reason to ban it.
 
They don’t actually care about csam or violence against women. They want to ban x purely because it allows people to be critical of them.
If they genuinely wanted to take down child predators we wouldn’t be seeing the courts let child rapists and csam enthusiasts off Scot free or Pakistani rape gangs allowed to operate in every town and city in the country.
The ‘think of the children’ stuff is purely an emotional stick to beat people with.
 
Product Placement said:
If he refuses to stop letting his AI make child porn, then yes. Not sure why he should get a free pass on that just because he is critical of the British government. He has a simple out, really is no defending him on it.
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I haven't seen these images myself, and I dont know if Musk has actually taken a stand that his AI tools should be able to generate this sort of content, or if the criticism is that he hasn't done enough to stop it, but I see the calls to ban X from people who dont like it for entirely unrelated reasons as the greater harm. I have no doubt that similar images could be generated on other AI services - the only difference here is who owns this one.
 
Otterly said:
They don’t actually care about csam or violence against women. They want to ban x purely because it allows people to be critical of them.
If they genuinely wanted to take down child predators we wouldn’t be seeing the courts let child rapists and csam enthusiasts off Scot free or Pakistani rape gangs allowed to operate in every town and city in the country.
The ‘think of the children’ stuff is purely an emotional stick to beat people with.
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I believe there was a leaked chat further back in the thread showing them doing the usual "fascism" whine about X and pushing to move to Bluesky. That sure as hell is not about moving to a platform with fewer child predators.

Speaking of


Justice Secretary Angela Constance broke the ministerial code after making controversial comments about a grooming gangs expert in parliament, an investigation has found.
The SNP minister was accused of misrepresenting Prof Alexis Jay's position on public inquiries into child sexual abuse and exploitation.
However, the Scottish government's independent advisers found that the breaches of the ministerial code were inadvertent and "without any deliberation or intention to mislead".
Constance, who accepted the inquiry's findings, was given a written reprimand and told to make a statement to parliament to update the official record.
The row dates back to September, when the justice secretary quoted Prof Jay - who is overseeing a review of the evidence on grooming gangs in Scotland - in parliament and told MSPs that the expert did not support further grooming gang inquiries.
However, Prof Jay later contacted the government to clarify that her remarks did not refer to inquiries in Scotland.

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https://archive.ph/o/yJaOd/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0je59p3zeqo
The independent investigation identified two breaches of the ministerial code.
The first was that Constance's comments about Prof Jay "had the potential to mislead parliament" and should have been corrected as soon as the expert asked the government to clarify her comments.
However, the advisers found that there was no evidence that Constance "knowingly misled parliament nor was the statement inaccurate or untruthful".
The second breach related to a telephone conservation in which Constance apologised to Prof Jay. The minister had revealed last month that no government officials were on the call.
The advisers described this as an "error of judgement in the moment and not deliberate and in that sense inadvertent".
First Minister John Swinney said he accepted the findings of the investigation and that the recommendations of the investigation would be followed.

Making a statement to parliament, Constance said she accepted the conclusion of the investigation "unreservedly" and apologised to the first minister.
"I have always stated that I did not intend to mislead parliament in any way," she told MSPs.
"The record could have and should have been corrected earlier and a statement to parliament should have been made earlier."
Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay called on Constance to quit.
He also noted that Swinney had previously told parliament that he believed there had not been a breach of the ministerial code.
Findlay added: "This saga has all the hallmarks of John Swinney's government - cover-up over candour, self-preservation over integrity."
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said Constance had lost the confidence of the victims of grooming gangs and that she should resign.

​

The controversy led to the mother of a grooming gangs survivor, known as Taylor, saying she no longer had confidence in Constance.
Opposition MSPs triggered a vote of no confidence against the justice secretary in December.
The justice secretary survived the vote but shortly before Christmas the Scottish government's independent advisers confirmed that they would investigate her comments.
Constance made the remarks about Prof Jay when she opposed a Conservative amendment to a victims bill, which called for an inquiry into grooming gangs.
Emails released by the government later showed Prof Jay clarified that she made the comment quoted by Constance "in the context of the England and Wales Public Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse," which she chaired.
Prof Jay wrote: "It had nothing to do with [the Conservative] amendment, or the position in Scotland, as could be interpreted from your statement."
She urged the government to clarify her position.
Constance apologised to Prof Jay at a meeting of Holyrood's education committee.
She said she made an initial apology in a "personal" telephone conversation with the academic.
However, the committee heard no government officials were present on the call - sparking further accusations of a ministerial code breach.
After the independent advisers announced their investigation, Constance told BBC Scotland News that the row could have been "handled better" but that she had acted in "good faith".

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https://archive.ph/o/yJaOd/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewjdk1yyl0o
The Scottish government announced in December that there is to be a national review of the evidence on the operation of grooming gangs in Scotland.
It will be carried out by independent inspectorates, and overseen by an expert panel led by Prof Jay.
The expert panel will advise ministers on the outcome of the review, which will inform a future decision on whether or not there should be a judge-led public inquiry.
Prof Jay previously told MSPs that she had never sought an apology but wanted there to be an "accurate record" of her quote cited in parliament.
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Let's do some more news. Remember the outrage post Brexit referendum about the damage it had done to the economy? Rachel in accounting's recent budget saw twice that.
Months of pre-Budget anxiety triggered a stock market exodus twice as big as the shockwave from Brexit, new figures show.
UK investors pulled £6.71bn out of global stock markets in 2025, according to data provider Calastone.
It was the highest annual outflow across data going back 11 years and was more than double the previous record of £3.34bn set in 2016, the year of the Brexit referendum.
Then, investors pulled money amid uncertainty over which way the vote would go and how it would impact stock markets.
The rush to dump stocks came in the second half of 2025 with December marking the seventh straight month of net sales. Investors pulled £10.57bn between June and December, reversing net contributions earlier in the year.

Edward Glyn, the head of global markets at Calastone, said the stampede was the result of panic ahead of the Budget. The unusually long build-up to November’s fiscal statement was punctuated by repeated leaks of possible tax increases and about-turns on policy.
Investors feared a rumoured clampdown on the tax-free pension allowances and a further increase in capital gains tax, though neither measure ultimately materialised.
Mr Glyn said: “The sudden, dramatic slowdown in outflows between November and December is a clear indicator that months of pre-Budget speculation contributed to the record outflows from equity funds between June and the day of the Budget.”
A net £188m was withdrawn from stock market funds in December, far less than the £812m pulled in November.
Calastone data showed that withdrawals from UK investors ceased on Budget day itself, with cash flowing back into stocks for the remainder of that month.

​

The figures add to evidence that months of leaks and speculation ahead of Rachel Reeves’s Nov 26 statement did real damage to the economy.
The Bank of England warned ahead of the Budget that “increased uncertainty” about the event was likely to drag on activity until well into 2026. Business chiefs have also blamed the Budget build-up for harming the economy.

Mark FitzPatrick, the chief executive of St James’s Place, said last month that “kite-flying” prompted savers fearful of a tax raid to withdraw cash from their retirement pots.
Addressing the Calastone figures, Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said: “This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Uncertainty before Reeves’ first two Budgets froze investment and disappointment after both of them drove investors away.
“Her choices have killed investment, weakened growth and cost jobs.”

​

While pre-Budget speculation was a major driver of the stock market sell-off, Calastone said wider concerns about valuations also played a part. Fears have been growing about a possible bubble in artificial intelligence (AI) stocks.
A record £5.84bn flowed into money market funds and Mr Glyn said this showed “investors favouring the safety of cash, suggesting they perceive equity valuations to be teetering”. Money market funds invest in low-risk assets such as government bonds and cash.
Despite the FTSE 100 reaching fresh record highs in 2025, British investors pulled a net £9.55bn from UK-focused funds last year. That was roughly equal to the £9.56bn pulled in 2024.

Last year marked the 10th consecutive year of withdrawals from British stocks by UK-based investors.
Much of the flow in and out of equity funds came from regular savings accounts. Outflows came despite attempts by Ms Reeves, the Chancellor, to encourage ordinary savers to put more money into the stock market.
The Government has backed an advertising campaign to get more Britons investing, supported by the likes of Robinhood and Fidelity, and the Chancellor announced a stamp duty exemption for trading shares in newly listed companies at the Budget.
While UK stocks remained unloved by local investors, global and North American shares fared considerably better. Global and US funds saw inflows of £174m and £107m respectively from British investors in December.
Actively managed equity funds bore the brunt of the outflows, losing £18.9bn of British capital in 2025.
The Treasury was contacted for comment.
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"No parking" has now become "we will move you"

A forklift driver was spotted picking up and moving a car which was blocking a lorry’s entrance for deliveries.​

Local worker Ahmed Hussain was left in stitches after he spotted the entire car being lifted out of the way for a truck to enter a yard in Digbeth, Birmingham.
The 28-year-old was out on a job when he spotted a Volkswagen Tiguan SUV in a no-parking zone, which blocked the entrance to a business yard.
Ahmed, who works for Haven Autocare, watched on as the worker lifted the vehicle out of the way.
Ahmed was heard laughing as the car alarm blared, before the forklift took off after repositioning the vehicle.
The operator moved the vehicle and safely placed it further down the road on Studley Street, Sparkbrook, Birmingham.
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There is a video if anyone wants to nab it.

SNP continue to try to undermine the court ruling on trans matters to the surprise of no-one.

SNP ministers are seeking a legal ruling declaring that implementing the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on sex would unlawfully trample on the human rights of transgender criminals.
Despite repeatedly insisting in public that they accept the judgment of Britain’s top court in April, ministers have privately requested that Scotland’s top civil court issues a “declaration of incompatibility” which would severely undermine it, if its other legal arguments fail.
A declaration, if granted, would state that removing biologically male prisoners who say they identify as female from women’s jails would amount to an unlawful breach of their human rights and throw UK-wide equalities laws into chaos.
The Supreme Court ruling, which saw the campaign group For Women Scotland (FWS) defeat the Scottish government after a long legal battle, found last year that for the purposes of the Equality Act, sex is based on biology.

It has been widely interpreted as meaning biological men are no longer permitted in female single-sex spaces, particularly in locations where women are particularly vulnerable, such as jails.
Although the Scottish government has rewritten school guidelines around bathroom access and girls’ sports in an effort to comply with the judgment, it has refused to change its prison policy, which still allows trans women to serve sentences in the women’s estate.
The stance has led FWS to launch a fresh legal case, seeking to have the Scottish prison service’s controversial policy, previously rewritten after the Isla Bryson scandal, ruled unlawful.


Although the government is understood in initial legal arguments to have urged the court to reject the judicial review on other grounds, it has said that if it does not, then a “declaration of incompatibility” should be issued.
A formal notice was then privately issued by the Scottish government in November to Baroness Smith of Cluny KC, the advocate-general for Scotland. It informed Cluny that ministers were seeking a declaration that UK law breached human rights if it was found that trans prisoners could only be housed in prisons on the basis of their biological sex.
Such a move would potentially mean that the Equality Act, which the Supreme Court ruling applied to, would have to be rewritten by the UK government to “fix” the issue.
In an exchange of letters seen by The Times, FWS last month complained to John Swinney that his senior ministers Angela Constance and Neil Gray had broken the ministerial code by stating at Holyrood that the Scottish government accepted the Supreme Court ruling.
In fact, the group said, they were “actively challenging it by seeking a declaration of incompatibility” on the basis that “requiring all transgender prisoners to be placed in prisons according to their biological sex would be incompatible with Convention rights”.
However, on Tuesday Swinney rejected the complaint, writing back to the group to claim the ministerial code was “not engaged”.
Trina Budge, an FWS director, said: “Male murderers are still being held in the female prison estate and we simply wouldn’t have to take the Scottish ministers back to court about this if they genuinely accepted the decision of the Supreme Court.”


Budge added: “They clearly don’t accept it, and the whole country can see that Angela Constance and Neil Gray are lying. For Swinney to repeat this lie to us rather than investigate his ministers for a breach of the code is the height of arrogance.
“It’s clear to us that the Scottish government hold both the truth and the public in complete disdain — they can’t even tell right from wrong any more.”
This week, an independent investigation found that Constance, the justice secretary, had broken the ministerial code twice on other grounds after misrepresenting the position of Professor Alexis Jay, the child protection expert, over grooming gangs and failing to correct the parliamentary record.
However, she was allowed to keep her job after Swinney’s independent advisers recommended a formal reprimand, rather than dismissal.


FWS claimed Constance had also broken the ministerial code on December 3, when she said there was a “clear commitment to comply with the law” with respect to trans policies and that “the government has clearly stated that it accepts the ruling from the Supreme Court”.

The group also complained about comments made by Gray, the health secretary, six days later. He told Holyrood “the Scottish government accepts the Supreme Court ruling. We accept that judgment and are taking forward the detailed work that is necessary as a consequence”.
It is alleged the comments were “neither accurate nor truthful”, as required by the ministerial code, given the legal responses which the government had issued to the FWS petition as early as last September.
Constance and Gray also made their comments after a formal notice had been issued to Cluny, on November 27, informing her that a declaration of compatibility was being sought.


The letter to Swinney said: “It is simply inconceivable that Ms Constance’s and Mr Gray’s later statements in the chamber were made in ignorance of this direct challenge to the Supreme Court’s ruling. We would contend that both cabinet secretaries knowingly and deliberately misled parliament and should therefore offer their resignations.”
Swinney, in a reply sent on Tuesday, said the government’s position was that it was not “appropriate to engage in public comment” on live court proceedings and that his ministers had been “accurately and openly” reflecting the position.
He added: “On this basis, it is clear to me that the ministerial code has not been engaged … The issues you raise in relation to your judicial review petition are matters of policy and legal interpretation and are, as you know, before the court at present.”
The Scottish government has been approached for comment.
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Mumsnet link since they often dig up extra details

The well adjusted people of our NHS
An ambulance worker whose wife tried to kill their manager with a hammer was unfairly sacked, a tribunal has concluded.

Paula Smith's wife, Stacey Smith, who worked with her in patient transport based at Oldham ambulance station, Greater Manchester, was jailed in October 2024 for trying to kill their boss Michala Morton the previous November in a row over rotas, the tribunal was told.

Police also arrested Paula Smith on suspicion of harassing and threatening to kill the manager but decided to take no further action against her in April 2024. She was then sacked by North West Ambulance Service Trust three weeks later.

Stacey Smith was found guilty of attempted murder and jailed for 20 years.
Paula Smith was dismissed and told her "known arrest and association with someone who has been charged with attempted murder of your operations manager" undermined the trust in the service and those who operated it, according to the tribunal judgement.

But an employment judge said her arrest and bail conditions did not receive any publicity, and said even if a member of the public had discovered the link between her and her wife, "they would be highly unlikely to consider they were at any risk from the claimant".

The couple wanted to work together and have their rotas arranged so they could have their time off work together, according to the judgement, and considered their supervisor was being "obstructive" towards them.

It resulted in them jointly raising a grievance against her in December 2021, the tribunal heard.

​

In July 2022, a patient the couple knew died but they were unable to attend the funeral because of their work rotas.

They were upset about this and Paula Smith "took to social media to express her dissatisfaction with this situation, blaming, without naming, Michala Morton, for this situation", the judgement said.

Paula Smith was later given a first written warning, for breaching the trust's social networking policy and failure to maintain the trust's required standards of behaviour.

In November 2023, Stacey Smith "attacked Michala Morton with a hammer outside her home", the tribunal heard.

Paula Smith played no part in the attack and had no knowledge of what her wife intended to do, according to the judgement.

The following day, Paula Smith was arrested on suspicion of harassment and threats to kill, and released on bail.

The next day, she was suspended on full pay and reference was made to this being because of her arrest.


On 3 April 2024, Paula Smith received an email from Greater Manchester Police confirming it would take no further action and that her bail conditions had been lifted.

After a hearing on 19 April that year, Paula Smith was informed in a letter dated 25 April 2024 of her dismissal.

In a reserved judgement, an employment judge wrote: "Patients, and the general public, an even more remote group, would, the tribunal considers, be highly unlikely even to make the connection, and, even if they did, they would be highly unlikely to consider that they were at any risk from the claimant."

He said the trust also "focused very heavily upon the claimant's arrest and bail conditions, but neither of these received any publicity".

The remedy to which Paula Smith is entitled will be considered further, if required, at another hearing.

The pair had since ended their relationship, the tribunal was told.
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Zahra should probably be referred to the police says ICO. Corbyn won;t have the guts to alas.
Zarah Sultana’s unauthorised launch of a Your Party membership portal may have been “serious criminal activity” and should be referred to the police, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has advised.
Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice Project (PJP), which referred Your Party to the information watchdog last September over a potential data breach, has been advised by the ICO that it should consider “taking further action” regarding the matter, after deciding it was not a matter for them.

An extraordinary split opened up between Corbyn and Sultana in September after an email was sent to 800,000 people on Your Party’s mailing list, urging them to become paying members for £55. Sultana revealed the new membership portal on X, urging supporters to “be a part of history”, and reassured her followers that the membership site was “safe and secure”, encouraging them to keep trying to sign up despite “issues due to such high traffic”.

Later the same day, Corbyn issued an “urgent message” telling his followers on X to ignore the “unauthorised” site and said “legal advice is being taken”.
After the referral to the ICO, the information watchdog advised Corbyn’s PJP, the data controller for Your Party, that it was not a matter for the ICO at this stage. The guidance, first reported by the New Statesman, advised the PJP to consider going to Action Fraud, now known as Report Fraud, and the police to determine whether the issue constituted criminal activity.
The advice noted that as “serious criminal activity may have occurred”, any police investigation would take primacy over one by the ICO at this stage.
A spokesperson for the ICO said: “After reviewing the information provided, we have assessed that formal ICO involvement is not required at this time.”
On Friday Sultana issued a statement which said the ICO had “dropped the case around the Your Party membership portal”.
Writing on X on Friday, Sultana said: “I always anticipated that this inquiry would conclude with no further action and I am pleased that everyone can now draw a line under the matter.”
Sultana said she was looking forward to campaigning for the party’s forthcoming formal collective leadership contest which would break “decisively from Labour right tactics, gives power to members and local branches, and helps build a mass movement for socialism”.
She added: “I will continue working closely with Jeremy and comrades across the movement to build on our 60,000 members – the largest socialist party in the UK since the 1940s. Let’s get to work.”
Your Party declined to comment.
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In case anyone thought the Maccabi stuff was going away they've been reviewing some of the preachers who attended the Mosque. Here's one telling men that their wives need the occasional smack in the mouth to keep them in line.

A preacher at a mosque consulted by police before an Israeli football fan ban said that men can physically discipline their wives and that they should not leave the house without permission from their husband.
During the sermon shortly before Christmas a preacher at Green Lane mosque in Birmingham said that husbands could resort to discipline as a “last resort” if wives were rebellious, and that men had a right to expect obedience.
The mosque is one of eight Muslim organisations spoken to by West Midlands police (WMP) before its controversial decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the Europa League fixture against Aston Villa in November.


Critics said the content of the recent sermon at Green Lane, which has hosted controversial preachers in the past and is being examined by the charity regulator, raised further concerns about WMP’s judgment.


On December 17 last year 2025 Aqeel Mahmood gave a lecture about the rights and obligations of husbands and wives.
He emphasised that Allah wanted husband and wife to live together in kindness and respect, love and mercy, while detailing that both parties had rights. For men these rights included “a level of authority over the woman” and an entitlement to obedience.
He went on to say that husbands had the right of physical discipline as a “last resort” if wives were rebellious, adding that it should not cause pain, injury, fear or humiliation. It was “more symbolic,” he said. Both parties had a right to intimacy though the physical desire was “stronger in men than it is in women”.
It was also “common sense” that wives should not leave the house without their husband’s permission. It would not be permissible to leave the children with someone else while she met with friends or went shopping “because she’s neglecting her obligations and her duties”, although he said a woman could leave in the case of injuries or illness that were a matter of life and death.
The lecture was couched in the teachings of Allah and other Islamic scholars, and Mahmood emphasised the importance of “not causing harm to one’s wife whether it’s physical or otherwise”.
The Green Lane mosque said it categorically rejected harm of any kind, and did not tolerate domestic abuse or misogyny in any form. It said The Times had taken quotes out of context and disregarded the central themes of the lecture “namely love, mercy, personal responsibility and an unequivocal rejection of harm, coercion, oppression or abuse in any form”.
But critics said that requiring obedience from women, and claiming that men automatically had authority over them, smacked of misogyny and was inconsistent with modern values.

The National Secular Society (NSS) has reported the lecture to the Charity Commission, which confirmed it had opened a regulatory compliance case to gather more information and check the mosque’s compliance with previous interventions. It has previously received advice from the commission over another preacher’s comments on women.
Megan Manson, NSS head of campaigns, said: “Despite being previously advised over misogyny, this charity has gone on to host a sermon condoning ‘physical discipline’ of women and promoting a highly controlling, sexist attitude towards wives. Far more robust action is needed.”
Nick Timothy, a Tory MP and Aston Villa fan who has called for Guildford’s sacking over the Tel Aviv Maccabi controversy, said: “It is appalling that the police proactively sought the opinions of mosques with records like this as they worked to get Israeli fans banned from Villa Park.
“This week at the select committee the police denied any awareness that there are even questions about what goes on in Green Lane mosque. This was either dishonest or completely negligent, because concerns about sermons and other goings on at Green Lane have been known for years.”


Lord Walney, the government’s former extremism adviser and a former Labour MP, said: “This latest deeply regressive interpretation of Islam linked to Green Lane mosque casts further doubt on the judgement of West Midlands Police ahead of what now seems to be a preconceived decision to ban Israeli fans from the Villa game.
“The chief constable is bringing shame to his own force by refusing to do the right thing and resigning, but this aspect also points to the reset needed right across policing and public life.
“Too many public authorities have built deeply inappropriate links with the Islamic institutions who might push hardest but do not represent the vast majority of British Muslims who just want to get on with their life in peace.”

The lecture was posted on YouTube but removed from public view after The Times approached Green Lane mosque.
The mosque said in a statement it was committed to a vision of community cohesion and mutual respect, and provided domestic abuse counselling and other services for women.
“Extracting isolated phrases from longer lectures and presenting them as advocacy for abuse is misleading and does not reflect the values, policies, or legal obligations of the charity.”
WMP was contacted for comment.
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It's okay though, this mosque is just giving recommendations to the police, it's not as though they're actually recruiting from there right?
West Midlands Police held a recruitment drive at a mosque that hosted extremists before recommending a ban on Israeli football fans travelling to Birmingham.
Officers ran a stall at a jobs fair at Green Lane mosque months before consulting its leaders in a community engagement exercise on whether Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters should attend a Europa League match against Aston Villa in November.
It has heaped more pressure on Craig Guildford, the force’s chief constable, who faces accusations that the decision to recommend banning Maccabi supporters from the match was politically motivated rather than based on genuine safety concerns.

He has also been accused of misleading Parliament with his version of events during appearances before MPs.
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, has claimed that the force capitulated to Islamists demanding a ban and then “collaborated with them to cover it up”. Mrs Badenoch has said that Mr Guildford’s position is untenable and he should be sacked.

'They lied and lied again': Police in the dock over Maccabi ban and vetting failures
Last week, The Telegraph revealed that three mosques that had hosted anti-Semitic preachers were consulted by West Midlands Police before it recommended the ban.
They included Green Lane mosque, which had £2m of government funding suspended in 2023 after videos emerged of a preacher, Shaykh Abu Usamah At-Thahab, saying that “homosexuality is not permissible”.
Green Lane said at the time that the clip was misleading and had been taken out of context. It said it rejected violent extremism and hate crime, and encouraged respect and tolerance between communities.
In separate comments, not connected to the mosque, Shaykh Usamah promoted an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory about the World Cup, arguing that Jews “keep the people busy with sports and games” and “that’s why all those people make all that money”.

​

On Jan 28 last year West Midlands Police was one of more than 40 organisations, which also included the Civil Service, that attended the skills and jobs fair at the Green Lane Masjid and Community Centre.

In a social media post the force was thanked by the organisers, Birmingham city council, for attending. It also thanked the mosque for hosting the “wonderful” event, held under the banner of the council’s placing vulnerable urban residents into employment project.
Nick Timothy, the Conservative MP and Aston Villa fan who has been a leading critic of the Maccabi fan ban, said: “This is more proof of the alarming relationship between West Midlands Police and a mosque known for having a deeply problematic relationship with anti-Semites and extremists.
“The chief constable must explain what is going on. The police are supposed to work for all of us and enforce the law equally. Their relationship with Green Lane mosque is deeply concerning, and should be investigated.”

Last month, the mosque live streamed a sermon in which imam Aqeel Mahmood said men could “physically discipline” their wives.
The preacher said: “The husband is a leader. He has his responsibilities.” He said that “in the case of rebellion” a husband had a right to impose “physical discipline [as] a last resort on the condition that it doesn’t cause pain, injury, fear or humiliation”.

In the sermon, titled The Rights and Obligations of the Husband and Wife, he also said a woman should not leave her house “without the husband’s permission” and that men had a right to “intimacy” with their wives, who should be “obedient”.
The National Secular Society has reported the Dec 17 sermon to the Charity Commission, which has opened a regulatory compliance case to gather information.
Sir Keir Starmer was among those who criticised the ban on Maccabi fans at the time the decision was taken by Birmingham city council’s security advisory group, which includes representatives of West Midlands Police.
MPs have accused the force of punishing Israeli fans, rather than cracking down on local troublemakers, after it received intelligence that people in predominantly Muslim areas of Birmingham were planning to “arm” themselves.
A spokesman for West Midlands Police said: “We don’t have anything further to add at this stage.”
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And since I had Scotland fun earlier let's give them more of a kicking. Looks like free tuition is on the rocks.
Edinburgh University's principal says Scottish students should be allowed to pay towards their tuition, as the sector is in "danger" under the current system.

Prof Sir Peter Mathieson said Scotland's existing funding model was "not sustainable", but insisted he was "not advocating the introduction of tuition fees".

He said that Scotland - where undergraduate tuition is free for most students - could adopt a salary-based "graduate repayment" or ask those who could afford it to pay fees.

The University of Edinburgh is in the middle of a £140m programme of cuts, which has led to a series of staff walkouts since June last year.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scotland/edinburgh_east_and_fife
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scotland
Mathieson has previously said that a "radical shift" in the way Scottish higher education students are funded must be found by the Scottish government.

He says this should now be a "public and political priority" ahead of the Holyrood election in May.

He told BBC Scotland's Scotcast podcast: "I think Scotland's universities are magnificent and they're in danger and they need to be protected.

"And they need to be protected by looking at the way in which they're funded."


Professor Sir Peter Mathieson, principal of Edinburgh University, says the future of Scotland’s universities is in danger without radical change.

Mathieson said the current model could only continue with significantly more Scottish government investment per student.

"If you stick with this system of taxpayer-funded education, then it's perfectly possible to continue that system," he said.

"But you've got to put more money into it or you've got to change the number of places that are being funded. Both of those are politically difficult."

"One other alternative is that some of those students make a contribution to the costs.

"They can either do it in the form of tuition fees, or they can do it in the form of some kind of graduate repayment scheme and it can be contingent upon salary."


Action has been ongoing at Edinburgh University since June, but has been paused after it agreed to halt redundancies for this academic year.

The university announced the programme of cuts in February last year, citing severe financial difficulties.

The UCU union has suggested about 1,800 jobs could be lost due to the university's cost-saving measures.

This week, strike ballots opened at Aberdeen, Heriot-Watt, Stirling and Strathclyde over threats of job losses and compulsory redundancies

Strike action has also been ongoing over job cuts at Dundee University, which currently faces a £35m deficit.

The Scottish government has already stepped in and bailed out the university with £40m of emergency funding.

Mathieson said the situation at Dundee highlighted the "fragility" of Scotland's university sector and its reliance of foreign students as an income stream.

He added: "The current system is not sustainable and it's heading for trouble as illustrated by Dundee.

"I'm sad about what's happened at Dundee. I think it's a tragedy for a great university in one of Scotland's great cities."

​

Meanwhile, ministers are being urged to give "serious consideration" to whether Scotland's four-year degree courses should continue.

Former Labour MSP Des McNulty called for a "broad public debate" in a paper he produced with Prof Huw Morris at University College London's Institute of Education.

The report suggested the current funding system meant Scottish students were finding admissions "more competitive" at elite universities such as Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews.

The report said the number of places offered to Scottish students was "limited by universities' need to balance the books" by accepting fee-paying UK and international students.

Annual fees to study in Scotland are £9,535 for other UK students.

Scottish universities, like others in the UK, also charge much higher fees for international students – up to £40,000 per year.

The report also highlighted that Scotland's four-year university degree system - a year longer than in England - resulted in "additional costs" for both public finances and students.

It requires additional funding for teaching, while students who live away from home have additional living costs for an extra year.

The report suggested reform of Scotland's four-year degree model to "reduce costs and improve efficiency".
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But don't worry, Ukraine has a new ally of even more use than France or Britain in the future. An independent Scotland would commit troops!
First Minister John Swinney says he would be willing to send troops from an independent Scotland to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force.

The SNP leader said he would deploy troops in the event of an "acceptable peace" with Russia.

Speaking to the Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast, Swinney also raised concerns about the US commitment to Nato.

And he warned that a long period of peace in western Europe could be under threat.
The first minister said: "If there's a peace agreement that is acceptable to the people of Ukraine, that they find is in their interests, and part of that involves the deployment of troops from this country in that situation to be part of assuring that peace, then I would support that."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98j1l01p96o
Swinney spoke to the podcast following a dramatic week in which the US Coast Guard seized a Russian-flagged tanker in the North Atlantic.

The Marinera, a ship accused of being part of Vladimir Putin's "shadow fleet", was intercepted by the US Coast Guard a few hundred miles off the Scottish coast.

That came after US special forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and took him to custody in New York.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has refused to rule out using military force to acquire the Danish territory of Greenland.

Denmark says an attack on its territory would end the Nato military alliance.

Swinney said Russian aggression must be repelled and the independence of Ukraine protected.

He told the podcast: "But I also worry about the language that's been emanating about Greenland and the implications for Denmark and the implication for what that all means for the sustainability of Nato, which I recognise to be an alliance that is of enormous strategic significance."

​

Swinney said he shared "anxiety" about the threat of global conflict.

He noted that for most of his life, he "had a certainty that my parents' generation didn't have".

Swinney's uncle, Cpl Tom Hunter, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross after dying at Lake Comacchio in Italy months before the end of World War Two.

"So the idea of loss in conflict in turbulent international times is not some remote concept to me," he told the podcast.

"All of that is really meaningful for me about the fact that we should cherish what we have experienced since the Second World War - of that period of peace and stability and order - but it does feel much weaker today."

The first minister said that era ended with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which brought the threat of conflict "a lot closer to home".

"Literally within days of the invasion, we began to feel the effects in our own community," he said.

He added: "So I worry that the precious inheritance that came to our generation from the suffering of the Second World War, is now in jeopardy for future generations."
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