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.

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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."

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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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The BBC should be ashamed of its reporting on trans teenagers​

This is an article about some difficult, complex subjects: suicide, mental health, support for transgender children. It’s also about something very simple: a horrible failure of journalism by the BBC.

I’ll come to the BBC in due course, but given that this is about the potential for self-harm among young people, I think it’s important to take some time to offer some context and background facts.

The first thing to do is to note the longstanding advice to the media from the Samaritans on how to report responsibly on the issue of suicide, in order to avoid the risk of adversely influencing the behaviour of vulnerable people.

'Steer clear of presenting suicidal behaviour as an understandable response to a crisis or adversity. This can contribute to unhelpful and risky normalising of suicide as an appropriate response to distress.'

And:

'Speculation about the ‘trigger’ or cause of a suicide can oversimplify the issue and should be avoided. Suicide is extremely complex and most of the time there is no single event or factor that leads someone to take their own life.'

Next, I think readers should consider a statement made in 2018 by the Gender Identity Development Service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS trust, the UK’s main centre of treatment for gender-variant children:

'Suicidality in young people attending the GIDS is similar to that of young people referred to child and adolescent mental health services. It is not helpful to suggest that suicidality is an inevitable part of this condition.'

A third data point comes from a High Court judgement made earlier this month. It concerned the Tavistock clinic’s use of puberty-blocking medication on children who experience trouble over their gender. The Tavistock lost the case, as the judges decided children could not give informed consent to such treatment, the use of which has now been halted by NHS England.

During the case, the Tavistock submitted to the court an interim paper arising from its study of children who received 'early pubertal suppression'. According to the court judgment, the Tavistock paper found that 'there was no overall improvement in mood or psychological wellbeing using standardised psychological measures.'

In summary, the country’s leading suicide prevention charity tells journalists not to 'normalise' suicide, especially among young people, by presenting it as an understandable or inevitable response to crisis. The country’s leading medical authority on transgender young people says they are not at unusual risk of suicide, and called suggestions to the contrary unhelpful. The same clinic’s evidence shows that the use of puberty blocking medication does not improve the mental health of trans children.

Now that I’ve loaded you down with that context, dear reader, consider how the BBC this week reported on that court ruling and its implications for children with gender issues.

I very much recommend reading the piece in full, bearing in mind the facts above. But here are some especially interesting extracts from the article, headlined 'Puberty blockers: Parents' warning as ruling appealed'. The third paragraph of the story says this:

'Doctors and parents have told the BBC the ruling could cause distressed trans teens to self-harm or even take their own lives.'

Doctors, eh? That’s quite a thing to report. If 'doctors' are indeed saying that a court ruling could 'cause' children to commit suicide, that’s surely something that should be reported, in the public interest. So who are these doctors?

Well, first the BBC offers us 'a clinician who currently works within the NHS GIDS' and does not wish to be named: She is reported as saying 'I know of several young people who have tried to take their lives, some successfully, and that was before these legal challenges which will only slow down and block our services even more.'

That’s suggestive, but still falls some way short of asserting that the ruling 'could cause' children to kill themselves. But the next quote the BBC offers is a little more definitive. It comes from Dr Adrian Harrop. He’s cited as saying this:

'It makes me terribly worried that there is now nothing there for those children, and nothing that can be done to help them. Parents are being left at a point where they're having to struggle to cope with these children who are in a real state of distress and anxiety. Sadly, there is a very real risk of seeing more suicides.'

Dr Harrop is a GP in Liverpool. He has a record of expressing strong opinions on transgender issues via social media. What he does not have is a history of publishing peer-reviewed medical research on mental health and self-harm among trans children. Nor has he worked as a clinician at a clinic such as GIDS. Yet the BBC deems his speculation about child suicide more worthy of reporting than the views of experts such as Polly Carmichael, head of the GIDS and a world-recognised authority in the care of trans children.

She is on the record, in a speech to a medical conference on gender in October 2017 as challenging those who seek to create a narrative that trans children are uniquely at risk of suicide and self harm. (Sample quote: 'I also question the discourse that is being created around young people experiencing gender diversity, that it is unbearable, intolerable. This is quite unhelpful. While recognising distress, we need not to be buying into a narrative that is so imbued with negativity and lack of resilience and remember that many of the young people here are coping quite well.')

Still, the BBC report doesn’t stop there. It also breathlessly reports a letter 'seen exclusively by the BBC' to NHS England from GenderGP, which the BBC calls 'one of the only private healthcare providers for transgender people in the UK'.

That letter laments the court ruling and, the BBC reports, concludes: 'The mental health implications of this cannot be underestimated, and the risk of self-harm and suicide must be acknowledged.'

What the BBC does not report about GenderGP is that it is based outside the UK, since the two doctors who founded it were both suspended by the General Medical Council for breaking UK medical rules.

Here, I offer another summary: the BBC reported that 'doctors' say a court ruling halting the use of puberty blockers could 'cause' children to commit suicide, on the basis of unevidenced assertions from a non-specialist medic and disgraced doctors who make money selling such drugs. It did so without reporting the views of actual experts that such narratives about suicide are misleading and potentially harmful.

There are several other things I could say about that BBC report, but I’m not going to say them here. Instead, I’ll end this article with another quote from that Samaritans guidance, which should be considered vital context for that awful, awful article from the BBC about vulnerable children:

'….there is strong and consistent research evidence that some forms of news reporting lead to increases in suicide rates. Media coverage can influence how people behave in a crisis and their beliefs about the options open to them….

'Young people are a particularly vulnerable audience in relation to media coverage of suicide. They are more susceptible to imitational suicidal behaviour and more likely to be influenced by the media than other age groups.'

-------

Since this piece was published, the BBC has amended its article to make it slightly less awful. The article now ends with this message:

'Clarification and update 23 December: We have made some changes to this article which include amending its opening line to make clear that the NHS gender identity service has not appealed against the High Court ruling but is seeking leave to do so. We have also added a paragraph which provides further background information on GenderGP and included links to the BBC Action Line.'

What that message does not mention is that the changes also include removing the central assertion of the original piece. The original text said this:
'Doctors and parents have told the BBC the ruling could cause distressed trans teens to self-harm or even take their own lives.'

Now it says this:
'Doctors and parents have told the BBC the ruling could put already vulnerable trans teens at risk.'

In other words, the BBC reported yesterday that a court ruling could cause young people to commit suicide. Today it no longer says that. Such a correction is welcome, of course, but I can’t help thinking that such a fundamental change in the premise of the article warrants at least a clear public acknowledgment, if not outright deletion.
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Inquisitor_BadAss said:
Based Jocks. Is Scotland getting better?
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It's not especially that. Its more, scotland is actually a pretty conservative place, deep down. The LGBTQ pedotroon nonsense isnt popular with the Catholics and they're most likely to support the SNP. So the SNP are mindful of that.


Their LGBTQ minister is actually a bit hated for being a terf, its been a delight watching Scottish troons lose their shit over that.
 
Scottish Greens MSP Resigns Due to ‘Intolerance’ of Party’s Trans Activism
UK — Edinburgh, Scotland. On December 18, 2020, Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) Andy Wightman resigned from the Scottish Greens party. In his resignation letter, Wightman wrote that he had “been saddened by the intolerance shown by some party members to an open and mature dialogue about the tensions and conflicts around questions of sex and gender in the context of transgender rights and women’s rights”.

@andywightman is one of the most thoughtful, decent and open-minded (and left wing) politicians I have known. For him now to be called a "transphobe" and a "bigot" is truly chilling. What has happened to the Green Party? To Scottish politics? https://t.co/XTz9A6Jjre — Iain Macwhirter (@iainmacwhirter) December 19, 2020

Mr Wightman said that he was told he would “face complaints and disciplinary action leading to possible suspension, deselection or expulsion” if he voted in favour of an amendment to the Forensic Medical Services (Victims of Sexual Offences) Bill in the Scottish Parliament the previous week. This amendment, overwhelmingly supported by MSPs (except for the Scottish Greens and Liberal Democrats), gives sexual assault victims the right to choose the sex of the medical professional who examines them. For example, if a female rape victim requests a female examiner, a male health professional who currently identifies as a woman will not be permitted to perform the intimate exam.

Oh Andy, I'm so sorry that you've been treated this way. Who'd have thought you could be pushed out of a political party for supporting a rape victim's right to a same sex person to do the physical examination after they've been raped? Thank you for standing up for them. — CountessOfNiceThings (@CountessOfNice) December 18, 2020

Mr Wightman wished to vote in favour of this amendment. In his letter, he noted that he had previously been admonished for attending a public meeting at Edinburgh University in June 2019, and that “some of the language, approaches and postures of the party and its spokespeople have been provocative, alienating and confrontational for many women and men.”

Mr Wightman’s resignation comes in the wake of a “call to action” letter from trans activists demanding “‌an‌ ‌independent‌ ‌review‌ ‌of‌ ‌all‌ ‌major‌ ‌Scottish‌ ‌parties’‌ ‌complaint‌ ‌procedures‌ ‌and‌ ‌outstanding‌ ‌complaints‌ ‌regarding‌ ‌internal‌ ‌transphobic‌ ‌abuse‌ ‌and‌ ‌harassment,‌ ‌in‌ ‌line‌ ‌with‌ ‌a‌ ‌definition‌ ‌of‌ ‌transphobia‌‌ ‌that‌ ‌is‌ ‌agreed‌ ‌upon‌ ‌by‌ ‌the‌ ‌trans‌ ‌community.”

Wings Over Scotland, a Scottish political website, has outlined numerous issues with the “deranged, 3,000-word-long definition of ‘transphobia’ which expressly includes, among very many other things, simply stating that women are adult human females.” The definition, split into six headings, each with their own sub-headings, includes various complaints, insults and accusations against those who wish to preserve sex-segregated spaces.

Wings Over Scotland | The Worst People In Scotland
This is a must read to see the prominent politicians who agree with a definition of transphobia which would criminalise facts. https://t.co/PABJ79q1Ad — Patrick🕸 (@STILLTish) November 28, 2020
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soy_king said:
First, they came for the Christians, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a Christian.
Next, they came for the Conservatives, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a Conservative.
Then, they came for the TERFs, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a TERF.
Then, they came for me, and only then did I become in favor of freedom of expression.
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...but specifically only my freedom of expression. Everyone else deserved it.
 

Nóra Quoirin: 'Misadventure' verdict for girl found in Malaysian jungle​

A girl whose body was found in a jungle during a holiday in Malaysia died by misadventure, a coroner has recorded.
Nóra Quoirin, 15, from Balham, south-west London, was discovered dead nine days after she went missing from an eco-resort in August 2019.

The family said they were "utterly disappointed" with the verdict, which ruled out any criminal involvement.
They believe "layers of evidence" that were heard at the inquest point towards Nora having been abducted.
The family were staying in Sora House in Dusun eco-resort near Seremban, about 40 miles (65km) south of Kuala Lumpur, when they reported Nóra missing, the day after they had arrived.

Nóra, who was born with holoprosencephaly - a disorder which affects brain development - was eventually found by a group of civilian volunteers in a palm-oil plantation less than two miles from the holiday home nine days after vanishing.

The Quoirins, whose lawyers had asked the coroner to record an open verdict, said in a statement after the ruling that they have a number of reasons for the abduction theory. These include:
  • Professionally trained canines were unable to follow Nóra's scent.
  • There was an opened window to the chalet with unidentified fingerprints found on the outside.
  • Nóra had "neither the cognitive, nor physical means" to leave the chalet by the window on her own.
  • Hundreds of people relentlessly searched the surrounding area, including where Nóra was found, on the day of or immediately preceding the day of her death. They found no signs of human life.
  • There was a "lack of major physical damage" to Nóra's body despite her "inability to handle terrain as complex as the Seremban jungle".
In the statement, issued through the Lucie Blackman Trust, the family said they witnessed 80 slides presented in court as the verdict was given, adding that none of them "engaged with who Nóra really was - neither her personality nor her intellectual abilities".
They said: "The coroner made mention several times of her inability to rule on certain points due to not knowing Nóra enough.
"It is indeed our view that to know Nóra would be to know that she was simply incapable of hiding in undergrowth, climbing out a window and making her way out of a fenced resort in the darkness unclothed."

The statement added: "We believe we have fought not just for Nóra but in honour of all the special needs children in this world who deserve our most committed support and the most careful application of justice.
"This is Nóra's unique legacy and we will never let it go."

Fom the outset Meabh Quoirin believed her daughter had been abducted but Malaysian police insisted Nóra's disappearance had always been a missing persons case and ruled out any criminal involvement.
The authorities closed the case in January 2020, and Nóra's parents pushed for the inquest.

During the inquest, a British pathologist who carried out a second post-mortem examination said Nóra's body had no injuries to suggest she was attacked or restrained.

On the final day of evidence, an investigating officer who was on duty the morning Nóra was reported missing said he was confident there were no criminal elements involved in her disappearance.
Following the coroner's verdict, the Quoirins' legal team have discussed the family's rights moving forward, which include the possibility of applying for a revision of the misadventure verdict at the High Court of Seremban.
Louise Azmi, one lawyer for the family, said they had pressed for an open verdict to reflect the lack of positive evidence in the case regarding what happened to Nora.

An open verdict would leave open the possibility that a criminal element was involved in Nora's death, Mrs Azmi said.
She told the BBC based on everything the family know of Nora, "they continue to believe it is impossible she would have willingly walked away into the jungle".

The family's legal team say parents Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin are "disappointed" with today's verdict.
But, Coroner Maimoonah Aid said her verdict was made not on "theories" and "speculation" surrounding the case, but on the balance of probabilities of the evidence presented before her.
With no evidence to the contrary she ruled out foul play.

Moving forward, the Quoirin family now have the possibility to apply for a revision of the verdict with the High Court of Seremban.
There is precedent of a verdict being overturned in Malaysia before.
In 2019, following an appeal, a Malaysian coroner's verdict of misadventure concerning the death of 18-year-old model Ivana Smit was overturned in Kuala Lumpur and reopened as a murder investigation.

According to Quoirin family lawyer Sakthy Vell, the family say they now need time to consider their next course of action.
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Mother loses legal fight to stop her comatose middle-aged son's life support being turned off after court battle with his wife
  • A middle-aged man suffered a cardiac arrest in November last year
  • A judge ruled that it was 'not in (his) best interests' to have his life sustained
  • The application to bring RS's life to an end was supported by his wife, but opposed by his mother, who lives in Poland, as well as his two sisters and niece
A judge has ruled that a heart attack victim who is critically ill should be allowed to die following a legal battle between his wife and his mother.

The patient, a middle-aged man identified only as 'RS' due to an anonymity order, suffered a cardiac arrest in November last year, during which his heart stopped for at least 45 minutes, causing 'severe and irreversible' brain damage.

On December 15, a judge ruled that it was 'not in RS's best interests' to have his life sustained through medical treatment, including nutrition and hydration, and that 'such treatment could be lawfully discontinued'.

Mr Justice Cohen said that RS should be provided with palliative care to make sure he 'retained the greatest dignity and suffered the least discomfort until such time as his life comes to an end'.

The University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust is now permitted to withdraw life-sustaining treatment to RS, as of 4 pm on January 7, the Court of Protection has decided.

The application to bring RS's life to an end was supported by his wife, but opposed by his mother, who lives in Poland, as well as his two sisters and niece.

RS's mother, whose name cannot be published under the court order, said she was 'devastated' over the ruling, saying that British authorities are trying to bring in 'euthanasia by a back door.'

RS had not been responsive to stimuli of any sort following the cardiac arrest, although he did spontaneously open and move his eyes but without fixing or tracking, the court heard.

He showed no characteristic features of discomfort or distress to stimuli which would be painful to a feeling person.

'It was self-evident that RS lacked capacity to make any decision for himself,' the judge said in his ruling.

'The focus of disagreement was on what RS's views would be if he was able to make a decision in his current predicament.

'His birth family said that his strong Catholic faith would mean that the sanctity of life would triumph over all other considerations.

'His wife said that from her conversations with him she can say with certainty that he would never have wanted to have been kept alive if he could not be helped and he would not have ever wanted to be a burden.

'His present state was causing great distress to his wife and their children, as it would be to him if he could feel it or express it.

'I accepted RS's wife's evidence of his views, especially against the background of what was a significant estrangement between RS and his birth family to the extent that his only relatives in this country, that is his niece and her family, had not seen him for at least 9 years.'

The birth family's case had relied on videos taken during a Hospital visit on Christmas day, and the opinion of a consultant neurologist, Rev. Dr Patrick Pullicino, to argue that RS's condition had improved since the court's original decision.

Dr Pullicino told the Court that the man had a 50% chance of eventually recovering from his brain injury so as to be independent within his house, Christian Concern said in a press release.

The judge initially imposed reporting restrictions prohibiting any mention of Poland as RS's country of origin, but changed his mind and lifted the ban on Friday 1 January 2021.

Mr Justice Cohen also rejected the evidence of Rev. Dr Pullicino, who is an ordained Catholic priest as well as a consultant neurologist.

The judge said he 'did not find Dr Pullicino a satisfactory witness' and that he was 'concerned' about Dr Pullicino's 'level of objectivity'.

He refused the family's request for permission to arrange for an examination of RS by Dr Pullicino or another neurologist.

RS's mother, whose name cannot be published under the court order, said: 'I am devastated that the British authorities have decided to dehydrate my son to death.

'I want to take my son back to his own country, where I would be allowed to care for him.

'What the British authorities are trying to do to my son is euthanasia by a back door.'
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It just boggles the mind that someone would go to such lengths for fucking maccas of all things.
 
AnOminous said:
So he drove 100 miles while an uninsured driver, to go get McDonald's in a city that doesn't even have one? And to do this, he left a town that has at least five of them? Guy should be locked up for just being an absolute retard.
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I reckon these guys got 'Classic Driving Rock' compilation CDs from their nans for Christmas and couldn't stop themselves from hitting the highway.
 
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