This is Northumberland Calling 10.1.25

The Bowing to the inevitable and a Tale of Two Cities edition

Hello America (Particularly Central Ohio) this is Northumberland Calling

When is a national inquiry not a national inquiry? When the Government orders a review into the rape gangs. Bowing to the inevitable and hoping to kick the coverage back into the long grass, there is going to be a review comprising both local (in 5 areas not 50) inquiries and a national audit. A minister has admitted that Musk did expedite the review. The first phase will be a 3 month audit led by Baroness Casey to establish the current scale of the problem, including ethnicity etc. The review will not be able to compel witnesses, but hopefully this time the dysfunctional Home Office will ensure that action actually happens. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/16/labour-grooming-gang-backlash-local-inquiries/ or https://archive.ph/kfjB4

The police are claiming that it is not cultural sensitivities which precludes from the recording the ethnicity of a subject but time as such things are normally recorded at the start of an investigation. It rather begs the question why the files are not updated later when it is known as it could be pertinent to establishing the pattern of offending. Tom Harding, one of the police officers involved on the Telford — he called it sensationalized is on the NPCC... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/17/gaps-in-police-data-of-grooming-gang-suspects/ or Police 'don't always have time' to record race of grooming gang suspects, claims NPCC boss

Paris is a city of contrast. First you have migrants who claim to be under 18 occupying a historic theatre which is run with a left-wing agenda. They were invited in before Christmas and refused to leave after the ceremony and speeches by the Red Cross officials. The militant activists say that it is the only way to secure accommodation and such occupation has worked in the past to get the migrants accommodation, rather than sleeping rough in the parks. Basically the town halls are not providing any sort of accommodation even when they are vast tracts of industrial wasteland and disused warehouses which could be converted. The political will is not there. The theatre has refused to evict them in keeping with their principles but they can not operate and are close to bankruptcy. The restaurants and shops in the area are all suffering as they depended heavily on the theatre for trade. Some of the businesses are run by immigrants and are close to bankruptcy. There are few toilets and no showers. The militant activists are not allowing people in and so goodness knows how long it will take to ‘restore’ the theatre once they do go. Because of the media interest, suddenly the Paris town hall has started ‘eviction’ proceedings which will take week . https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/01/15/paris-theatre-migrant-occupation-bankruptcy/ or https://archive.ph/Rz7iU

On the hand, you have the Paris mayors and their traditional new year’s banquets, lavish feasts for the favoured few. The Government would like the feasts curtailed but many mayors are refusing, saying it is a good use of taxpayers’ money (see above). I presume because much networking happens and the powerful people attending then are more inclined to support the mayor. It all sounds very ‘Let them eat cake’ to me. https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/french-mayors-defy-plea-to-cancel-lavish-new-year-parties-brj2ddzgp or https://archive.ph/9klEC

In London, the Met police chief has given an interview to the Times about knife crime, particularly black on black knife crime. Other police forces like Northumbria do not have the same problem (over 90% of the knife crime in Northumbria is white) Some of this reflects the ethnic make up of the various police forces (there are reasons why Vera which is set in the North East aka Northumbria Police and operates a colour blind casting can flatter to deceive). They are going to try a new initiative because it is the black Londoners who suffer the most from this sort of crime, dismissing it as gang violence sweeps it under the carpet. Young black men (16 -24) are regularly dying on the streets of London, and accounted for half of all black stabbing victims in London basically. The problem of black on black crime being routinely ignored was something the Sewell report on race highlighted back in 2021. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/met-police-commissioner-mark-rowley-knife-crime-dtwnl3s69 or https://archive.ph/Ye1Q0

Having lost his friend Tulip Siddiq (the former anti-corruption minister embroiled in corruption scandals), Starmer’s Attorney General now comes under fire. Lord Hermer has been involved in a significant number of recent cases which was severely criticized the UK government or give comfort to its self-declared enemies like Gerry Adams. He was for the plaintiffs in the ongoing SAS Afghanistan war crimes inquiry (which is statutory). A number of senior MoD bods and others appear to believe he should therefore recuse himself from the inquiry. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/16/attorney-general-richard-hermer-sas-war-crimes/ or https://archive.ph/OEKcU

Kemi Badenoch made her first major speech of the New Year. It is worth a watch to see what she is actually saying including that immigrants who do not wish to integrate and be part of British society should not be in the UK. You can watch here. It is 41 minutes long.

The Conservatives are under new management. Under the old management, they forced a 80 year mother of a now former MP to under go diversity training after she liked an anti-immigration post included in that training was building awareness of pan-sexuality. The woman was forbidden from attending events to support her daughter until she did so. The former MP Andrea Jenkins has joined Reform. It shows how far the establishment was captured by those who wanted to create a Spiral of Silence around certain subjects. It doesn’t matter about freedom of expression if various institutions supress it with impunity. With that sort of behaviour for the Conservatives HQ which is very unconservative, one can see why the Conservatives are in trouble and why even under ‘new management’ they will have a long road back. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/01/16/tories-dame-andrea-jenkyns-mother-diversity-course-migrants/ or https://archive.ph/2OrWM

Beehives with their insulation. The bees are flying.

Here the snow has melted and the weather has turned mild. This means the bees have come out of their ball and started flying again. Both hives are flying but as it is January in Northumberland there is not much in flower. I am very pleased I put the fondant at the start of the month. January is one of the months in which bees are likely to starve.

Writing wise, I need to fill out the Art Facts Sheet for my latest Viking. The AFS which details the characters’ appearance, the settings and something about the story enables a cover to be commissioned. It is also used as a tool to market the book to foreign markets – this is done through key words and tropes. It should be published in November of 2025. A request for my ideas for the title also arrived. I suspect none of my suggestions will be chosen but they may help the editors decide on a stronger title. I suspect it means revisions will be landing soonish.

Paddy waiting for his training.

Paddy has been racing about, smelling all the smells etc this week. I am really trying to get him to heel better and sometimes he remembers but at others his spaniel brain cells because fixated on something else…

If you want to find me during the week, I have started putting things on Celia M’s Jottings in Purple

which is where a number of refuge FP commentators are hanging out as they dislike the current FP policy on comments. The discussion is usually lively as you might expect from former FP commentators. Depending on how firmly my Procrastination Princess tiara is attached (aka how well my actual writing is going), I may end up getting distracted.

Hopefully everyone else’s week was a good one. I look forward to seeing you in the comments.

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