Cigarette packaging: Ministers launch fresh review

The government is to announce an independent review of cigarette packaging in England, amid calls for action to discourage young smokers.

David Cameron appeared to distance himself from uniform packaging in July, saying further evidence was needed to show whether it would be effective.

But No 10 sources said the issue would be looked at again and the government was "open-minded" about what to do.

Instead of endlessly debating this, reviewing that and proposing the other, why don’t the government jump a few steps down the line to where this is going and just ban cigarettes and people smoking altogether? It would save a lot of time and money and be a lot less tedious.

Obviously you’d have to keep some cigarettes for existing smokers, as let’s face it no matter what measures are introduced they’ll still smoke, but if the government were to introduce a ban, let’s say from January 1st, then no one from that point on, other than those already addicted, will be allowed to smoke and in one fell swoop the problem will be solved.

If that is done,which I'm well aware it won't but what the hell,  we won’t have to put up with anymore nonsense and droning from politicians about how we'll review this and commission a study and gather evidence and blah blah blah, it's much simpler than that if you really want to stop people smoking as much as your rhetoric and actions so far suggest, then banning cigarettes is the quickest, cheapest and most effective way of doing it.     

Iran agrees to curb nuclear activity

Iran has agreed to curb some of its nuclear activities in return for about $7bn (£4.3bn) in sanctions relief, after days of intense talks in Geneva.

The deal will last for six months, while a permanent agreement is sought.

While this is just the very first step, as a permanent agreement now needs to be reached, who’d have thought this point would have been reached just three and a bit months since I’m a dinner jacket, excuse me Ahmadinejad left office?

Ever since Hassam Rouhani was sworn in as president in early August there has been a huge shift in tone and a refreshing willingness to negotiate, compromise and reach some common ground. 

Let’s hope that this can continue and all the agreements made are met and a permanent deal can be reached before this one expires. 

RAF recruits paid compensation for marching injuries

Three female RAF recruits are to be paid compensation for injuries reportedly suffered while marching alongside male colleagues.

They claimed parading alongside taller male recruits caused them to over-stride and develop spinal and pelvic injuries.  

It is understood they will receive £100,000 from the MoD.

I don’t believe it! This is almost as ridiculous a lawsuit as that woman who spilled coffee on herself then sued McDonalds arguing the coffee was too hot, it’s just utter nonsense.

Worst of all the MoD have decided that these three women are worthy of being compensated to the tune of £100,000, what is going on? They should have been told to stick their lawsuit where the sun don’t shine.

This litigious culture that is infecting our society needs to stop because it’s just pathetic what you can sue and win compensation for these days.

Mind you as the old saying goes if you can’t beat them, join them, so I’m off to my lawyer’s office to file a suit against James Blunt and every radio station that has ever played his music for causing me severe emotional distress, I’ll accept no less than a seven figure settlement. 

After that I’ll sue pretty much everyone in the charts right now for the exact same offence.

Ashes 2013: England collapse to Australia at the Gabba

England suffered a calamitous second afternoon as they collapsed from 82-2 to 136 all out to hand Australia total control of the first Test.

Having earlier dismissed the hosts for 295, England lost six wickets for nine runs in 10 extraordinary overs as a rampaging Mitchell Johnson ran amok through the wreckage of their top order.

What the hell happened I went to bed thinking with Australia 273-8 if we, I say we England, can get them out for less than 300 and make a good start to our innings we’ll consolidate our commanding position.

I come down stairs this morning and see Australia were all out for 295 and yet led by 224 runs, and having seen the highlights all I can summarise is that the England of 2013 was really the England of 2003 in disguise.

That’s the only reason, excuse, I could think of as to why England did a good ol fashion style collapse on Australian soil. 

The way in which some of England’s batsmen got themselves out with poor shot choices was reminiscent of that period in the 90s and early 00s were England routinely put in that kind disappointing effort.

Unless Australia do the exact same thing on day three we can assume that the first test is over for England, but I still maintain Australia won’t have enough to keep this up and we’ll still win the series. 

Ofgem tells energy distribution companies to cut costs

Energy regulator Ofgem has told five of the six electricity distribution companies to cut costs for consumers.

It has rejected their investment plans, believing they should be able to "deliver more for less".

Only Western Power Distribution's (WPD) business plan was approved by the regulator.

When I first read this headline I mainly focused on the words: Ofgem, tells, energy, companies, cut, costs and I thought Ofgem are actually standing up to the energy companies and saying to them your price rises are ridiculous and they need to stop, but after reading it again I realised that’s not what they’re doing at all.

Ofgem have decided to go after the much smaller distribution companies, apparently distribution accounts for about 20%, I rounded up slightly, of the average domestic electricity bill, to which I have one thing to say what about the other 80% that is down to British Gas, SSE, EDF etc. why are Ofgem content to let them do what they want.

Why aren’t they being told to cut costs or, to put it more simply, being told stop taking the piss and ripping people off? When are Ofgem going to do something about that?

Co-Op’s Flowers arrested over drug allegations

The former chairman of the Co-op Bank has been arrested in Merseyside in connection with a "drugs supply investigation", the BBC understands.

Paul Flowers, 63, was filmed allegedly handing over £300 for cocaine and discussing buying other illegal drugs.

He left his position as deputy chairman of the Co-op Group in June.

Toronto take note this is what is supposed to happen when someone in a position of power becomes embroiled in a drugs scandal, granted Flowers wasn’t mayor of anywhere but he was chairman of a bank, albeit a small one, but still chairman of a bank.

Now he’s no longer chairman and being investigated by the police, but for some reason in Toronto no one is doing anything about the crack smoking, out of control mayor. 

Ashes: Stuart Broad puts England in control in Brisbane

Five wickets from a fired-up Stuart Broad gave England the upper hand as Australia struggled to 273-8 on a seesaw opening day of the Ashes.

The home side had been reduced to 132-6 in the middle of the afternoon before a seventh-wicket partnership of 114 between Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson dragged them back into the contest.

Despite the Australian recovery I don’t think this series is going to be much of a contest and I’m certain England are going to win comfortably, think about it just a few months ago we, England, beat Australia 3-0 without ever really playing our best so I don’t see how the result can be any different as both are fielding identical sides.

I have been quite surprised at how the media in England were surprised at how the Australians were talking themselves up ahead of the series, of course they are going to do that they’ve lost three in a row for first time in 30 years and are almost certainly going to lose four in a row for the first time in over a 100 years. So of course when faced with the prospect of this they’re are going to try and talk themselves up and try and get the crowd on their side and try and make a contest of it.

Of course if they lose again, which they will, then it may make them look silly, but what was everyone expecting them to do coming into a home Ashes series say oh what’s the point we can’t win!   

‘Dullest’ calendar of telephone boxes of Wales fails to sell

A "dull" calendar of red telephone boxes around Wales has struggled to sell a single copy.

The "Fast Disappearing Red Telephone Boxes of Wales 2014" has been branded "naff, nerdy and boring" by its publisher Kevin Beresford.

It has failed to attract any buyers since going on sale in September.

I’m not in the publishing game but I don’t think publishers are supposed to call their own products “naff, nerdy and boring”.

I’m also quite confident that Mr Beresford should never have given the go ahead for this calendar to be made in the first place.

Of course this calendar hasn’t attracted any buyers since it went on sale, who in their right mind would want a calendar with twelve different pictures of a phone box? Nobody obviously.

I wonder what they’ll come up with next year the "Fast Disappearing Business of Kevin Beresford", January could be a picture of his empty diary, May could be a picture of his empty wallet, September a picture of the administrators coming in, and finally December could be Mr Beresford sleeping rough on the street using all his Fast Disappearing Red Telephone Boxes of Wales 2014 calendars as a quilt.

That sounds much more interesting than pictures of a load of telephone boxes.

Hydrogen cars ‘on sale next year’

Cars that run on hydrogen and exhaust-only water vapour are emerging to challenge electric vehicles as the world's transportation of the future.

At motor shows on two continents three car makers have unveiled hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to be delivered to the public as early as next spring.

South Korea's Hyundai will be the first to the mass market in the US. It unveiled a hydrogen-powered Tucson small SUV at the Los Angeles Auto Show that will be leased to consumers.

This is interesting stuff only it’s a bit late as there is already a hydrogen fuel cell car already on hand; the Honda FCX Clarity which has been available since 2008, granted Honda have only made about 50 available and they’re lease only, but still.

Although hydrogen powered, petrol powered, battery powered, who would want to drive a Hyundai? I certainly wouldn’t.

I’ve also never understood why carmakers have persistently spent billions developing and researching electric/battery powered cars when the possibility of fuelling a car with hydrogen was there all along.

In the last five, no make it ten, years it’s become pretty obvious that electric/battery and hybrid cars are useless, hopelessly impractical and simply not the answer, yet for some reason carmakers have ignored all that and continued to spend billions trying to make them better. It hasn't worked. 

Now they’re, non-verbally, admitting that they were wrong and it was all a waste of time.

I hope that hydrogen powered cars replace hybrid/electric/battery cars, because as I said they’ve been a huge waste of time and money and there has been a much better way there all along, thankfully now carmakers are finally realising this. 

Gerrard: England better than in 2010

Captain Steven Gerrard says England are ready to show Germany the scale of their improvement under manager Roy Hodgson when they meet at Wembley on Tuesday.

England face Germany for the first time since Joachim Low's side won 4-1 in Bloemfontein in the last 16 of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Gerrard said: “I'd say we are better”.

When you think about this it’s not actually that great because Gerrard is saying the team now is better than the team that lost 4-1 in the World Cup, hardly something to get behind is it, and this is the same team that was comfortably beaten by Chile four days ago, so the improvement isn’t that big.   

But I’d agree if you compare the starting XI for tonight’s game against the 11 that took that 4-1 pasting then yes I’d say we do have a better team now, for starters Heskey isn’t in the squad I think we can all agree that’s a major step forward.

But seriously if I were to pick an XI from the two I would have nine from the team playing tonight and five from the team of 2010, some players feature in both teams, and also the average age of the team tonight is much younger than in 2010, so that’s something to be optimistic about.

Although as we showed against Chile it may be three years later but we’re still just as vulnerable at the back and prone to conceding all too frequently.

As Germany are using this game as a means testing some new players, and, Smalling and Cleverley aside, we are at full strength, we need to put in a decent performance tonight to end 2013 on a positive note, because after that waste of 90 minutes of my life performance against Chile we need it.  

Google and Microsoft agree steps to block abuse images

Leading search engine companies Google and Microsoft have agreed measures to make it harder to find child abuse images online.

As many as 100,000 search terms will now return no results that find illegal material, and will trigger warnings that child abuse imagery is illegal.

PM David Cameron has welcomed the move but said it must be delivered or he would bring forward new legislation.

While I’m sceptical as to how many people use the big two to search for abuse images, at least Google and Microsoft have seen the bigger picture and worked together to introduce a block. 

However, more should be done to track down and find those who use hidden and encrypted websites that account for part of the 5% of search traffic that doesn’t involve Google and Bing.

But anything that could help in any way to stop/discourage people accessing that kind of thing should be welcomed.  

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford to lose more powers

Toronto city council is set to remove most of Mayor Rob Ford's remaining powers as the embattled city leader refuses to step down.

City legislators will vote on Monday to reduce Mr Ford's budget and delegate many of his powers to the deputy mayor.

Mr Ford, 44, has promised to fight the council's decisions. His lawyer has accused them of an illegal "coup".

I’ve held back from writing about the Rob Ford show we have been treated to for the last couple of weeks, but I am now and I must start of by saying how the f**k is he still in his job.

Yes the Toronto city council will no doubt continue to reduce his powers but why not remove him altogether, he clearly needs help certainly shouldn’t be mayor of, well anywhere.

He can’t be trusted to govern his own life so how is he still mayor of the largest city in Canada?  

  

He was caught on camera smoking crack, he admitted to buying drugs as mayor, and it wasn’t part of a government buy back scheme either.

Apparently the Toronto city council doesn’t have the power to remove him unless he has a criminal conviction, ok fair enough their hands are tied on that one, so next question what are the police in Toronto doing?

The mayor has been caught on camera taking drugs and has admitted to buying drugs, he’s done most of the work for them all they have to do now is visit his house and slap the cuffs on him, what’s holding them back?

I wasn’t aware the police in Toronto were so liberal when it came to drugs or are they putting together a Wire style investigation into him where they follow the drugs and the money until they have enough to take, not just the mayor but his suppliers as well? 

Are they waiting for approval for a wire tap, because they could save themselves sometime as there’s already video evidence and an admission of guilt in play. 

Judging by the developments of this story the police in Toronto won’t act until the headline: COKED UP MAYOR MURDERS HOMELESS GUY! appears, actually come to think of it even that might not be enough.

When I first read the story about Rob Ford I thought it was quite funny and that the next day I’d be reading about his resignation, but the fact that he’s still in the job a full two and a half weeks after the first revelation makes this stupidly farcical.

But there is a way to swiftly end it and it involves the Toronto police collectively pulling their thumbs out their arses and arresting Rob Ford. 

Road charity Brake in call to ban hands-free phones

Use of hands-free phones should be banned from vehicles as well as hand-held ones, road safety campaigners say.

The charity Brake also called for the penalty for calling or texting behind the wheel to be increased from £100 to somewhere between £500 and £1,000.

Brake said a Freedom of Information request showed more than 500,000 people had points on their licence for using a phone or being otherwise distracted.

I agree with the idea to increase the fines for texting as I really don’t see why people can’t wait until they finish their journey before replying, and if the person texting knew the person they were texting was driving but text them anyway they're just as irresponsible.

However, I do think Brake is getting a bit carried away by calling for a ban on hands-free phones as well.

Judging by that logic Brake will soon be requesting that drivers are banned from talking to passengers because that would be as distracting as talking using a hands-free phone.

In fact what about small children in cars, they’re incredibly annoying and distracting if their asked to sit still for more than five seconds, I wonder what Brake has to say about that. 

Russian protestor nails his genitals to Red Square

A performance artist has been detained in Moscow after stripping naked and nailing his scrotum to the cobblestones of Red Square in a protest.

Pyotr Pavlensky, 29, reportedly sat for an hour and a half on the square on Sunday afternoon, with a nail driven through his genitals into the ground.

Every time I read a story like this I always think why do people do this? What do they really achieve? The answers are always I have no idea why they do these things and they achieve nothing.

Actually scratch that this guy has achieved something, the whole world thinks he’s mad and he has a hole in his scrotum so job well done.

One final thing I really object to the use of the term ‘performance artist’, there are many names you can use to describe a person who nails their genitalia to the floor, and performance artist definitely isn't one of them.

Terms such as madman, lunatic, crazy person, eejit, nutter, whackjob etc. would be much more suitable and appropriate if you ask me. 

  

Director films Nazi war scenes in England on Remembrance Sunday

Movie director David Ayer issued a grovelling apology after filming a Nazi battle scene on Remembrance Sunday.

Ayer said sorry, tweeting: “My heartfelt apologies for any disrespect on Remembrance Day.

“I am a veteran myself. It is an honor to film here in the UK.”

How hard would it have been to stop filming for a day, I mean didn’t anyone associated with the movie think to themselves hmm maybe we could move a few things around so we don’t film part of the Nazi battle scenes on the day that everyone will be remembering the bravery of the soldiers who fought in the First World War? Clearly not.

There are two things that make this even more insensitive, one is that as this is a major studio picture, with a budget of £50 million, there would no doubt have been studio execs and hideous pr people crawling all over the place ensuring that stuff like this doesn’t happen, and yet it still did.

The other reason is that Ayer himself is a veteran, serving in the US Navy, so he would have taken part in war memorial services and yet he thought it would be ok to film.

It should also be pointed out that this is not the first time Ayers has made a clanger of this nature, he was the writer of the film U-571 that told the heroic and completely false story of some brave Americans capturing an enigma machine, and after everyone including his own president criticised the film, he said “Both my grandparents were officers in World War II and I would be personally offended if somebody distorted their achievements.”

Yet he had no problem distorting the achievements of other peoples parents, grandparents etc.

Also on a much more minor note Brad Pitt is in the film and plays a character called Sergeant Wardaddy, PATHETIC!

I wonder how Mr Ayer would respond if a British director decided to make a film about the key battles of the Pacific Theatre and then decided to film on Hawaii and then decided to film the most intense battle scenes on December 7^th?

EDF to raise energy prices by 3.9%

EDF Energy has said average gas and electricity price will rise by 3.9%.

The company, one of the UK's big six energy suppliers, is the latest provider to raise bills, but it says its rise is “half” that of its rivals.

This just proves that energy companies take the piss because all of them so far have announced rises of more than double the 3.9% rise  EDF are planning. 

Either EDF deliberately delayed announcing a rise to under-cut its rivals and seem quite reasonable, or, and this is what I suspect is the real reason, they’ve watched as the others have hiked prices, seen the massive negative reaction and thought hmm this year we won’t be able to get away with robbing people blind, let’s ease off a bit and make ourselves look the best of a bad, bad bunch.

The gentleman burglar if you will.  

Lance Armstrong will testify with ‘100% transparency and honesty’

Disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong has told the BBC he will testify with "100% transparency and honesty" at any future inquiry into doping.

But the American, 42, wants assurances he will be treated fairly after admitting in January he took performance enhancing drugs during all seven of his Tour de France wins.

I must start of by admitting that I got it spectacularly wrong with Armstrong, earlier this year I wrote about how the USADA should get off his back as he’d done nothing wrong and leave him alone etc.

I was slightly wide of the mark with that one, but knowing what we now know about Armstrong I think he should keep his mouth shut and keep away from cycling and give cycling every chance to try and shake off the negative reputation in which he has played a starring role in helping to build.

After the extensive period of cheating, lies, deceit, that went on for over 10-15 years you don’t get to come out and say oh by the way if you want someone to honestly testify at a doping inquiry I’m your man, it really doesn’t work that way.

If cycling wants to survive and move on as a sport then Armstrong and all those from his era should be consigned to the history books and forever stand as a marker to signify when the sport moved into a clean age, all the details of how Armstrong managed to hide his cheating are already out there so cycling doesn’t need him taking part in inquiries.  

Ross County and St Johnstone apologise for NO minute silence

Ross County and St Johnstone have apologised for not observing a minute’s silence ahead of their Scottish Premiership matches on Saturday.

In a statement issued on Remembrance Sunday, County said the issue was “an error of omission arising from a failure to address changes in staff responsibilities”.

The St Johnstone apology referred to “an oversight”.

I think that’s a little bit more than an oversight, although it must also be pointed out that only two of the six matches in Scotland bothered to have a minute’s silence, why?

How hard is it to arrange for few thousand, sorry hundred, Scottish fans to put their beers and deep-fried mars bars down and stand silently for a minute to honour those who fought in the First World War?

Clearly very hard because only two of six games managed to do it, shows a shocking lack of respect and digs the already vast pit that Scottish football has sunk into even deeper. 

Hodgson: I can’t afford to drop Hart

Roy Hodgson admits he cannot afford to drop Joe Hart because it would put a further dent in the goalkeeper's confidence.

Hodgson confirmed that either Fraser Forster or John Ruddy will start in goal for one of England's upcoming friendlies - most likely against Chile - but the Three Lions boss made it crystal-clear that Hart remains very much his number one.

While I’m sure Hodgson said this with the best of intentions he maybe could have had checked over what he was going to say before he said it, then maybe he would have realised that this is back-handed compliment aimed at Hart.

Saying I can’t afford to drop him makes it sound like Hodgson really wants to but knows he can’t because the two back up keepers aren’t experienced or talented enough to replace him, he’s basically saying to Hart I would drop you but there’s no-one else so I’m kind of stuck with you.

I’m also not buying this I can’t drop him because it would affect his confidence, I think the reason his form has been sub-par recently is because he’s got complacent and actually I think dropping him would make him re-focus and get him back on track.  

Hopefully Hart does re-discover his form because there really isn’t anyone else.

MPs needed locksmiths for Parliamentary offices 382 times in a year

MPs had to call locksmiths to help them access their Parliamentary offices more than daily over the last year.

Following a Freedom of Information request, Parliamentary officials revealed that locksmiths had been called out to help with MPs' offices 249 times and offices for their MPs' staff 133 times over the period of October 2012 to October 2013.

Is this worldwide idiot news story day, I mean you got the morons who dressed up as the Twin Towers, the ‘physicists’ who have written a paper on urine splashback and now MPs locking themselves out of their offices on average more than once a day.

Locking yourself out once a year is a high average so how have MPs conspired to have an average of more than once a day?

Mind you it has given me the idea of retraining as a locksmith and operating in the Westminster area those guys must be rolling in it.

Physicists probe urination ‘splashback’ problem

US physicists have studied the fluid dynamics of urine "splashback" - and found tips to help men and women with their accuracy and hygiene.

Using high-speed cameras, the team filmed jets of liquid striking toilet walls and studied the resulting spray.

Why, oh why, oh why would you study for a degree in physics to then go and research urine splashback, what are these ‘geniuses’ going to do next write a paper on why turds smell bad?

Of all the useful things they could have chosen to research and they pick this, and to top it all off one of them was interviewed and had the gall to say it’s a real problem; no it isn’t just because you think it’s a problem that doesn’t make it a problem.

If they are really so determined to tackle this ‘problem’ I could have saved them some time, just recommend sitting down instead of standing, mind you if they had just come up with that after five minutes like any normal person would have and not spent god knows how long ‘studying’ splashback in detail, I dread to think what other ‘problem’ they would have wasted their time on.

The term educated idiots come to mind. 

Twin Towers fancy dress students condemned

Two students who dressed as the Twin Towers in a fancy dress competition have been condemned by university and students' union bosses.

University of Chester students Amber Langford and Annie Collinge, both 19, won the Halloween competition at a nightclub in Chester.

Their outfits depicted flames and explosions during the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

The level of insensitivity and stupidity here are unbelievable, what on earth where these two morons thinking, why would you even contemplate for a nano-second dressing up as the Twin Towers with flames and explosions and then go out in public.

You’d think it couldn’t get any worse but then to add the cherry on top of the cake of mind-numbing idiocy they won £150 in shopping vouchers for their costumes, I mean who looked at them and said oh obviously they should win.

The two morons have since apologised and said they didn’t mean to cause any offence; yeah the phrase closing the gate after the horse has bolted comes to mind.

They’ve only done that because they had to not because they wanted to, if you look at the picture it’s clear this is not something they did on the spur of the moment they clearly spent quite a bit of time making these costumes and yet at no point did they realise how distasteful and completely brainless they were being.   

This is just a huge failure all-round, and I think the lesson to be learned from all this is don’t go to Chester, it’s full of footballers and idiots, oh wait I meant to say it’s full of idiots. 

Sven-Goran Eriksson: England can’t win the 2014 World Cup

Former boss Sven-Goran Eriksson has written off England's chances of winning the World Cup next summer.

He told BBC Radio 5 live: "I don't believe they can win the World Cup in Brazil. Maybe in Russia in 2018. There are a lot of young players coming in.”

No shit Sherlock, of course England can’t win in Brazil why did you feel the need to say that, it’s not like there’s been a wave of players, pundits and fans saying England can win has there.

Surely the whole point of the news is that you report something that tells us something we don’t already know, or gives us a fresh sense of perspective, is Eriksson doing that here?

No he’s just adding his name to the extensive and ever growing list of people that think England can’t win the World Cup next year.

Tesco Petrol Stations use face-scan tech to target ads

Tesco is installing face-scanning technology at its petrol stations to target advertisements to individual customers at the till.

The technology, made by Lord Sugar's digital signage company Amscreen, will use a camera to identify a customer's gender and approximate age.

It will then show an advertisement tailored to that demographic.

Oh great that’s just what we need tailored advertising, as if the public aren’t already overexposed to fecking advertising, that we now have it literally shoved under our noses while paying for petrol.

This is much worse than any other form of advertising because every other time there’s the option to walk away or change channel, but while you’re paying for petrol you’re stuck there, there is no escape, of course you could always buy your petrol elsewhere or pay at the pump, but apart from that there is no escape.

Actually come to think of it most other technology I’ve encountered like this usually doesn’t work that well, the self-checkout for example, so you could go into a Tesco garage and be a beer drinking, red meat eating, football loving mans man, and then this thing will scan your face and an advert for a bottle Blossom Hill Rose, or an advert for some hideous looking vegetarian meal will appear.

It gets worse because the person behind you will see what sort of products the computer has recommended be advertised to you, and they will no doubt give you a look when you walk past them. 

I think this idea is a step too far and is intrusive, I mean if the products that will be advertised on these screens to a variety of different people literally have to be forced down their throats then the chances are they won’t buy them, or aren’t worth buying, also does the screen know what you’ve already got, because it could advertise Sky TV and you could already have it.

Of course, as always, there is a way to avoid this simply don’t buy your petrol from Tesco, every little helps.

Not reporting child abuse ‘should be criminal offence’

Teachers and other professionals who fail to report child abuse suspicions should face prosecution, the former director of public prosecutions says.

Keir Starmer said that under a "mandatory reporting" law, those who failed to act could be sent to jail.

I couldn’t agree more with this idea, because time and time again you see story after story of how abuse didn’t get reported and how it all ended in tragic circumstances and then the soundbite ‘lessons weren’t learned from the last time this happened’ appears everywhere and then the whole thing happens again and the same things are said and then it happens again etc.

If an individual is aware of abuse and fails to do anything about it, and as a result allows that abuse to continue then why shouldn’t they face prosecution?

Clearly a new approach is needed as tragic stories of unreported abuse that led to tragedy continue to happen, so if someone is in a position to do something about it and they know if they don’t they could face prosecution then it might make them focus and more simply do the right thing.