45 Comments
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Aidan Barrett's avatar

I would expect the new government to be building more prisons to hold the dissidents from the regime's laws on online content:

https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/is-britain-a-free-country

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Schwarzgeist's avatar

"To add to the general air, the amateur cameraman was also smoking a joint, although I suppose in the greater scheme of things that hardly matters."

Epic sentence, lol.

An entertaining article. I duly clicked on the meticulously embedded links to asee if the women involved were attractive. Ruth Shmylo looks like someone from "Swinging London" in the 1960s.

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Ed West's avatar

you're right. She shouldn't be in a jail surrounded by scum, she should be going on a date with a charming young Michael Caine.

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Ruairi's avatar

Barbara Windsor dated a kray.

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Schwarzgeist's avatar

speaking of Swinging London...

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Schwarzgeist's avatar

nicely put

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Barekicks's avatar

With you Ed, but I feel no sympathy for De Sousa. She seems like a narcissistic exhibitionist who sought this out for fame. The person I feel sorry for is her child, who will never know what it's like to have a normal, caring, adult-behaving mother.

I can see why some of the other stories might evoke sympathy though. In at least a couple cases the officers in question appear to have developed genuine romantic feelings for the inmates, making them vulnerable to manipulation.

It's also likely that some (most?) of these officers would have gone into the job with good intentions, perhaps because they were unable to qualify for anything else. (Whereas I have no doubt De Sousa specifically sought a work environment where she'd be around lots of burly men. It no doubt played into her and her husband's swinger fantasies.)

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Brock's avatar

My wife and daughters were heckling me this morning with claims that “girls” have far more common sense than “boys.” It’s a little tempting to show them this article as a counterpoint, but instead I’ll prove my common sense by not doing that.

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Ed West's avatar

TBF, I think a blindspot when it comes to the opposite sex is not uncommon in men.

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Brock's avatar

Undoubtedly. Neither sex has a monopoly on dumbassery.

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John's avatar

Ed,

I mentioned before an issue with notifications from substack in relation to posts. Previously, I would get an email immediately when a post was made. Now the only notification is a day after a post, telling me I have something unread from yesterday. I can’t be the only person affected by what seems to be a general change(?). Assuming that it might be worth looking into as will reduce the number of people who can get involved in the chat that tends to happen right after a post is made.

Cheers

John

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Christopher Booth's avatar

The issue is that Substack recently defaulted notifications to 'in app' (but didn't ask anyone). You need to go to the notifications settings and enable 'email'.

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jesse porter's avatar

It must have been fun researching this piece.

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The Dilettante Polymath's avatar

Britain in the 21C…….Sodom and Gomorrah.

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!

It isn't fit for humans now…..

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CC's avatar

Now if that wasn’t an ‘icky’ topic….the underbelly of civilization….

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Alex Jackson's avatar

The Onlyfans account was of no great surprise when I heard about it.

Given the notoriety this has gotten, we can assume she’ll have made a life changing amount of money, possibly enough to mitigate her future unemployability.

Same may be the case for the Milkshaker of Farage who was recently convicted - again, her major publicity will have sent her ‘viral’

It’s possible these current 2 horrific women breaking each others 24hr body count records logarithmically may end up with 8 figure sums based on how international that story is going but putting them to one side….

Women knowingly committing foul crimes in the secure knowledge that their resulting subscription earnings from pornography will outweigh any consequent punishment… J.G Ballard wasn’t able to come up with anything as bizarre or awful!

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Ed West's avatar

yeah I didn't think about that. OF really is a grim phenomenon.

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Ruairi's avatar

OF could be taxed in nothing in an afternoon. IG and Tik tok allows the daughters of the Cartels to flaunt their wealth

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Síochána Arandomhan's avatar

I don’t even know where to begin with this. But thank you for the quote from Yeats’ “A Prayer for my Daughter,” which I looked up and greatly appreciate. The crazy salad quote is apt, as is “An intellectual hatred is the worst,

So let her think opinions are accursed.”

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Ed West's avatar

I think Yeats was bitter because the woman he had his eye on preferred an IRA gunman

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Síochána Arandomhan's avatar

Ha! I don’t know the context the poem was written in much at all; I’m sure you could do a valid reading referring to history etc.

But personally I find everything it says relevant to 2025 in the “civilized” world.

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Ruairi's avatar

This is why prostitutes and adulterers had their noses cut off, There was a reason why bastard children got stones chucked at them. . It was meddling aunties that stopped this- it was Fathers, hand and belt..

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Little known history's avatar

One thing about recruiting foreign nationals is that some countries like Brazil don't have an extradition treaty with the UK.

So if a Brazilian guard is amoral then the risk of helping someone escape is a lot less than for an amoral guard from a different country.

(This is not meant to be racist against Brazil but some people are amoral that is why we have prisons).

Also of course mixed prisons are a bad idea.

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Ed West's avatar

is that still true of Brazil? I thought that was from the era of east end villains doing 'armed blags'?

remember as a teen watching The Sex Pistols' Great train robbery and being disgusted by Ronnie Biggs living it up.

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Little known history's avatar

Brazilian citizens by birth cannot be extradited https://koetz.digital/countries-that-do-not-have-an-extradition-agreement-with-brazil/

Really bizarre personally if a Brit flew to Brazil broke the law, came home - if the evidence against were strong enough why not extradite him?

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Little known history's avatar

Your comment has inspired me to start my own substack - I hope you like it.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-156782163

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The Last Nabataean's avatar

"This is not meant to be racist against Brazil..." For heaven's sake, you can't even post a mild, anodyne comment here without qualifying it by pleading not guilty to a non-offence. I don't know who you are and I don't wish to sound rude but why do you feel it necessary to grovel apologetically in advance when nobody has even attacked you or accused you of anything?

If you are representative of British men (as I fear you are) then its no wonder we're circling down the plughole.

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Little known history's avatar

I feel it is good to say that there is no racist intend before being accused.

To be honest considering the US attitude towards to extradition I am not sure that we should let them work in our prisons ever.

BTW a lot of Brits I know think I am far right.

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Neil C's avatar

While I'd happily watch a caper film about a prisoner having an affair with two prison officers, my first reaction to these stories are "these women aren't very bright."

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CynthiaW's avatar

One of the points of the article seemed to be that the prison system needs more money in order to be able to hire employees who aren't dumb as soup.

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Richard North's avatar

Surely the job of prison warder is a prime candidate for the application of robotics, or call it AI so 2-tier Keir might get interested in it.

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Ruairi's avatar

I waited for a while to post this. I suspect the unspoken rationalisation for a lot of police and social workers in Grooming gang country was this- The girls were the type of woman who would be attracted to the criminal classes

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So Many Kinds of Voices's avatar

Allowing women to work in men's prisons (or vice versa) is just asking for trouble. The sort of women who find 'bad boys' attractive will inevitably be drawn to such work, just as pederasts are drawn to schools and the scouts.

Depriving you of (even fleeting) encounters with the opposite sex should be part of the punishment of prison.

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