Obsolete

• The gold medal in compassion has to go to Dover council, after a 16-year-old boy was forced into sleeping in a tent for 9 months following its failure to provide him with anywhere to live. The ombudsman understandably praised the teenager's resilience and his refusal to return to drugs and crime. He had originally turned down a bed and breakfast place as it was in an area where he feared he might be tempted back into offending.


• Spending on mental health in England dropped by £150m last year, the first such fall since 2001. Coming at the same time as the worst recession since the rape of the Sabines and the continuing assault on the sick through the work capability assessment, it really is the best possible moment for such a real terms cut.
  


• The Bank of England has cut its growth forecast to zero, a figure which still seems optimistic.


• This would have been buried Olympics or not, but the acquittal of Simon Walsh over charges of possessing "extreme" pornography, namely a whole 6 images that depicted consensual anal fisting, and use of a urethral sounding, is yet another example of the Crown Prosecution Service's lack of almost any sense whatsoever. Like with the Paul Chambers Twitter joke case, the damage has already been done regardless of Walsh's eventual acquittal. Walsh, who is openly gay, was fired from the London Fire Authority and hasn't been able to work for the past year. Even more perplexing is why the prosecution was allowed to go ahead when at the beginning of the year Michael Peacock was acquitted on charges of distributing DVDs containing material including fisting. Having failed under the Obscene Publications Act, the CPS and police tried their luck instead under Labour's "extreme porn" legislation, and duly failed again. As the Heresiarch suggests, seeing as the coalition doesn't seem to have much else on its plate, it could do everyone a favour and set about repealing it.
  

Labels: burying bad news, miscellany, Olympics, silly season