Hugh Spanner

European people say this but then the obvious question is how they became the most powerful and rich nation in the world. Lesson there somewhere.

We are (rightly) allowing use of our bases, and doing defensive work against some of the retaliation. Not much, but vaguely contributing.

Trick is to just allow yourself to win and not stay for decades trying to build a western democracy in Afghanistan. Forever wars were a choice.

How long is it? They got the second guy within 24 hours.

Thoughts on your exchange with Natasha Hausdorff now the IRCG have taken responsibility for the school tragedy in Iran?

Eek! Well tap me in when you need an occasional break.

Here’s hoping! Plenty of abuse to be received along the way, but I remember lurking and reading exchanges on old twitter, and they really did influence / inform me.

Appreciate that Carl! Fairly new account, but I’ll send them your way as I find them. Have enjoyed exchanging with bsky.app/profile/geor... , and David seems to fit your bill: bsky.app/profile/davi...

National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Baroness Casey's audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse ('grooming gangs').

This particular pattern of abuse was extremely tied to ethnicity. People organised in clans / families, little to no self-regulation within them, and targeting of girls outside them. Casey Review describes it in more detail and better than I in Chapter 4: www.gov.uk/government/p...

Yes, that was definitely a core reason it was not stopped, but it was nonetheless a choice, and we (collectively) made the wrong one. Tragic and shaming for us as a country, and incumbent on us to give the victims what justice we can now.

Display some curiosity, read Chapter 6, and self-reflect.

Just realised the person you are replying to is a Senior Political Correspondent at the Guardian. Fml.

Tell me where I said you were morally to blame on a personal level? I said the opposite. I said the academic discipline failed.

Yeah, you are just repeatedly missing the point now. I can criticise the academic field of sociology for failing to be truthful or investigate a very important sociological issue without saying that every sociology researcher is morally to blame. Again, this is obvious and not complicated.

National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Baroness Casey's audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse ('grooming gangs').

Hilarious. Casey Review describes the issue in detail (inc the Home Office report in question that cited her work 20 times), if you are interested enough: www.gov.uk/government/p...

I believe you are clever enough to understand the point made above. In case not, take the analogy - if medical science avoided studying cancer for two decades, would you be able to criticise it, or would you just accept every medical researcher saying, ‘but I study heart conditions!’? Not complex.

No, I want academia that seeks truth, not activism that seeks plaudits.

Yeah, I guess that’s the point. It’s not in your area of research so you wouldn’t be expected to cover it, but it’s also not in anyone else’s because to speak truthfully about it would be career suicide. So you just get Ella Cockbain’s activism dressed up as science. That’s the collective failure.

I read Carl’s point as a critique of the discipline. And he is right, if no one spoke truthfully about the issue whether directly (eg Ella Cockbain) or through omission (almost everyone else) then the discipline collectively failed as an academic area of study. This was/is an important social issue.

The Casey Review does a good job of separating this particular form of abuse and the associated state culpability from other forms of CSA. Chap6 describes in detail how generalising to other forms of CSA has been a tactic for decades to avoid addressing the specific. Genuinely would rec reading it.

Grooming gangs were a particular form of rape networks along familial-ethnic-religious lines. They often targeted white and Sikh girls because of their perceived impurity. They were abetted by a British state that failed the victims over decades. That’s why we need a specific inquiry.

The couple of misreadings of your post shows how rare it is on this platform to make your point - thank you for doing so.

National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Baroness Casey's audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse ('grooming gangs').

Have you read the Casey Review? It describes your attitude in Chapter 6 (Denial): www.gov.uk/government/p...

National Audit on Group-based Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse Baroness Casey's audit on group-based child sexual exploitation and abuse ('grooming gangs').

I get that this is all about political posturing for people on BS, but if actually interested in commenting, you should read the Casey Review first. It also deals with your take here, a classic of dumb obfuscation - in Chapter 6 (Denial): www.gov.uk/government/p...

Dragged kicking and screaming, but glad we got there.

Finally! Sad they had to be dragged to this point.

You’re wrong about academics not having influence. The 2010 Home Office report that denied the issue and is always used by people trying to obfuscate away from action cited academic Ella Cockbain 20 times as an authoritative source. 16 years later, Casey Review said the obvious - junk social science

I’ve got some sympathy for that view, and it definitely has more empathy for the victims than the endless, tiresome obfuscation on BS about the issue. It was a particular form of abuse, organised along familial-ethnic-religious lines, which the British state enabled. That’s why we need an inquiry.