- “Stop taking freebies, Labour MPs tell Starmer” – PM accused of ‘hypocrisy’ and warned that taking gifts gives the impression “he’s more interested in himself” than the country, reports the Telegraph.
- “We’ll stop taking free clothes, say Starmer and Rayner” – Sir Kier Starmer and Angela Rayner u-turn and say they won‘t accept free clothes from now on, says the Telegraph. Although Starmer hasn‘t said he won’t accept free Arsenal tickets.
- “Inside Westminster’s freebie merry-go-round: who gets what and why” – Sir Keir Starmer and his team have received thousands of pounds worth of donations and gifts, including Chelsea Flower Show tickets for the Chancellor, says the Times.
- “I took cash for clothes too, admits Rachel Reeves” – The Chancellor admits she too took free clothes, according to the Telegraph.
- “Jess Phillips: I’m ‘apoplectic’ domestic abusers were freed without tags” – The Safeguarding Minister is shocked – shocked, I tell you – that hundreds of prisoners have been released in the past few weeks without tracking devices, reports the Telegraph.
- “David Lammy’s office took £10,000 donation from Saudi-supporting PR chief” – Register of Interests reveals Muddassar Ahmed donated £10,000 to David Lammy, says the Telegraph.
- “Why is he so bad at this?” – Keir Starmer has turned out to be as inept as he is authoritarian, says Tom Slater in Spiked Online.
- “Lord Alli demanded crackdown on ‘bullying’ newspapers” – The Prime Minister’s personal shopper called for restrictions on media ownership, according to the Telegraph.
- “Sleaze, quarrels and austerity: Labour is looking a lot like the Tories” – Before his first party conference as Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer appears to be struggling to convince even his own ministers he is capable of real change, reports the Times.
- “Labour’s private school VAT raid causes diplomatic spat with France and Germany” – A French politician claims proposed plans to tax school fees would “not be in line” with Sir Keir Starmer’s drive to renew relations between the two countries, according to the Telegraph.
- “English identity under threat due to immigration, Robert Jenrick warns” – In a hard-hitting article for the Mail, Robert Jenrick says the ties which bind the nation together are beginning to fray.
- “Why LSE is the Sunday Times University of the Year 2025” – Ranked No.1 by the Sunday Times, the London School of Economics champions free speech, with graduates that go on to change the world.
- “Wales considers 25% income tax cut to tackle ‘brain drain’ crisis” – The Labour-run Welsh Government is considering reducing the top rate of income tax to 25% in an effort to stem the exodus of anyone earning over £100,000, according to the Telegraph.
- “Was Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ expansion really more about making money than ensuring cleaner air?” – New figures show the London Mayor has pulled in hundreds of millions of pounds from fines and fees connected with his ULEZ scheme, says Patrick O’Flynn on Substack.
- “Meddling Eurocrats are dragging the bloc back to the Dark Ages” – The EU’s ‘regulate first, ask questions later’ approach to AI is turning Europe into a tech backwater, says Andrew Griffith in the Telegraph.
- “I took my spoilt kids to Barbados but they preferred Bognor Regis” – Having dragged my children to various luxury resorts, I’ve often wondered whether they’d be happier at Butlins, says Ed Grenby in the Telegraph.
- “California accused of trying to keep children’s gender identity a secret from parents” – The state of California is being sued over new law that city council says is “an intrusion into private family matters”, reports Cameron Henderson in the Telgraph.
- “The climate scaremongers: BBC blame child marriage in Bangladesh on climate change” – The BBC is blaming statutory rape in Bangladesh on climate chance in a completely rational article.
- “Britain is spending beyond its means” – Public sector net debt as a percentage of the economy has exceeded 100%, level not seen since the early 1960s, reports the Spectator.
- “What Britain will lose when Starmer guts the House of Lords” – An aerospace engineer, an undercover trucker and the man who put wheelchairs into taxis – all are voting hereditaries, which Labour is determined to get rid of for class war reasons, according to the Telegraph.
- “UCL demographer’s work debunking ‘Blue Zone’ regions of exceptional lifespans wins Ig Nobel prize” – A study by Dr. Saul Justin Newman has won the first-ever Ig Nobel award in Demography at this year’s 34th Ig Nobel Prizes for debunking ‘blue zone’ gobbledegook.
- “Does the evidence support working from home?” – “I am sure that the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds picked up many useful skills in his previous job in local government, says a sceptical Ross Clark in the Spectator.
- “Preacher wins payout after arrest for damaging her own Qur’an” – Christian evangelist Hatun Tash was arrested for criminal damage after her copy of the Qur’an was stolen by a Muslim at Speakers’ Corner, according to Christian Concern.
- “CERN to expel hundreds of Russian scientists” – A group of Russian researchers will lose their access to CERN, which operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, reports Semafor.
- “Cost of driving electric car up to twice the price of petrol or diesel” – Motorists without space at home to charge their cars are facing prohibitively high costs at public facilities, says the Times.
- “Antifa Batman? DC Comics introduces a poor, brutal, and left-wing Dark Knightr” – There’s a new Batman in Gotham, and he would probably vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, according to the Washington Examiner.
- ““Help! My child is becoming right wing!”: Leading Berlin newspaper provides “tips for democratic parents” who are forced to deal with “undemocratic children”” – Germany has the stupidest political discourse on earth, says Eugyppius on his Substack.
- “Reform’s Cheshire Cat troublemaker basks in Taylor Swift-like atmosphere” – Nigel Farage takes centre stage at Reform’s party conference and drives the attendees wild, reports Madeline Grant in the Telegraph.
- “Farage may just have found the secret recipe for beating the Tories” – All parties are losing members – apart from Reform, according to the Telegraph.
- “Running an electric car is twice as expensive as a petrol one” – A return trip from London to Penzance costs £148 for electric vehicles compared to £77 for petrol cars, says the Telegraph.
- “Israel and Ukraine are defending us too: why don’t Western moralisers recognise this?” – Jerusalem’s audacious strikes against terrorism should be celebrated, says Charles Moore in the Telegraph. Instead, the strikes have been disparaged in Whitehall
- “David Lammy has cost Britain a crucial ally against Putin” – The Foreign Secretary’s blunders prove he isn’t cut out for serious diplomacy, according to the Telegraph.
- “Hezbollah second-in-command killed by Israeli air strike in Beirut” – Ibrahim Aqil died when IDF fighter jets struck a building in the south of the Lebanese capital, reports the Telegraph.
- “Greenpeace activists who scaled Rishi Sunak’s home walk free” – The judge has thrown out the case, saying the evidence against the four protesters was ‘so tenuous’ that no court would convict them
- “The use and abuse of science” – On the Right and the Left, theology and ideology trump empirical reality, writes Andrew Sullivan. That has to end.
- “It’s emerged that the Labour Party‘s biggest donor is a hedge fund with investments in fossil fuels, private healthcare and arms manufacturers” – Patrick Christys tries to get to grip with Labour’s intergalactic hypocrisy.
If you have any tips for inclusion in the round-up, email us here.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I doubt the intention of the show was to help people understand teenagers.
OMG I loved The Inbetweeners. The movie was equally as hilarious. That and Peep Show were my fave ‘laugh out loud’ shows years ago. I was so impressed with the acting of those lads though, and much like any shows featuring Ricky Gervais, I’d always wonder how many takes they had to do just to complete a scene, never mind an entire episode, because you’d just crack up half the time.
Me to, very funny indeed. the scenes with the teacher, can’t remember his name, remind me of psychopathic PE teachers of old
As a then 60yr old, I found the show very funny as it took me back to the early 60s and the funny, useless and often dangerous things we got up to and always finished laughing our heads off and still friends afterwards.
I was then working 70 hours a week milking cows before going to agricultural college and we worked hard and played hard but it laid the ground for a successful career in farming, politics and planning and I am still an ‘ass’.
As David Icke often points out, it is the opportunity to push the Problem-Reaction-Solution on an ignorant public. As just like the press in the Rape capital Sweden, it’s all the fault of the white man.
Yeah people think Icke is a nutcase but he’s right on this.
No it wasn’t. It was blatant “woke” propaganda from start to finish.
If you want the American version at the turn of the century, and probably where they got their ideas from — American Pie.
The author’s glowing recommendation prompted me to look up this series, which I’d never heard of, not having watched telly since the days of Monty Python, The Young Ones & Fawlty Towers. I found the first few episodes on Youtube, and it seemed like fun for about 60 seconds, before the gross, crass obsession with sex and obscenities began, and I switched it off.
I looked up some ordinary reviews of it, and though many people liked the series, I agreed with those who did not:
— “I just don’t understand the how this show got so popular. It’s pathetic. It’s badly acted and relies purely on naughty words to get laughs. It’s just not funny. Imagine a 12 year old trying to write Superbad and you get the idea. It makes me cringe. That this is held up alongside Peep Show (1000 times funnier) is so depressing and just shows how little audiences have to come to expect.
There’s nothing inventive or clever here, just unlikable characters throwing base insults at each other – and that grates after the first two minutes. It’s all about cheap, easy laughs and clearly that’s enough for a lot of people. How sad.
I’d rather watch My Family than The Inbetweeners. That’s how bad it is.”
— “The worst thing on TV that is toilet humour. It is only popular because it has been aimed at the older stupid type of person which there are a lot of. It is cheap and poorly written. It is today’s Young Ones, but has nothing good about it compared to The Young Ones…”
— “Terrible tv show. Don’t bother. It will annoy you. Who watches this and thinks it’s funny? Don’t understand how this show got so popular— cheap and poorly written, poor acting skills all round, and the films are just as bad. Not for kids; dirty and bad mouthed programme and it’s not even funny. I tried to watch an episode and did not laugh once. I felt embarrassed watching it.”
Well, we seem to have a range of opinions here… 😁
Such is the nature of Art. The important bit is that we can discuss it, agree or disagree, and then go on with our lives. Its how we used to do things
Incidently, its my opinion that Peep Show was hackneyed rubbish, as most things David Mitchell who I find terribly over-rated. Only an opinion, I know, but lets not forget who’s opinion it is….
Which is a good thing! Personally, the inbetweeners certainly reminded me of those teenage years, gross and gormless as they were… we all knew a Jay at school as well, every class had at least one
In crowd-out crowd, very important in a Highschool.
True it is no Alan Partridge or Farther Ted. Or even 2pointfour children made from around 1991 1999. The farther in the latter Gary Olsen died in 2000 so the series died with him. Good comedy that, with some historical references thrown in.
If you don’t like obscenities you might enjoy the Gaylord Pentecost series of books by Eric Malpass, set in the English countryside in what seems like a bygone age but I think mid-60s onwards, more or less when they were published. It covers the main character from young boy to young man, and his family. Morning’s at Seven, the first one, is possibly best known but I enjoyed them all.
Thank you for that interesting recommendation, Transmission! I’ve never liked smut of any kind, at any age, in writing or conversation, art, cinema, music or literature. It just encourages Satan’s attempt to make the whole of humanity obsessed with sex and the nude human physical form. Sex is a Soul Trap. Even Hindus are taught that speaking or writing or thinking obscenities lowers the soul’s vibrational level to focus on crude bodily functions instead of higher things.
So many authors have written great stories without any porn or obscenities, and I like all those old-fashioned authors like Charles Dickens & Jane Austen & The Wind in the Willows, and old telly like “The Last of the Summer Wine”.
So I looked up that 1965 book by Eric Malpass, and instead found “Morning’s at Seven” by American author Paul Osborn, written in 1938, about small town America. But it wasn’t as well-reviewed as the Malpass one about rural England, so I’ll try to find a copy to read.
I gather that the Pentecost family series by Malpass is not well known in his homeland of England, but very popular in Europe, especially France & Germany, where they’ve made movies based on his books.
So thank you very much again for suggesting it! We all learn from each other, every day.
By the way, do you know what order the books are in, you know, to read them from first to last?
Ah I didn’t know there was another book with that name. How odd.
Yes I believe Malpass is popular in Europe – maybe they still imagine all of England is still like that. I think the Germans adapted one of two of the books for TV. I think they would make good TV – nice and slow. But TV doesn’t seem to want to do slow any more, and anyway there’d be no room for brown people etc in it, unless they bastardised the books, so better leave them alone.
I think I read them in the order of publication which seemed to work. I think Evensong is out of print – I can’t find it anywhere.
Yes, it is odd, and makes me wonder whether Malpass got his idea from the 1938 Paul Osborn American novel, and then applied it to rural England. Nothing wrong with that, but to actually pinch the title is a bit off. I completely agree with the rest of your comment.
OK, that makes sense to follow the order of publication, so I’ll do that.
Thanks again for recommending it.
I am not keen on constant lazy vulgarity- it has its place in art when required to reflect reality, but I also think it’s good to watch and read about people behaving excellently. There’s a great clip of Antonin Scalia talking about this which I will dig out and link to later.
This is the great Scalia on vulgarity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvttIukZEtM&feature=youtu.be&t=2439
“There are dignified and excellent ways to behave and there are undignified and base ways to behave, and people who regularly do the former are better than people who regularly do the latter. And unless you believe that you’re going to have a vulgar society.”
I’ve caught glimpses of it over the years and decided to give it a miss – each to his own.
Isn’t the point of the article , that boys are immature at this age and need the innocence of potty humour. Yes it is crude but so believable.
In the first few minutes of the first episode I watched, the boys were swearing and excited talking about an Adult Female Paedophile in the town they were about to visit on their school trip, who had vowed to have sex with all the 13-year-old boys on the bus.
Just imagine if the genders were reversed, and 13-year-old girls were swearing and excited about an Adult Male Paedophile in the town they were about to visit on their school trip, who had vowed to have sex with all the 13-year-old girls on the bus.
It is Normalizing Paedophilia.
And there is no such thing as “the innocence of potty humour”.
Kids never talked like that when I was a kid. It’s disgusting.
I was 50 ish when Inbetweeners broke & I got every single nuance , my Lads cut their Humorous real life teeth on this programme , we still watch it now when we want a proper laugh 😂
“Starmer is hosting a round table discussion…”
…Oh what a bundle of laughs that will be.
Wonder if he just wears those glasses to look official.
Except he said he was hosting just a round table; he forgot the discussion bit. I immediately thought plank meets table.
Ha-ha-ha! “Plank Meets Table”— love it! 🙂
If he wants to better understand British adolescent boys
Starmer-the-Contemptible? The man who kneels to black thugs? He doesn’t want to understand British boys – he wants to abolish the white ones.
Hear, hear! Well said!
Trump supporter puts BBC lady in her place!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8TQU0qO7S0
TV should be entertainment, unhindered by politics agenda and ideology, I afraid to tackle real social issues, eg Islamist on the campus or plainly on the street, influencing young immigrants…
some here criticise the earlier show, but they kiss the point of good old fashion humour (generally slapstick laddy kind) judged by 2020’s worldviews.
any wonder Monty Python or Little Britain would never be made today? Fear.
“I’m a lady” turned out very prescient.
The Monty Python lads managed to make the world laugh without using any obscenities.
Never watched The Inbetweeners, but having had two sons and brought them up as a single Mum, I doubt if it highlighted any behaviour which I didn’t experience directly. My sons had the closest thing to a free range older childhood/adolescence I could sensibly give them in the noughties.
I did, a little while ago, finally get around to watching The Derry Girls on Netflix…. and that was hilarious.
You were a single mother? And yet you didn’t involve yourself in the discussion the other day where, as usual, men were denigrating women ( single mothers in this instance) and as usual it was me, myself and I countering their obvious prejudice and drawing attention to the fact there’s various reasons why women might find themselves in such circumstances. But many on here need no excuse to look down on the opposite sex, evidently.
But don’t tell me, don’t tell me….you must have missed those posts.? 🙈🙉🙊
Whatever you do, don’t make any Jokes About Ironing, unless you want to start World War Three. 🙂
Were these people never teenagers?
I understand teenagers because I was one and spent years at school with other teenagers, and I have been able to observe teenagers “in the wild” regularly during my life so far.