It's news to me

Bang on 5am is a little too early to be hit with a bulletin from a chirpy newsreader, but my clock radio hates me. I normally snooze the first half hour or two, but I was sleeping a little too far from the snooze button this morning, so had no alternative but to listen

 

There was some whiney woman complaining that x percentage of children have viewed porn on the internet, by the age of six. Shocker!

 

But even worse, apparently 70 percent of kids aged 17 have seen porn on the web. So what are the other 30 percent playing at? 

 

Kids aged 17 have seen porn since porn was invented. It's what kids aged 17 do. Not so long ago, in the grand scheme of things, kids aged 17 or younger, were routinely getting married and making their own babies (Yes I know, it's different when mummies and daddies love each other, etc), and it's still legal to do so, although these days they don't seem to bother with the married bit, and move straight on to the babies 

 

So my first reaction on hearing this revelation was to panic and wonder how we're ever going to survive as a race. But still being sleepy, it took me a few seconds to remember that we now have the Hated Online Safety Act, which prevents all children (and adults) who don't know what a VPN is (30 percent of them, maybe) from accessing porn online due to the age verification laws

 

And relax! The Hated Online Safety Act will save us all, correct? So I fully expected the whiney woman to tell us that these figures will now start to rapidly decline and we've nothing to worry about.

 

Imagine my surprise when she said,

"Online porn needs to be regulated in the same way as physical porn. We have the opportunity to do this with the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now" 

Eh?

 

Firstly, why hasn't the Hated Online Safety Act solved this problem, like it was specifically designed to do?

And secondly, what fresh hell is the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now? Why is this the first I'm hearing of it, and what new pointless and restrictive laws are going to be thrown at us this time?

 

It never ends

 

Other than kids seeing boobs, there was also a bit on the news about Trump and Putins conflab regarding the war in Ukraine. A English politician (some berk who's name I didn't catch) was saying there's no point trying to get guarantees from Putin, as he won't stick to them

 

Now I'm no Chief negotiator, but my first thought would have been that if that's your opinion, you keep it to yourself until you are sat round the negotiating table. You don't go on Sky news and call the principal party in the talks, a right bulshitter

 

I've really no idea why Two Tier and his useless hangers on are involved in this. They're irrelevant. They're like the kid who wants to be popular, trying to hang out with the bigger boys in the schoolyard 

 

I'd say that the upside is, the longer Starmer is out of the country trying to play statesman, the less harm he can do here, but 'the policing and crime bill that is going through Parliament now'...