SecretPro

Perhaps, I don't know, I've only worked in the justice system for 20 years. Relatively speaking, especially for the more serious crimes, CCTV and forensic evidence are key in my experience. This was a very high profile crime, it was never not going to make it to the Courts and when it does, that's half the battle won. I see far more investigations dropped by the CPS where common sense screams guilty through lack of solid evidence than I do see actually prosecuted. That's the nature of the judicial thresholds in this country. Don't get me wrong, I am in no way claiming Letby is innocent, far from it, but there are elements of the evidence in this case that I don't think would or could have been relied on in a less high profile case.

My desert island veg is cauliflower. Especially in Gobi Manchurian guise from Mithas

5 years for having a zoom call about maybe blocking a motorway to highlight the biggest crisis facing the world today. Get called the unwashed and told to rot off. Incite riots, destruction and racial hatred for no apparent reason whatsoever, just a silly old man mate.

I watched it, nothing really surprising but there is certainly an issue when it comes to the beyond reasonable doubt bit. Circumstantial evidence rarely leads to a conviction in most crimes, let alone serial killers.

The Letby Panorama tonight will be an interesting watch I think.

Best attacking player we've had since Mahrez. His engine is superb, he fights for everything, his vision is great, his feet are great, he can shoot, dribble...

I'm going to do the 10k to test myself ahead of the Leicestershire half. Assuming round a track a half marathon might get a bit monotonous?

I am vegan, so I am against all of those things and I certainly wouldn't expect anybody else to adhere to that, so for the sake of this thread, rather than talking about veganism as a philosophy, let's assume I'm only really referring to a plant based diet (as that's the change I'm really on about) As for the remaining farm animals - they all get culled eventually anyway, so let's just do it all at once and have one big **** off final banquet Jokes aside, of course with any huge landscape change there are going to be massive sacrifices and compromises, I'm fact the same can be said for any of the actions we need to undertake to actually tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, whether than be energy, economy - the reason we haven't done any of them is because they all require massive existential change and sacrifice. At some point we are going to need to accept, whichever routes we take, that we will need to make those sacrifices at some point otherwise we are doomed. As for wildboar by the way, I'm all for it. They are part of the native ecology in Britain and fantastic for biodiversity, as has been evidence in the forest of Dean! We could do with wholesale reintroduction of Boar, Beaver and Lynx (as native species) to help tackle a lot of the current issues. Of course Wolves and Bear were also UK natuves but I'm not sure the public are quite ready for that, especially being as they are struggling even with beavers! Every route from here on in is fraught with immense difficulty. Sadly that's the state we've let ourselves get in.

Sure, I'm definitely not saying 'everyone go vegan and that's problem solved' in any sense, I'm saying for people who want to do something that they can physically do to be proactive it would be a good start. For me it's not even just the emissions from animal agriculture, its the masses and masses of land it occupies and what it then subsequently turns that land into. Combined, it had a massive, massive impact. The graphic I posted above about deforestation is a just one tiny thing in a host of things that animal agriculture has a deep impact on. Look at the UK uplands - people go to the Highlands and say 'oh, that looks pretty' but the reality is that that's not how it should look - it's denuded not only of character, but of biodiversity and that impact is lasting. Our uplands are fast becoming green deserts through sheep farming when really they should be covered in montane scrub and a vast, vast array of biodiversity. And that's just the UK! Extrapolate that into the same kind of theory as Edward O Wilsons 'Half-earth' (very good if you haven't read it) and that change of land use becomes something huge. My point is, Veganism needs to be weapon amongst an arsenal of weapons to even get close to doing anything about climate change and biodiversity loss - most of those weapons can only be forged by governments, policy, big business etc etc, but the vegan weapon, we can all do it, it's something we as individuals CAN do, when many of the other things we can't. Governments have been talking about climate change since the early 80's, campaigners have been campaigning since the same time. In recent years we've had extensive campaigning and lobbying from Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil and others and had this change anything. Did the apparently game changing Paris agreement change anything?! No is the real answer, so whilst we can all campaign and lobby our MPs etc for change and that's within our power to do, how much more getting around the table and talking can we do (and not see change from it) before it becomes apparent we've just wasted a whole load of time getting round tables and talking to people who don't care or don't want to care. I merely bring up veganism because it's empowering for an individual because they are actively doing something. Imagine, just for a second, if the world was plant based what an impact that would have on land use and emissions. I freely admit that is NEVER going to happen, much as all the other forms of action are likely to NEVER make any difference but the difference is: You can become vegan and it will make a small change You can continue to lobby, campaign and talk and prioritise that above going vegan and it might not make any change. So for me, its a no-brainer. Be part of that arsenal.

Quite, but my argument would be that the care of the Environment should be at the centre of anybody so anthropocentric, because without a healthy environment there genuinely are no people (and I'm not even really on about climate change - it's the current 6th mass extinction and biodiversity crisis that is likely to finish us off first, because many many creatures perform tasks that are essential to human life, insects being the main category (whether that be essential food pollination, assisting plant reproduction providing the oxygen we breathe, waste removal services, dealing with decay and driving the essential nitrogen cycle required for life, those microorganisms on land and ocean that sequest more atmospheric carbon than all of the worlds forests put together or the natural defence against pest species and associated disease that a functioning ecosystem provides, and they have suffered a 70% decline in the last 40 years alone)

If we are talking about the debate on assisted dying my view is that the likes of the strange and utterly non-existent arguments being promoted by the likes of the Archbishop of Canterbury which amount to scaremongering about how we are all suddenly going to just be injecting everyone who says they'd like to die or is poor, or old or whatever other trope it may be is frankly ridiculous. For the very limited number of cases in which any Swiss style assisted dying would be granted in the UK in factual reality then I'm probably pro-assisted dying. I watched a very good piece on the news last week where a priest had changed her mind on assisted dying from anti to pro after having to care for her mother at end-of-life. Experience of those situations will and does easily change views. Too many who haven't experienced those situations are far too happy to band about this idea that suddenly we'll be killing everyone off as an argument for pro-life. If I was terminally I'll and suffering to the point where life really was not worth living, why would I not only inflict that on myself but also on my loved ones...especially being as the end really is the same, ie. Death. Where do we take it next, shall be ban abortion? Shall we just change our name to America.

Quite! Amazing how people so easily disconnect those two things. Why should we care so much about something as small as insects etc? Well, in the words of E O Wilson, If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos. Basically, without nature, we die. Without even just Bees (a few species amongst millions) we Basically die. Oh but, its not important.

This is also one of the biggest tropes going too. It's not huge rates of birth in Africa driving climate breakdown or financial crisis. The developed world is entirely responsible for emissions and subsequent climate change. Third world nations may well have higher birth rates but in terms of consumerism, land use, and emissions their impact is non-existent. Nobody is taking ablut euthanasia either. The human body wasn't designed to live for 100 years, not even close. We've made it live that long through constant medical advancement and now it's costing us on every single front - climate change, global finance etc etc.

That's all you needed to say really. People only caring about people and treating the human race as the only entity entitled to exist when it means the plunder, rape, exploitation of anything and everything on earth which is essentially leading to the death of the earth is the exact reason we are in this mess to begin with. The debate really was what can YOU do to affect positive change. Your post above moots several great phylosophical ideas that have existed for decades and have never been acted on and will never wver be acted on with the current status quo of the rich getting richer and everything revolving around economic growth. Its all wishful thinking, not proactive in any way.

Thats probably down to medical advances in developed countries more than anything though surely? Modern medicine is a marvel, but we are crossing into the realm that we are now continuing, blindly, to keep people alive for far too long when really their time should have come to an end. Its horrible, but it's the truth. Modern medicine has a lot to answer for, especially on public finance and ageing populations. When does it stop? The thought of consistently keeping entire nations generally alive well past the 100's is already scary enough, especially when Global population is probably close to Double what it should be to maintain a healthy planet (although, for instance, if everybody was plant based we could accommodate far more people on the planet as land use for agriculture would almost be halved etc, leaving far more land for natute based services and all the positive things bought about by truly health ecosystems - take Soy alone for instance, 90% of the worlds soy is grown as feed for livestock, so not only do you have masses of land given over to grow animal feed, you also have masses of land given over to house that livestock. Most rainforest deforestation in the world today is either for livestock, or to grow food for livestock. Despite us constantly being told Palm Oil is the main culprit. The graph is also skewed because 36% of Palm is harvested for Palm Kernal, to feed to livestock (the EU is the largest importer and the UK is the 4th largest consumer of Kernal). Palm oil is in fact the most eco-friendly oil on the planet, with the greatest yield to area by quite some margin - to stop Palm production and replace with an alternative would lead to a requirement of an extra 40% of land to harvest the same yield.

True, but as we've also discussed, if individual, normal people want to make an individual impact on climate change, then eating a plant based diet is the single biggest change an individual can make. Would be positive for health care and health care/NHS finance too. It's all very well relying on Governments and Policy to dictate the future, but as individuals we can make positive changes too, and every change, no matter how small, is better than no change at all. Frankly, if we are going to just sit back and say 'ah **** it, no point me doing anything, only the Governments can sort it' then we are beyond dead already. It will always irk me a little that someone so engaged in Environmental issues and willing to talk about it so much isn't vegan, mainly because if even you arent willing to make a minor change then our hopes of Joe Public doing it are non existent...

I'm surprised, as an Environmentalist, you take that view. There is plenty of evidence, especially for certain cancers, that show the rate has increased almost exactly in line with an increase in meat consumption over the last 100 years for instance.

Did somebody hand out FoxesTalk flyers to the happy clappy Brendy' bunch at the last home game or something because this thread is full of people I've never seen post before telling me how fantastic Cooper is and how rubbish the actual football coach Enzo Maresca was, or has Rudkin gone down the Russian bott route?

This, in a nutshell. It was the same attitude that kept Brenda going for so long.

Pay a heftyish fee for him now before he becomes Argentinas main man and his value becomes exponential.

I'm so in love. Will be heartbroken at seasons end.

Subs bang on for the first time since he took over the club? He doesn't get credit, he just wins back a bit of the losses surely.

Yes.

Imagine Bueno not existing? Christ.

Super Cooper does it again!