The reason I brought up the grooming gang issue was not to spark yet another discussion on it. It was to contrast the way that the right wing cohort here are condemning the media for exposing the allegations on Brand with that they displayed over the gangs, where they were in full support.

There are legitimate criticisms of the tabloid coverage of the grooming gangs, as there is of your comment above. The use of “pakistani-heritage” as a descriptor being one, when it is known that they comprised of a variety of ethnicities. I know full well what the enquiries into these matters have revealed and make no excuses for individual failures. Any defence I have made is the more general one that we cannot expect an under-resourced, under-funded police service to not make mistakes. We get the police service we deserve.

I want people to stop attaching unhelpful labels. Child groomers and terrorists are criminals. Their religion and any justification they claim as a motivation need to be binned as an irrelevant excuse and not encouraged by reference to it.

I was in Jerusalem for a few days 2 weeks ago, during which time I was exposed to the many cultures that exist side by side there. No-one treated me as a “kafir”, indeed the Arab section of the city was a more relaxed and pleasant environment than the Jewish one, but people generally get on ok. For sure there are different cultures but people, and especially the children, were happy.

Now perhaps we can return to the subject of this thread.

You think that you can tell a person’s ethnicity from their name alone? Seriously?

It’s not the point anyway.

Just imagine you are a second generation British subject whose parents happen to have been born in pakistan. You didn’t plan that. You just got it. You went to school with other British kids whose parents were born here, and they are your friends. You watch British TV, absorb British culture and support a British football team. Your parents try to teach you about your heritage and to respect it, so you feel conflicted.

Then you read headlines and comments about “pakistani grooming gangs” and feel as disgusted as every other decent person but know how some people now regard you, just because of your heritage and appearance.

What impact is that going to have? What proportion of our population which has a pakistani heritage is involved with the grooming gangs? It must only be very very tiny, meaning that the overwhelming majority are not. Ostracising that majority by associating them with criminals does immense harm and drives wedges where bridges produce better outcomes. That’s why it’s unhelpful and counterproductive to use these labels, even if they are accurate, which they aren’t.

As a PS the "no smoke without fire" argument is classic witch hunt and I give it no credence. That said, I think it all but impossible that a bloke who has had an erection for as long as Brand has not had non-consensual coupling or committed other sexual offences with his innumerable partners. Likewise Charlie Sheen. There must have been instances where, at the very least, the line was blurred. Just not the woman they interviewed.

Under resourcing again.

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Which still leaves the 'why' part?

And lets not forget that until recently Brand was considered to be very much of the Left. Chumming around with all kinds of progressive types (this article has been a constant source of mirth for years, and on a multiple of levels... [Link] ).

I always dismissed Brand as a narcist t*** who caused an instant reaction to turn off whatever medium he appeared on. And despite my own far/dissident/looney Right world-view, I have never given him the time of day, seeing him, along with many others on my side of the divide, as a grifter.

Annoying froth. No more, no less.

But this direct interference, and it cannot be underplayed, for a man that nobody with any kind of serious political nous pays any kind of attention to, is beyond my comprehension.

With wider implications that go well beyond the issue of Russel Brand.

That it wasn’t raised doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist!

It merely means it was decided not to mention it.

Politically unacceptable perhaps? Allowing individuals to take the rap?

Whatever excuses were used doesn’t get away from the fact that we have cut the resources available to the police and that that has consequences.