Tulip Siddiq has spoken on camera for the first time since a Bangladesh court issued an arrest warrant for the MP. She says she is facing a “trial by media.”
“No one from the Bangladeshi authorities has contacted me the entire time, they’ve done trial by media. My lawyers proactively wrote to the Bangladeshi authorities – they never responded. I’m sure you’d understand I can’t dignify this politically motivated smear campaign with any context or any comments, it’s a completely politically motivated smear campaign trying to harass me. There is no evidence that I’ve done anything wrong.”
Asked at today’s Lobby briefing to journalists Starmer’s spokesman said the “government doesn’t comment on individual legal cases” and said that in any case it doesn’t “get into extradition issues at all.” Previously the line was that No 10 “wouldn’t get into hypotheticals.” Not hypothetical any more…
Speaking on Times Radio, former Home Secretary David Blunkett spoke about overdiagnosis of mental problems:
“Let’s distinguish those who are really severely mentally ill, diagnosed with things that require prolonged medical and diagnostic treatment. My wife and I talk about this a lot, because she’s a retired GP, about the fact that you can be sad without being ill. You can be momentarily depressed because your boyfriend or girlfriend’s just thrown you and you’re not mentally ill. You can even have mild issues, which can be dealt with with the right kind of support, but it doesn’t make you mentally ill. So we’ve got a real task, I think, to get the psychology, if you like, of this over. But there are things where you definitely need medical intervention, and there are other things where you need good friends, you need good connectivity, and you need a job.”