As immortalised by Black Box Recorder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-s_cMk7wYs

I am as critical of the British government as anyone, and think Prevent is a civil rights-assaulting boondoggle that does a rather poor job of preventing anything.[0]

At the same time, this article is clearly some pretty thin gruel. The contention is that the body responsible for handling complaints about the programme also took it upon itself to consider 'open source' complaints, which were published openly either online or in print.

The only real complaint here seems to be that this amounts to the government putting critics on 'a list'. Yes, it does, but those same critics (along with everybody else) are also on government lists for taxation, healthcare, etc.; this RSI group will now be on a list of FoI requests. The issue is not the presence of a name inside a data structure (without which no function of government would be possible), but what the government does with those names. There is no indication that private complaints were monitored, or even that those who complained publicly were contacted, surveilled or pursued in any way.

Absent any additional evidence of misdeeds, this seems like an organ of state self-scrutiny performing its task in an admirably proactive way.

[0]: https://bylinetimes.com/2026/09/11/from-9-11-to-southport-th...

In short, he argues that Mediterranean countries must reject the northern European denigration of them as backwards, old-fashioned and workshy, and instead reclaim their cultures as vitally human and a necessary corrective to an over-focus on 'efficiency'.

> Belgium: 29°C for light physical workload, 26°C for a moderately heavy physical workload, 22°C at heavy physical workload and 18°C at very heavy physical workload

> Hungary: 31°C for sedentary and light physical work, 29°C for moderately physical work and 27°C for heavy physical work

> Latvia: Maximum working temperature for indoor work of 28°C

> Montenegro: Maximum working temperature for outdoor work of 36°C

> Slovenia: The air temperature in work areas must not exceed 28 °C

(although I don't see any obvious similarities between the countries that do and don't have such protections, but based on that list it does seem that former Yugoslav and Soviet states are overrepresented)

Although your plane crash example falls afoul of the broken window fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Plus the simple fact that, by the same logic, you can try to both-sides plain murder on the ground that the murderer wants to murder (and, again, that the undertakers and coroners and such must be kept in business). Clearly, whilst every policy will have supporters and detractors, some detractions are more worthy of consideration than others.

I was rather disappointed when I heard that they had been acquired by BAE Systems, but on further inspection it seems like that was only the BI Simulations arm (responsible for VBS), now rebranded as OneArc. My guess is that a release like this wouldn't have happened were they not still independent.

https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/government-bans-high-sugar-a...

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/soft-drink-levy-extended-...