In the news

But it does seem ok to make them a police representative when underage and seemingly not very mature?

I feel genuinely sorry for her as she's had a tough time and it's a hard lesson for anyone let alone at her age, but hopefully she'll think more about the image she's projecting when she posts things like that and other young people will adjust their attitudes too.

The point is that you shouldn't be spouting that shit in public regardless of age. Yes teens misbehave/make mistakes to greater/lesser degrees-the more intelligent might have a the sense not to make public record of it. It's like being taken home to your parents' house by a police car-if your neighbours knew you'd been up to no good your mum would crucify you far more than if she'd picked you up at the station... Flinging it up on twitter unbelievably unthinking and being underage doesn't preclude legal action for what she said either and that's an important lesson in itself. And I don't think all teens would tweet these sentiments anyway so lets not be too generalising.

It does seem harsh to judge someone by the tweets made when they were underage?

^this. Also her remit in the job was "to build a bridge between young people and policing in what was described as a "real hands-on role".How realistic would it be if the person appointed to that role was some shiny-shoed headboy type, who never had an impure thought cross his mind. Sure, we don't want someone who's screamingly racist in the role, but she's still at a stage where her adult personality is forming out of the weird jumble of contradictory and half-arsed opinions that most of us have as teenagers. References to drugs and booze are hardly signs of a deeply degenerate personality.

I think they should have just got one of David Beckham's kids. Help train them up to take over the family franchise and keep it real and all that.

She's both less of an ass and more of an ass. In the grand scheme of what teenagers say, they're not that bad (although they're not particularly endearing either) and her homophobic language etc isn't conducive to doing her job effectively.

What I thought was more appalling was the duplicity and dishonesty spouted forth afterwards/

Take her drinking for instance, she's now saying that she has the odd glass of wine or a Malibu at home with a meal with her mum which is perfectly all legal and allowed.

Clearly a bit more than that has taken place, not unusual with a teenager, but then when questioned publicly out comes the carefully prepared lies and duplicity. That's sad to see as the lesson is that you can get away with if you lie.

That is the bit I'm more worried about. Her explanations for some of the tweets are fine (the drugs one re Scooby Doo, and the drinking for the last hour and a half one both ring true on the further digging, some of the others not so much).

Hum. I see what you mean Drem, personally I thought she sounded/looked awful and the excuses don't take into account she has been given quite a symbolic position with a lot of responsibility and clearly more is expected from her than that.
This is probably a superficial judgement, but the tweets publicly using language that as a police representative, you cannot, and should not ever use. As soon as that went into the public domain she was not able to do that job, because she's alienated huge portions of the people she is supposed to be bringing closer to the force and representing.
Yes, she's young etc and normally (if not taking a highly scrutinised role with the police with a huge responsibility attached) allowances can and should be made for that, but also, not all young people think it's a good idea to make themselves look like a total dickbag in public then expect no come-back when they jump on board a gimmicky political handcart.

Maybe the real message here is that the police shouldn't be using under-formed children to do an adult's job as a kind of political currency to look like the are trying to get in with the youf, and if they are, a cursory facebook/twitter check like the majority of employers do nowadays wouldn't be a terrible idea.

I agree a lot of the comments are needlessly personal-such as her hair etc. but then she's made the same cheap throwaway jibes about pikeys, fags, illegals so it's a bit rich to complain.

I should have also pointed out that the Mail have picked out 14 of over 4000 tweets, all of which predated her appointment to the role. She maybe should have learned to make her own account private the minute she took the job, and just used the work twitter for public postings.

But is that really what we want? All our politicians to be squeaky clean with no hint of personality? It's not what I want. I'd rather they had opinions and a prior mucky life. It'd be better than the identikit never worked out of politics clones we have now. She had a (kind of) political job, sure, but she was appointed to it. And I'm not sure that the role that she was in was a job for adults either.

Yes, the facebook/twitter check wouldn't have been a bad idea though.

What I really hated on this one was the Daily Mail's double standards and attacks on someone who hadn't really courted them or the publicity, and seemed mostly to be happy she'd got a role should could maybe make changes in.

negged, deal with it.

Dealt with

You believe - "I've been drinking since half 1" - could possibly be a tweet about drinking water.

Are you on crack?

I confess the tweet she made about her twat (being single and horny) made me throw up in my mouth. I'd rather she spared the general public from being obliged to think about her in this way, much as I wouldn't want the skinny librarian with no eyebrows and some kind of vitamin deficiency to scrawly 'gagging for it' on her forehead with bright red lipstick.

This is where I really wonder why parents don't speak to their children more or at least check their twitter feed to see if their 14 year old is drinking, taking drugs and having underage sex let alone is being a racist bigot. If your kid is stupid enough to put it out there for anyone to see they can't complain when you chain them to a pipe in the garage for a few weeks and feed them only upon Alpen and skimmed milk.
#toughlove

Also, Police can't even vet their own staff. Superb.

.

You believe - "I've been drinking since half 1" - could possibly be a tweet about drinking water.

Are you on crack?

By "on crack" do you mean "on crackers"?

Because yes, as it happens, I am on crackers.

Sounds uncomfortable.

Cops to blame - they threw a kid into a high profile role without any consideration for the public scrutiny she would come under. Someone going into that sort of role should have been prepped and guided through the process to ensure no major embarrassments are there to be found.

Also, given how mindlessly idiotic and indiscreet the girl has been, the interview and checking processes have been woeful. If any of us with an ounce of sense is going for a job interview, we will check what's googleable about us and make sure we're clean, as we expect employers to check that, even if they're not planning on parading us in front of the press as a publicity stunt. Sunderland FC excepted, of course.

I've had to trawl through 10 Daily Mail articles due to you lot. I need a bath. I'm not linking to their troll bait either. Go and find it yourself if you have to.

No thanks, I chose to ignore it, as you should have done.

Getting back to the Paris Brown thing, surely it is the police/govt that are at fault here for coming up with the role (which some might say was meaningless) and then choosing her to do it without vetting her history (in regards to public profile etc).

The tweets in question are old, she got given the job fair n square and nothing has changed since. She is the same dippy mare she was when she got given the job. In fact that is probable WHY she was given it, because they thought she represents the average young person well. They could've chose a highly intellectual youngster who had an in depth knowledge of politics, social issues, Ethics and the Law. But they didn't. She had the ability to perform the role that was required of her and I dont think she should have been pressured to resign. If she is a sensitive sort, this is the kind of thing that can push people to suicide. And even if she isnt, she will now be forever known as a Racist, Alcoholic, idiot because of the press.

Their seems to be some weird daily mail witchhunting going on at the moment. They focus so much on what she got paid, like it is even an important detail. Like anyone getting paid anything from the government deserves a lynching for being human. The media seems to trying to muster jealousy and resentment.

Holy crap - Sunday - http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2643743

We have all done stupid stuff as teenagers, modern social media (ad pop culture) encourages bravado about this idiocy. People like to boast about how drunk or high they got, fights they have been in and wreckless or bone idle behaviour. Even if it is not true, most teenagers will make it up to sound cool.

This may be a good example of "The medium is the message"

Holy crap - Sunday - http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2643743

It could be a whole lot warmer after N Korea tests those missiles.

London Gets Cycling Fever in the Star

But while Wiggo, left, would think nothing of pedalling 100 miles, what about us ordinary mortals?
We laid down the challenge to one brave Daily Star reader – Swiggo to his mates.
A diet of pints and pies and a bike with tyres flatter than Wiggo’s gut means he is the least likely cyclist.
But he decided to give it a go after finding out just five of miles of pedalling burns 300 calories, reduces stress, improves your sex life and boosts your IQ.

An actually interesting story from the dailyfail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2306837/David-Miliband-takes-NYC-subway-prepares-460-000-CEO-role-International-Rescue-Committee.html

Might be interesting, but I'm not clicking on it.

ditto

I clicked on it enough times for all of us

and nick griffin thanks you for it

Its about David Millibands new job, not much information there. But still very interesting.

Here is some longer more boring reports;
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/05/mili-a05-a05.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/27/david-miliband-diplomatic-test-irc

This one is good;
http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/component/k2/item/5483-what-is-david-miliband-s-international-rescue-committee

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/11/american-hermit-caught-27-years

I find this story fascinating. I accept the stealing takes away from the romanticism. But still. 27 years camping. Alone.