Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Well, that's because it wasn't an issue, is it not? Like saying nobody demanded covid vaccine certificates 5 years ago, so why would we ask for them now?
Not sure that analogy works. Unless the local gym is going to post staff on changing room doors asking for ID what certificate someone may or may not hold will not matter.
Was out for dinner with friends at the weekend. Amongst the party was one who has been living as a woman for 18 months and is about to start hormone treatment and another cis female who has suffered abuse from men in the past.
I'm sure we can find ways to allow the one to transition to the gender they feel they have always been despite biology whilst protecting the liberty and safety of biological women from predatory and abusive men. For starter my trans friend has compassion for women who are on the end of abuse from men, rather than saying "my rights trample your rights" as some suggest.
While this is welcome, Brammal died with this man’s lies hanging over him (for clarity I mean Beech). Watson enabled that. He persued a fantasists witch hunt that collapsed when the police finally, FINALLY, died some proper detecting and spoke to Beeches wife. Why this wasn’t first on the list, I have no idea. Watson abused his position to hound innocent men. That he has been allowed to become a peer disgusts me really. People have, rightly, been all over Clarkson this week. Where is the leftie outrage about Watson? It was an innocent mistake, and as he was attacking nasty old Tories, somehow the tiny mistake was ok? FFS.
There's a theory, obv complete bollocks, this was a Spy Who Came In From The Cold op: get someone to make allegations which are true, in such a shambolic way they are laughed out of court, and everyone is safe.
Odd how few UK news reports are thrown up by googling Mountbatten kincora.
The allegations dreamt up by Beech were so out there weird that it’s a wonder anyone ever took them seriously. The idea of a cabal of senior politicians, military men etc would procure young boys, abuse them and murder them, and no one ever was reported missing is just beyond belief. The police were criminally negligent in the investigation, acting as if they wanted it to be true. Watson drove it night and day into the media, and as has been pointed out, did it with narrow party interest at heart. He is an utter slimeball.
They were also, like som many such weird stories, of long standing.
There is a cesspool of allegations ranging from the ugly to the plain bizarre. In the old days, whispered in pubs. Then badly photocopies leaflets. Now sludge on the internet.
Tom Watson came across some sludge that matched an inner hope - a hope that something would be true.
Once he started the ball rolling, any attempt to do any kind of due diligence on the accusations was pushed aside. Literally blocked.
As in many such stories, too many people become invested in the outcome to allow the facts to get in the way.
Golly. The Duke of Pork shelling out 12 large and pore ole Ghislaine getting 200 years is not enough to convince the unconvinceable that sex trading rings of the rich and powerful are a thing
Ah - so one crime being committed means that every allegation of a similar crime is also true?
Does one set of spurious allegations mean that all similar allegations are untrue?
It means that allegations should be investigated sensibly and with an open minds to discover those fact things.
When I did a journalism course at university (was editing the Student rag, so thought that I should learn), they emphasised Who, What, Where, When, Why - a story consists of provable facts. If someone says that X was in the Dog and Duck at 12:30 on Thursday, does he know that X looks like? Does the Dog and Duck exist? was it open at 12:30 on Thursday? Can anyone else say that X was there?
In the case of Carl Beech, he literally couldn't identify people. His description of where people were was provably wrong on a number of instances. His descriptions of places were provably wrong, trivially. His whole story was provably false.
In the case of Epstein and Co. the reverse is true. The physical evidence matches the testimonies. Records of place and time match the testimonies.
In the case of Rotherham et al, the same - testimonies matching physical evidence. matching records.
It is worth considering that with Rotherham, a vast establishment conspiracy was uncovered. People up to cabinet level had been told what was happening. The police, social services and the local government structure in Rotherham and similar areas worked together to contain and hide the allegations. And even to protect the abusers.
It's just the wrong kind of conspiracy - not the one that some people wanted to find.
This is also what we saw with the likes of William Roache case. One woman didn't even tell the story, her partner did, she couldn't even really give details and a simple check of things like where he lived, the car he drove etc, could have swiftly dismissed the complaints.
A part of the problem is the bizarre mindset that either
- All allegations are false. Therefore all the testimony must be lies.
or
- All allegations are true. Testing whether they are true means not believing in the allegations. Which is wrong.
The idea of intelligent enquiry, diligently building a structure of facts, seems to be beyond such people.
The Henriques report showed not only the the police did not understand basic investigative practice and were reversing the burden of proof, expecting people to prove themselves innocent, but that many of them still felt that was the correct thing to do.
Its utterly bizarre that there is still resistance to not simply believing complainants, but testing claims with an open mind. Self justified with twaddle about encouraging victims, as if it helps real victims to ignore processes to determine truth from fiction.
I think that this is in practice much more difficult than a neat summation on a PB post makes it sound. The reality is that many, possibly even most, alleged victims need a lot of support and encouragement to make their claims. They will be vulnerable in a variety of ways; drug dependency, alcohol addiction, some other form of behaviour that makes them wary of the police and the authorities in general. They start off with a default assumption that they will not be believed and their word will be given little value, all too often because that is their life experience. It is not enough to listen to victims with an open mind. If you do the prosecution will either not happen or fail. They need assurance that they are being believed, valued, cared about. For many this is so contrary to their expectations and experience that the need for assurance is almost constant and even minor deviations from this will bring the process to an end.
When I meet a rape complainer before they give evidence, as I did yesterday, I see it as my task to show I really care (and I do), that I am there to support and help them through the process and to help them give the best and clearest version that they can.
Of course this does not mean switching off critical faculties or being unaware of inconsistencies. These should be addressed but in a supportive manner with the complainer given a proper and respectful opportunity to explain rather than a got you.
It is, in my experience, all too often the case that these victims have been singled out because of their vulnerability and it has been exploited by the selfish and the cruel. An even handed approach is not enough to balance the playing field in such a scenario.
Your penultimate paragraph is the key though. I don't think anyone thinks it is easy, even if a brief internet post will be necessity condense discussion of nuances. Potential victims do need encouraging to come forward and not handled as brusquely as reporting a burglary, and the potential of it being true will affect how they are quizzed about it. Exploited and vulnerable people have probably been dismissed by police and others in shocking ways.
But the police by their own admission were turning off their critical faculties in these other cases. It isn't a matter of being tone deaf and unsupportive to vulnerable people and to not enable investigators to tease out details of a complaint, or just taking it on faith.
Those are not the only two options, but police were acting like it was. That is very neatly wrong, so they need to very neatly change that, and then the more complex and subtle reality you point out is able to be properly addressed.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
MPs are probably one of the highest profile public sector job (And not a particularly tough job). They need to set the tone for the rest of the public sector - And as for the "pay to attract the best talent" - I don't think our MPs are particularly better than the ones we had in 2010.
The theory that "we should pay MPs more to attract better talent" was tested to destruction with Liz Truss
Alternatively, the fact that Liz Truss got to the top shows that we really need to pay MPs a lot more to get talented people who aren't doing the job for ideological nutjobbery reasons.
It's not a totally crazy idea, though it needs thought about what the job of an MP is, how it relates to the job of MP + minister, and how many of them we need.
And it loops back to the fact that most of us don't really know how much other people are paid - I suspect we'd be shocked at both the top and bottom. And to the observation that the Great British Public often wants things from its public sector that it isn't really willing to pay for.
Merely paying money gets you Charlie Prince at Citigroup.
What is needed is a filtering mechanism for skill and talent - the money is there to persuade people to put in the time and effort.
Attempts to use filters for other professions (notably law) for politics have not been entirely successful.
What we need is a career path for politicians which involves tests, actual training and barriers to progress that can be surmounted only by demonstrating ability.
You need to give real power and responsibility to local government. It's the only and obvious way to train people for national government.
Point of order, sir. It's not crypto that's the problem here, it's people not self custodying crypto. Crypto is a bearer asset, i.e. the person who controls the keys can do what they like with it. Hence, it was designed for self custody.
It's not that much of a surprise when, handed billions of dollars worth of many, many people's bearer assets, people run off with it (or in SBF's case, sell it to short it and make huge amounts of money off the short).
Not your keys, not your coins. A feature (and arguably a bug, in terms of usability and adoption) of crypto.
But to go back to your point, the real question here is why Ellison and Wang have had their bail set at $250,000. For comparison, when Arthur Hayes (co founder of Bitmex) was arrested for banking violations, he had his bail set at $10,000,000.
Hmm.
Co-operation ?
I wonder what SBF's bail will be set at.
I am really reluctant to touch Crypto at the moment. I just don't trust it.
I do think Kevin O'Leary is right when he says it needs some form of regulation. What that is and how it manifests itself remains to be seen. However with regulation it will lose its appeal to some of its advocats.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
On the other hand,. nurses aren't positively encouraged to take money from patients to work for some patients more than others on public time. You know, like Conservative MPs in particular. Nor can they swan off to have a holiday in the Windies when they want.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
Good question. One difference is in the process of Garda vetting, analogous to that of DBS checks in Britain. This is from the FAQ on Garda vetting.
"The law requires that you disclose all of your previous names and addresses to the National Vetting Bureau (NVB) so that your application can be correctly processed. The NVB does however have a process whereby you can disclose your previous gender/name to the NVB only and not reveal this data on the vetting application form."
This seems like an important difference, though whether the vetting process would detect someone who failed give a previous name after a gender change is uncertain.
MPs are probably one of the highest profile public sector job (And not a particularly tough job). They need to set the tone for the rest of the public sector - And as for the "pay to attract the best talent" - I don't think our MPs are particularly better than the ones we had in 2010.
The theory that "we should pay MPs more to attract better talent" was tested to destruction with Liz Truss
Alternatively, the fact that Liz Truss got to the top shows that we really need to pay MPs a lot more to get talented people who aren't doing the job for ideological nutjobbery reasons.
It's not a totally crazy idea, though it needs thought about what the job of an MP is, how it relates to the job of MP + minister, and how many of them we need.
And it loops back to the fact that most of us don't really know how much other people are paid - I suspect we'd be shocked at both the top and bottom. And to the observation that the Great British Public often wants things from its public sector that it isn't really willing to pay for.
Merely paying money gets you Charlie Prince at Citigroup.
What is needed is a filtering mechanism for skill and talent - the money is there to persuade people to put in the time and effort.
Attempts to use filters for other professions (notably law) for politics have not been entirely successful.
What we need is a career path for politicians which involves tests, actual training and barriers to progress that can be surmounted only by demonstrating ability.
You need to give real power and responsibility to local government. It's the only and obvious way to train people for national government.
Yes, in the past, some very good national politicians came out of success in local government.
Point of order, sir. It's not crypto that's the problem here, it's people not self custodying crypto. Crypto is a bearer asset, i.e. the person who controls the keys can do what they like with it. Hence, it was designed for self custody.
It's not that much of a surprise when, handed billions of dollars worth of many, many people's bearer assets, people run off with it (or in SBF's case, sell it to short it and make huge amounts of money off the short).
Not your keys, not your coins. A feature (and arguably a bug, in terms of usability and adoption) of crypto.
But to go back to your point, the real question here is why Ellison and Wang have had their bail set at $250,000. For comparison, when Arthur Hayes (co founder of Bitmex) was arrested for banking violations, he had his bail set at $10,000,000.
Hmm.
Co-operation ?
I wonder what SBF's bail will be set at.
I am really reluctant to touch Crypto at the moment. I just don't trust it.
I do think Kevin O'Leary is right when he says it needs some form of regulation. What that is and how it manifests itself remains to be seen. However with regulation it will lose its appeal to some of its advocats.
It needs to be regulated like any other area of finance. The crypto bros are upset anyway, when they discover that capital gains tax applies.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
Something about the new, opinionated, let's be honest right wing, media turns everything and everyone it touches to a pile of dung.
The ones I've noticed are the ones in the education sphere. People who started out being provocative but interesting and often useful are now drowing in their own outraged spittle.
Great piece, and as an SLD member I am appalled. There have been some prissy arguments made which frankly encourage absolutism. I support both women's rights to safety and dignity, *and* the rights of trans women. But that requires balance which too many activists seem hell bent on refusing.
To me this is the problem. There's clearly a complex and nuanced debate about all this in there.
But in outside world most arguments seem to boil down to one of:
"We shouldn't do it solely because it might result in a small number of sexual predators mis-using it for their own nefarious ends", or "We should do it because...well if you say no you're a massive transphobe and should be hunted down as such and that's all that needs said there."
Pretty much the entirety of the middle which ought to consist of, oh, 90% of the discussion, gets completely lost between the two extremes.
Cyclefree's header is entirely reasonable and well argued within the context of the specific amendment - so no issue from me on that score. It's just as part of the wider discussion on the legislation as a whole there ought to be so much more to the whole thing than JUST that one aspect, important as I accept it is.
What do Sturgeon / the SNP gain from this? Presumably she’s doing it because she believes it’s “the right thing” to do?
Of course she thinks it's the right thing to do.
It's causing a load of tension with Westminster, dividing Scotland from England, and pleasing her left wing to the extent that they're willing to overlook the shambles her government is making of running Scotland.
It's absolutely perfect.
Shame about the possible negative consequences for women, but those are of course much less important to her.
I am now of the view - not just because of this - that women's right, needs, desires and wants, their safety, their lives - are simply not important to those in authority in this country. We are seen as second best. We are expected to accommodate others. We are expected, consciously or unconsciously, to put men's interests first. Society is arranged to suit men. If we complain about this or demand changes or demand better, we are told that we are aggressive or tiresome or bitches or attacked or insulted or demeaned in some way.
We are we must be inclusive and kind to others, to think of others first, to be accommodating, to avoid offence and hurt. We are told that all it takes to be women is to wear dresses, high heels and lipstick as if womanhood was merely a superficial costume to be put on and discarded at will. Women are being told to behave like good little girls again. If we don’t, we are verbally assaulted or threatened with physical assault, some of it in luridly sexually offensive ways. Or simply ignored or excluded.
No.
It is so tiresome, so wearying, so infuriating to have to go through this again, to be told that if we disagree or protest or ask about our needs, our rights, our demands, our boundaries, our concerns, the risks to us, we are being bigoted or selfish and that these are “not valid”.
That is what I think is going on. That is why the debate about self-ID is so toxic and so important. Women are not being listened to. If it goes through, I fear that it will push back or eliminate many of the rights women have gained during my lifetime. I am seeing changes in attitudes already. I am seeing exemptions created specifically to permit women only spaces not being used for fear they will upset men. I am seeing inclusivity being used to exclude women from places they were previously free to treat as women-only. It will affect not just me but my daughter — and her daughters too. That is why it matters to me.
Men with power bossing women around. This is a very old, very sour wine being offered in a new bottle.
I am so angry about this.
Today the police are investigating abuse allegations in a mixed sex hostel in London 44 years ago. In decades to come some future police force will start investigating abuse allegations as a result of what Holyrood voted through tonight. But the politicians and their appeasers who pushed this through will not be around to face the consequences, the accountability for the harm they caused.
Thank you for this excellent thread header. I fear you are right in what you say and your comment above. If there are weaknesses that people with malice can exploit to their advantage, then they will do so. Do you think that the impact of Scottish self-ID will undermine the UK Equalities Act sufficiently that the UK Supreme Court may overrule it?
The Westminster government can issue an order preventing it from getting Royal Assent, as I understand it. It could well end up in the Supreme Court.
In response to @Pro_Rata, my position on trans issues is this:
- only people with medically diagnosed gender dysphoria should be allowed to change gender. I am aware of the delays in getting this but this is the problem to be tackled and I would be strongly supportive of investment to help people with this condition get the help they need sooner. - Self-ID should never happen because the essence of it is to abolish boundaries, necessary ones.....
Your first point would make lives considerably more difficult for transgender individuals - and effectively deny their existence without a medical certificate.
Given that the existence of hostility towards trans individuals is probably as prevalent within the medical system as it is in society would hand a great deal of power to medical professionals significant number of whom are prone to making decisions on a basis far from grounded in either science or evidence. I speak as the parent of a child with some experience of the system, so this isn't a theoretical objection.
"I would be strongly supportive of investment " is, though not intended as such, a moral getout, since the likelihood of any such investment being given priority in a heavily pressured healthcare system is likely slim to non existent.
While this is welcome, Brammal died with this man’s lies hanging over him (for clarity I mean Beech). Watson enabled that. He persued a fantasists witch hunt that collapsed when the police finally, FINALLY, died some proper detecting and spoke to Beeches wife. Why this wasn’t first on the list, I have no idea. Watson abused his position to hound innocent men. That he has been allowed to become a peer disgusts me really. People have, rightly, been all over Clarkson this week. Where is the leftie outrage about Watson? It was an innocent mistake, and as he was attacking nasty old Tories, somehow the tiny mistake was ok? FFS.
There's a theory, obv complete bollocks, this was a Spy Who Came In From The Cold op: get someone to make allegations which are true, in such a shambolic way they are laughed out of court, and everyone is safe.
Odd how few UK news reports are thrown up by googling Mountbatten kincora.
The allegations dreamt up by Beech were so out there weird that it’s a wonder anyone ever took them seriously. The idea of a cabal of senior politicians, military men etc would procure young boys, abuse them and murder them, and no one ever was reported missing is just beyond belief. The police were criminally negligent in the investigation, acting as if they wanted it to be true. Watson drove it night and day into the media, and as has been pointed out, did it with narrow party interest at heart. He is an utter slimeball.
They were also, like som many such weird stories, of long standing.
There is a cesspool of allegations ranging from the ugly to the plain bizarre. In the old days, whispered in pubs. Then badly photocopies leaflets. Now sludge on the internet.
Tom Watson came across some sludge that matched an inner hope - a hope that something would be true.
Once he started the ball rolling, any attempt to do any kind of due diligence on the accusations was pushed aside. Literally blocked.
As in many such stories, too many people become invested in the outcome to allow the facts to get in the way.
Golly. The Duke of Pork shelling out 12 large and pore ole Ghislaine getting 200 years is not enough to convince the unconvinceable that sex trading rings of the rich and powerful are a thing
Ah - so one crime being committed means that every allegation of a similar crime is also true?
Does one set of spurious allegations mean that all similar allegations are untrue?
It means that allegations should be investigated sensibly and with an open minds to discover those fact things.
When I did a journalism course at university (was editing the Student rag, so thought that I should learn), they emphasised Who, What, Where, When, Why - a story consists of provable facts. If someone says that X was in the Dog and Duck at 12:30 on Thursday, does he know that X looks like? Does the Dog and Duck exist? was it open at 12:30 on Thursday? Can anyone else say that X was there?
In the case of Carl Beech, he literally couldn't identify people. His description of where people were was provably wrong on a number of instances. His descriptions of places were provably wrong, trivially. His whole story was provably false.
In the case of Epstein and Co. the reverse is true. The physical evidence matches the testimonies. Records of place and time match the testimonies.
In the case of Rotherham et al, the same - testimonies matching physical evidence. matching records.
It is worth considering that with Rotherham, a vast establishment conspiracy was uncovered. People up to cabinet level had been told what was happening. The police, social services and the local government structure in Rotherham and similar areas worked together to contain and hide the allegations. And even to protect the abusers.
It's just the wrong kind of conspiracy - not the one that some people wanted to find.
This is also what we saw with the likes of William Roache case. One woman didn't even tell the story, her partner did, she couldn't even really give details and a simple check of things like where he lived, the car he drove etc, could have swiftly dismissed the complaints.
A part of the problem is the bizarre mindset that either
- All allegations are false. Therefore all the testimony must be lies.
or
- All allegations are true. Testing whether they are true means not believing in the allegations. Which is wrong.
The idea of intelligent enquiry, diligently building a structure of facts, seems to be beyond such people.
The Henriques report showed not only the the police did not understand basic investigative practice and were reversing the burden of proof, expecting people to prove themselves innocent, but that many of them still felt that was the correct thing to do.
Its utterly bizarre that there is still resistance to not simply believing complainants, but testing claims with an open mind. Self justified with twaddle about encouraging victims, as if it helps real victims to ignore processes to determine truth from fiction.
I think that this is in practice much more difficult than a neat summation on a PB post makes it sound. The reality is that many, possibly even most, alleged victims need a lot of support and encouragement to make their claims. They will be vulnerable in a variety of ways; drug dependency, alcohol addiction, some other form of behaviour that makes them wary of the police and the authorities in general. They start off with a default assumption that they will not be believed and their word will be given little value, all too often because that is their life experience. It is not enough to listen to victims with an open mind. If you do the prosecution will either not happen or fail. They need assurance that they are being believed, valued, cared about. For many this is so contrary to their expectations and experience that the need for assurance is almost constant and even minor deviations from this will bring the process to an end.
When I meet a rape complainer before they give evidence, as I did yesterday, I see it as my task to show I really care (and I do), that I am there to support and help them through the process and to help them give the best and clearest version that they can.
Of course this does not mean switching off critical faculties or being unaware of inconsistencies. These should be addressed but in a supportive manner with the complainer given a proper and respectful opportunity to explain rather than a got you.
It is, in my experience, all too often the case that these victims have been singled out because of their vulnerability and it has been exploited by the selfish and the cruel. An even handed approach is not enough to balance the playing field in such a scenario.
Your penultimate paragraph is the key though. I don't think anyone thinks it is easy, even if a brief internet post will be necessity condense discussion of nuances. Potential victims do need encouraging to come forward and not handled as brusquely as reporting a burglary, and the potential of it being true will affect how they are quizzed about it. Exploited and vulnerable people have probably been dismissed by police and others in shocking ways.
But the police by their own admission were turning off their critical faculties in these other cases. It isn't a matter of being tone deaf and unsupportive to vulnerable people and to not enable investigators to tease out details of a complaint, or just taking it on faith.
Those are not the only two options, but police were acting like it was. That is very neatly wrong, so they need to very neatly change that, and then the more complex and subtle reality you point out is able to be properly addressed.
What you have in the police are front line staff of varying ability, intelligence and attitude. As we have seen all too often recently some of their attitudes and behaviour can be appalling. How do you cope with that?
We have come from a situation where the vast majority of rapes were never prosecuted, not even reported. You need to have simple, clear, directions that the police will follow to change that. Once they had done so the outcome of their efforts will be looked at by prosecuting authorities who can look at the evidence critically but I think a default instruction to believe the complainer at first instance is an improvement on what we had before and necessary if these cases are to see the light of day. Once they have nuance and judgment can be applied but seeking to insert these too early in the process means evil men getting away with shocking crimes.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
On the other hand,. nurses aren't positively encouraged to take money from patients to work for some patients more than others on public time. You know, like Conservative MPs in particular. Nor can they swan off to have a holiday in the Windies when they want.
They have more holiday entitlement that most people who do not work in the public sector. Their employer pension contribution, their holidays and their payscales are all a part of their employment package that rarely gets a mention and it is far more favourable than you find in most private sector roles.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
On the other hand,. nurses aren't positively encouraged to take money from patients to work for some patients more than others on public time. You know, like Conservative MPs in particular. Nor can they swan off to have a holiday in the Windies when they want.
They have more holiday entitlement that most people who do not work in the public sector. Their employer pension contribution, their holidays and their payscales are all a part of their employment package that rarely gets a mention and it is far more favourable than you find in most private sector roles.
I
I'm actually finding it difficult to decide if you mean MPs or nurses in this last comment.
Though your basic original point was a fair one, in any case. However, part of the comparison is to do with managerial responsibility, too. It's not a common job that pays a MPs salary to someone who's responsible for one or two staff, perhaps their own relatives.* A better comparison would be a self-employed sole trader/contractor.
*Edit: more like 3-4 on reflection? But that'd be a low level section in almost any job.
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
See the Kardashian case in Ireland - a violent male sex offender self-identifying as a woman and now locked up in Limerick's women's prison.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
On the other hand,. nurses aren't positively encouraged to take money from patients to work for some patients more than others on public time. You know, like Conservative MPs in particular. Nor can they swan off to have a holiday in the Windies when they want.
They have more holiday entitlement that most people who do not work in the public sector. Their employer pension contribution, their holidays and their payscales are all a part of their employment package that rarely gets a mention and it is far more favourable than you find in most private sector roles.
I
That might be true but the comparison was to MPs not Joe public in the private sector.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
I'm intrigued. Who gave you an Ian Paisley teddy bear?
While this is welcome, Brammal died with this man’s lies hanging over him (for clarity I mean Beech). Watson enabled that. He persued a fantasists witch hunt that collapsed when the police finally, FINALLY, died some proper detecting and spoke to Beeches wife. Why this wasn’t first on the list, I have no idea. Watson abused his position to hound innocent men. That he has been allowed to become a peer disgusts me really. People have, rightly, been all over Clarkson this week. Where is the leftie outrage about Watson? It was an innocent mistake, and as he was attacking nasty old Tories, somehow the tiny mistake was ok? FFS.
There's a theory, obv complete bollocks, this was a Spy Who Came In From The Cold op: get someone to make allegations which are true, in such a shambolic way they are laughed out of court, and everyone is safe.
Odd how few UK news reports are thrown up by googling Mountbatten kincora.
The allegations dreamt up by Beech were so out there weird that it’s a wonder anyone ever took them seriously. The idea of a cabal of senior politicians, military men etc would procure young boys, abuse them and murder them, and no one ever was reported missing is just beyond belief. The police were criminally negligent in the investigation, acting as if they wanted it to be true. Watson drove it night and day into the media, and as has been pointed out, did it with narrow party interest at heart. He is an utter slimeball.
They were also, like som many such weird stories, of long standing.
There is a cesspool of allegations ranging from the ugly to the plain bizarre. In the old days, whispered in pubs. Then badly photocopies leaflets. Now sludge on the internet.
Tom Watson came across some sludge that matched an inner hope - a hope that something would be true.
Once he started the ball rolling, any attempt to do any kind of due diligence on the accusations was pushed aside. Literally blocked.
As in many such stories, too many people become invested in the outcome to allow the facts to get in the way.
Golly. The Duke of Pork shelling out 12 large and pore ole Ghislaine getting 200 years is not enough to convince the unconvinceable that sex trading rings of the rich and powerful are a thing
Ah - so one crime being committed means that every allegation of a similar crime is also true?
Does one set of spurious allegations mean that all similar allegations are untrue?
It means that allegations should be investigated sensibly and with an open minds to discover those fact things.
When I did a journalism course at university (was editing the Student rag, so thought that I should learn), they emphasised Who, What, Where, When, Why - a story consists of provable facts. If someone says that X was in the Dog and Duck at 12:30 on Thursday, does he know that X looks like? Does the Dog and Duck exist? was it open at 12:30 on Thursday? Can anyone else say that X was there?
In the case of Carl Beech, he literally couldn't identify people. His description of where people were was provably wrong on a number of instances. His descriptions of places were provably wrong, trivially. His whole story was provably false.
In the case of Epstein and Co. the reverse is true. The physical evidence matches the testimonies. Records of place and time match the testimonies.
In the case of Rotherham et al, the same - testimonies matching physical evidence. matching records.
It is worth considering that with Rotherham, a vast establishment conspiracy was uncovered. People up to cabinet level had been told what was happening. The police, social services and the local government structure in Rotherham and similar areas worked together to contain and hide the allegations. And even to protect the abusers.
It's just the wrong kind of conspiracy - not the one that some people wanted to find.
This is also what we saw with the likes of William Roache case. One woman didn't even tell the story, her partner did, she couldn't even really give details and a simple check of things like where he lived, the car he drove etc, could have swiftly dismissed the complaints.
A part of the problem is the bizarre mindset that either
- All allegations are false. Therefore all the testimony must be lies.
or
- All allegations are true. Testing whether they are true means not believing in the allegations. Which is wrong.
The idea of intelligent enquiry, diligently building a structure of facts, seems to be beyond such people.
The Henriques report showed not only the the police did not understand basic investigative practice and were reversing the burden of proof, expecting people to prove themselves innocent, but that many of them still felt that was the correct thing to do.
Its utterly bizarre that there is still resistance to not simply believing complainants, but testing claims with an open mind. Self justified with twaddle about encouraging victims, as if it helps real victims to ignore processes to determine truth from fiction.
I think that this is in practice much more difficult than a neat summation on a PB post makes it sound. The reality is that many, possibly even most, alleged victims need a lot of support and encouragement to make their claims. They will be vulnerable in a variety of ways; drug dependency, alcohol addiction, some other form of behaviour that makes them wary of the police and the authorities in general. They start off with a default assumption that they will not be believed and their word will be given little value, all too often because that is their life experience. It is not enough to listen to victims with an open mind. If you do the prosecution will either not happen or fail. They need assurance that they are being believed, valued, cared about. For many this is so contrary to their expectations and experience that the need for assurance is almost constant and even minor deviations from this will bring the process to an end.
When I meet a rape complainer before they give evidence, as I did yesterday, I see it as my task to show I really care (and I do), that I am there to support and help them through the process and to help them give the best and clearest version that they can.
Of course this does not mean switching off critical faculties or being unaware of inconsistencies. These should be addressed but in a supportive manner with the complainer given a proper and respectful opportunity to explain rather than a got you.
It is, in my experience, all too often the case that these victims have been singled out because of their vulnerability and it has been exploited by the selfish and the cruel. An even handed approach is not enough to balance the playing field in such a scenario.
Your penultimate paragraph is the key though. I don't think anyone thinks it is easy, even if a brief internet post will be necessity condense discussion of nuances. Potential victims do need encouraging to come forward and not handled as brusquely as reporting a burglary, and the potential of it being true will affect how they are quizzed about it. Exploited and vulnerable people have probably been dismissed by police and others in shocking ways.
But the police by their own admission were turning off their critical faculties in these other cases. It isn't a matter of being tone deaf and unsupportive to vulnerable people and to not enable investigators to tease out details of a complaint, or just taking it on faith.
Those are not the only two options, but police were acting like it was. That is very neatly wrong, so they need to very neatly change that, and then the more complex and subtle reality you point out is able to be properly addressed.
What you have in the police are front line staff of varying ability, intelligence and attitude. As we have seen all too often recently some of their attitudes and behaviour can be appalling. How do you cope with that?
We have come from a situation where the vast majority of rapes were never prosecuted, not even reported. You need to have simple, clear, directions that the police will follow to change that. Once they had done so the outcome of their efforts will be looked at by prosecuting authorities who can look at the evidence critically but I think a default instruction to believe the complainer at first instance is an improvement on what we had before and necessary if these cases are to see the light of day. Once they have nuance and judgment can be applied but seeking to insert these too early in the process means evil men getting away with shocking crimes.
Great posts @DavidL , but while "I think a default instruction to believe the complainer at first instance is an improvement on what we had before" is true, wasn't that also a big part of the problem with the Carl Beech affair?
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
While this is welcome, Brammal died with this man’s lies hanging over him (for clarity I mean Beech). Watson enabled that. He persued a fantasists witch hunt that collapsed when the police finally, FINALLY, died some proper detecting and spoke to Beeches wife. Why this wasn’t first on the list, I have no idea. Watson abused his position to hound innocent men. That he has been allowed to become a peer disgusts me really. People have, rightly, been all over Clarkson this week. Where is the leftie outrage about Watson? It was an innocent mistake, and as he was attacking nasty old Tories, somehow the tiny mistake was ok? FFS.
There's a theory, obv complete bollocks, this was a Spy Who Came In From The Cold op: get someone to make allegations which are true, in such a shambolic way they are laughed out of court, and everyone is safe.
Odd how few UK news reports are thrown up by googling Mountbatten kincora.
The allegations dreamt up by Beech were so out there weird that it’s a wonder anyone ever took them seriously. The idea of a cabal of senior politicians, military men etc would procure young boys, abuse them and murder them, and no one ever was reported missing is just beyond belief. The police were criminally negligent in the investigation, acting as if they wanted it to be true. Watson drove it night and day into the media, and as has been pointed out, did it with narrow party interest at heart. He is an utter slimeball.
They were also, like som many such weird stories, of long standing.
There is a cesspool of allegations ranging from the ugly to the plain bizarre. In the old days, whispered in pubs. Then badly photocopies leaflets. Now sludge on the internet.
Tom Watson came across some sludge that matched an inner hope - a hope that something would be true.
Once he started the ball rolling, any attempt to do any kind of due diligence on the accusations was pushed aside. Literally blocked.
As in many such stories, too many people become invested in the outcome to allow the facts to get in the way.
Golly. The Duke of Pork shelling out 12 large and pore ole Ghislaine getting 200 years is not enough to convince the unconvinceable that sex trading rings of the rich and powerful are a thing
Ah - so one crime being committed means that every allegation of a similar crime is also true?
Does one set of spurious allegations mean that all similar allegations are untrue?
It means that allegations should be investigated sensibly and with an open minds to discover those fact things.
When I did a journalism course at university (was editing the Student rag, so thought that I should learn), they emphasised Who, What, Where, When, Why - a story consists of provable facts. If someone says that X was in the Dog and Duck at 12:30 on Thursday, does he know that X looks like? Does the Dog and Duck exist? was it open at 12:30 on Thursday? Can anyone else say that X was there?
In the case of Carl Beech, he literally couldn't identify people. His description of where people were was provably wrong on a number of instances. His descriptions of places were provably wrong, trivially. His whole story was provably false.
In the case of Epstein and Co. the reverse is true. The physical evidence matches the testimonies. Records of place and time match the testimonies.
In the case of Rotherham et al, the same - testimonies matching physical evidence. matching records.
It is worth considering that with Rotherham, a vast establishment conspiracy was uncovered. People up to cabinet level had been told what was happening. The police, social services and the local government structure in Rotherham and similar areas worked together to contain and hide the allegations. And even to protect the abusers.
It's just the wrong kind of conspiracy - not the one that some people wanted to find.
This is also what we saw with the likes of William Roache case. One woman didn't even tell the story, her partner did, she couldn't even really give details and a simple check of things like where he lived, the car he drove etc, could have swiftly dismissed the complaints.
A part of the problem is the bizarre mindset that either
- All allegations are false. Therefore all the testimony must be lies.
or
- All allegations are true. Testing whether they are true means not believing in the allegations. Which is wrong.
The idea of intelligent enquiry, diligently building a structure of facts, seems to be beyond such people.
The Henriques report showed not only the the police did not understand basic investigative practice and were reversing the burden of proof, expecting people to prove themselves innocent, but that many of them still felt that was the correct thing to do.
Its utterly bizarre that there is still resistance to not simply believing complainants, but testing claims with an open mind. Self justified with twaddle about encouraging victims, as if it helps real victims to ignore processes to determine truth from fiction.
I think that this is in practice much more difficult than a neat summation on a PB post makes it sound. The reality is that many, possibly even most, alleged victims need a lot of support and encouragement to make their claims. They will be vulnerable in a variety of ways; drug dependency, alcohol addiction, some other form of behaviour that makes them wary of the police and the authorities in general. They start off with a default assumption that they will not be believed and their word will be given little value, all too often because that is their life experience. It is not enough to listen to victims with an open mind. If you do the prosecution will either not happen or fail. They need assurance that they are being believed, valued, cared about. For many this is so contrary to their expectations and experience that the need for assurance is almost constant and even minor deviations from this will bring the process to an end.
When I meet a rape complainer before they give evidence, as I did yesterday, I see it as my task to show I really care (and I do), that I am there to support and help them through the process and to help them give the best and clearest version that they can.
Of course this does not mean switching off critical faculties or being unaware of inconsistencies. These should be addressed but in a supportive manner with the complainer given a proper and respectful opportunity to explain rather than a got you.
It is, in my experience, all too often the case that these victims have been singled out because of their vulnerability and it has been exploited by the selfish and the cruel. An even handed approach is not enough to balance the playing field in such a scenario.
That's a really good post. In general, most examples of systematic abuse seem to arise in sectors where the perpetrators correctly judged that the victims would not complain or would not be listened to (dementia sufferers, prisoners, homeless people, refugees, etc.). At some point one does need to apply critical judgment to avoid fantasists ruining other people's lives, but the first stage needs to be open-minded and encouraging listening to properly understand what is being alleged.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
Thanks for your insight Nick.
It is interesting to get a perspective from someone who has actually gone into the role.
As for the Tory Voter's view, thats bizarre. Nurses do need a pay rise for sure better than the one on offer. My wife works in the NHS in HR and recruitment and retention is a major issue. Other elements of the package are very good but the salary is seen by people to lag.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
See the Kardashian case in Ireland - a violent male sex offender self-identifying as a woman and now locked up in Limerick's women's prison.
Why has this individual's location in a women's prison caused harm? The prisons are full of criminals by definition and both British and Irish prison services have to house female sex offenders in female prisons and managed to protect the rest of that prison's population. I'm not seeing what the problem is. Does Rose West have to be moved to a male prison because she preyed on teenage women?
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
On the other hand,. nurses aren't positively encouraged to take money from patients to work for some patients more than others on public time. You know, like Conservative MPs in particular. Nor can they swan off to have a holiday in the Windies when they want.
They have more holiday entitlement that most people who do not work in the public sector. Their employer pension contribution, their holidays and their payscales are all a part of their employment package that rarely gets a mention and it is far more favourable than you find in most private sector roles.
I
That might be true but the comparison was to MPs not Joe public in the private sector.
I was responding to the comment about holidays.
The comment relating to MP's is really more suited to the below the line comments in the tabloids.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
See the Kardashian case in Ireland - a violent male sex offender self-identifying as a woman and now locked up in Limerick's women's prison.
Why has this individual's location in a women's prison caused harm? The prisons are full of criminals by definition and both British and Irish prison services have to house female sex offenders in female prisons and managed to protect the rest of that prison's population. I'm not seeing what the problem is. Does Rose West have to be moved to a male prison because she preyed on teenage women?
You wouldn't put Rose West in prison with juveniles. Biologically male sex offenders are simply going to be stronger than most of the women they are locked up with if you put them in a women's prison.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
Incorrect. We are federalists. Not unionists. Opposing Scottish Independence does not automatically mean support for the Union.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
I was somewhat alarmed by the suggestion in your header that the Scotland bill will drive a coach and horses through the disclosure system and indeed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act by giving someone a "clean slate". There is nothing I can see in the Bill that would have that effect. What you say would only be correct if this currently happens for those that receive certificates under the 2004 Act and I do not believe that it does. Section 9(2) of the 2004 Act provides: "(2) Subsection (1) does not affect things done, or events occurring, before the certificate is issued; but it does operate for the interpretation of enactments passed, and instruments and other documents made, before the certificate is issued (as well as those passed or made afterwards)."
The consequences of a certificate under the 2004 Act are set out in ss9-21 of the 2004 Act. These will remain the law in Scotland after the bill has passed (as it inevitably will).
The question is therefore whether there is any evidence that the provisions of s 9(1) (put shortly that a person with a GRC is that gender for all purposes) have caused problems in the last 8 years or whether broadening the category of people with a GRC by reducing the criteria makes that likely. I am not aware of such evidence but I can certainly see the risk that making the process easier would give an open door for evil men to exploit. I just can't help feeling that there has been far more heat than light on this.
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
See the Kardashian case in Ireland - a violent male sex offender self-identifying as a woman and now locked up in Limerick's women's prison.
Why has this individual's location in a women's prison caused harm? The prisons are full of criminals by definition and both British and Irish prison services have to house female sex offenders in female prisons and managed to protect the rest of that prison's population. I'm not seeing what the problem is. Does Rose West have to be moved to a male prison because she preyed on teenage women?
I dunno. Why would a violent male sex offender cause harm or fear to women? Why would women fear being locked up with such a man?
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
More that the polis put a block on certain individuals than the abuser having to ask them permission. Again, I am uncomfortable with parts of this legislation. But as others have pointed out it isn't as black and white bad as it may appear - Ireland - and I want to respect rights of *both sides*.
We can do so, if we combat absolutism. The problem was, is and will remain men who think women are sport, chattels, theirs to use/abuse. We can have any protection we like and its only palliative. A campaign to make misogyny and abuse as socially acceptable as drink driving is needed - the best way to protect women from these scumbags is to make a minority of my fellow men stop acting like utter scumbags.
While this is welcome, Brammal died with this man’s lies hanging over him (for clarity I mean Beech). Watson enabled that. He persued a fantasists witch hunt that collapsed when the police finally, FINALLY, died some proper detecting and spoke to Beeches wife. Why this wasn’t first on the list, I have no idea. Watson abused his position to hound innocent men. That he has been allowed to become a peer disgusts me really. People have, rightly, been all over Clarkson this week. Where is the leftie outrage about Watson? It was an innocent mistake, and as he was attacking nasty old Tories, somehow the tiny mistake was ok? FFS.
There's a theory, obv complete bollocks, this was a Spy Who Came In From The Cold op: get someone to make allegations which are true, in such a shambolic way they are laughed out of court, and everyone is safe.
Odd how few UK news reports are thrown up by googling Mountbatten kincora.
The allegations dreamt up by Beech were so out there weird that it’s a wonder anyone ever took them seriously. The idea of a cabal of senior politicians, military men etc would procure young boys, abuse them and murder them, and no one ever was reported missing is just beyond belief. The police were criminally negligent in the investigation, acting as if they wanted it to be true. Watson drove it night and day into the media, and as has been pointed out, did it with narrow party interest at heart. He is an utter slimeball.
They were also, like som many such weird stories, of long standing.
There is a cesspool of allegations ranging from the ugly to the plain bizarre. In the old days, whispered in pubs. Then badly photocopies leaflets. Now sludge on the internet.
Tom Watson came across some sludge that matched an inner hope - a hope that something would be true.
Once he started the ball rolling, any attempt to do any kind of due diligence on the accusations was pushed aside. Literally blocked.
As in many such stories, too many people become invested in the outcome to allow the facts to get in the way.
Golly. The Duke of Pork shelling out 12 large and pore ole Ghislaine getting 200 years is not enough to convince the unconvinceable that sex trading rings of the rich and powerful are a thing
Ah - so one crime being committed means that every allegation of a similar crime is also true?
Does one set of spurious allegations mean that all similar allegations are untrue?
It means that allegations should be investigated sensibly and with an open minds to discover those fact things.
When I did a journalism course at university (was editing the Student rag, so thought that I should learn), they emphasised Who, What, Where, When, Why - a story consists of provable facts. If someone says that X was in the Dog and Duck at 12:30 on Thursday, does he know that X looks like? Does the Dog and Duck exist? was it open at 12:30 on Thursday? Can anyone else say that X was there?
In the case of Carl Beech, he literally couldn't identify people. His description of where people were was provably wrong on a number of instances. His descriptions of places were provably wrong, trivially. His whole story was provably false.
In the case of Epstein and Co. the reverse is true. The physical evidence matches the testimonies. Records of place and time match the testimonies.
In the case of Rotherham et al, the same - testimonies matching physical evidence. matching records.
It is worth considering that with Rotherham, a vast establishment conspiracy was uncovered. People up to cabinet level had been told what was happening. The police, social services and the local government structure in Rotherham and similar areas worked together to contain and hide the allegations. And even to protect the abusers.
It's just the wrong kind of conspiracy - not the one that some people wanted to find.
This is also what we saw with the likes of William Roache case. One woman didn't even tell the story, her partner did, she couldn't even really give details and a simple check of things like where he lived, the car he drove etc, could have swiftly dismissed the complaints.
A part of the problem is the bizarre mindset that either
- All allegations are false. Therefore all the testimony must be lies.
or
- All allegations are true. Testing whether they are true means not believing in the allegations. Which is wrong.
The idea of intelligent enquiry, diligently building a structure of facts, seems to be beyond such people.
The Henriques report showed not only the the police did not understand basic investigative practice and were reversing the burden of proof, expecting people to prove themselves innocent, but that many of them still felt that was the correct thing to do.
Its utterly bizarre that there is still resistance to not simply believing complainants, but testing claims with an open mind. Self justified with twaddle about encouraging victims, as if it helps real victims to ignore processes to determine truth from fiction.
I think that this is in practice much more difficult than a neat summation on a PB post makes it sound. The reality is that many, possibly even most, alleged victims need a lot of support and encouragement to make their claims. They will be vulnerable in a variety of ways; drug dependency, alcohol addiction, some other form of behaviour that makes them wary of the police and the authorities in general. They start off with a default assumption that they will not be believed and their word will be given little value, all too often because that is their life experience. It is not enough to listen to victims with an open mind. If you do the prosecution will either not happen or fail. They need assurance that they are being believed, valued, cared about. For many this is so contrary to their expectations and experience that the need for assurance is almost constant and even minor deviations from this will bring the process to an end.
When I meet a rape complainer before they give evidence, as I did yesterday, I see it as my task to show I really care (and I do), that I am there to support and help them through the process and to help them give the best and clearest version that they can.
Of course this does not mean switching off critical faculties or being unaware of inconsistencies. These should be addressed but in a supportive manner with the complainer given a proper and respectful opportunity to explain rather than a got you.
It is, in my experience, all too often the case that these victims have been singled out because of their vulnerability and it has been exploited by the selfish and the cruel. An even handed approach is not enough to balance the playing field in such a scenario.
Your penultimate paragraph is the key though. I don't think anyone thinks it is easy, even if a brief internet post will be necessity condense discussion of nuances. Potential victims do need encouraging to come forward and not handled as brusquely as reporting a burglary, and the potential of it being true will affect how they are quizzed about it. Exploited and vulnerable people have probably been dismissed by police and others in shocking ways.
But the police by their own admission were turning off their critical faculties in these other cases. It isn't a matter of being tone deaf and unsupportive to vulnerable people and to not enable investigators to tease out details of a complaint, or just taking it on faith.
Those are not the only two options, but police were acting like it was. That is very neatly wrong, so they need to very neatly change that, and then the more complex and subtle reality you point out is able to be properly addressed.
What you have in the police are front line staff of varying ability, intelligence and attitude. As we have seen all too often recently some of their attitudes and behaviour can be appalling. How do you cope with that?
We have come from a situation where the vast majority of rapes were never prosecuted, not even reported. You need to have simple, clear, directions that the police will follow to change that. Once they had done so the outcome of their efforts will be looked at by prosecuting authorities who can look at the evidence critically but I think a default instruction to believe the complainer at first instance is an improvement on what we had before and necessary if these cases are to see the light of day. Once they have nuance and judgment can be applied but seeking to insert these too early in the process means evil men getting away with shocking crimes.
Great posts @DavidL , but while "I think a default instruction to believe the complainer at first instance is an improvement on what we had before" is true, wasn't that also a big part of the problem with the Carl Beech affair?
I haven't studied the Beech affair in detail but it seemed to me that the problem was not so much the officers carrying out the initial investigation as the complete failure of their managers to then assess the outcome of their efforts and consider the glaring holes in it. In short, it seemed to me that the supportive environment I endorse was carried on far too far up the food chain with responsible people failing to accept responsibility and be the person who marked this no proceedings.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
Isn't the pension the big attraction financially?
Nobody whose primary motivation is remuneration is going to build a career in nursing. Even if every pay grade jumped up by £10k immediately, it still wouldn't compete with any number of other graduate professions, and it is difficult, skilled work with tough hours. People would still do it because it's what they *want* to do; they want to help people and work in a job that has social worth - something folk on the right struggle with is the very concept of not acting in self-interest at all times (hence why they love a 'hypocrisy' gotcha), so we end up with daft contortions of logic around attracting the wrong people if the pay is higher.
Nurses want pay that is commensurate with their difficult work, which keeps pace with rising prices. It's pretty simple.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
For most people yes but partners in city firms, QCs, ceos and directors of big companies are not going to be very attracted by a pay cut to £80k.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
I don't understand the Tory mentality. Fundamentally they are capitalists. The system only works with consumption, and you can only have the needed levels of consumption is you pay people enough money to have spare cash to spend after paying their bills.
Set aside the immorality of nurses being reliant on a foodbank at their own hospital - and it IS deeply immoral - and look at the basic point. This is the entire system the Tories supposedly support being left to fail.
If their intention is to bring down their version of free market capitalism and have it replaced by a much more regulated system which is less immoral and actually works, they are going about it the right way.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
I don't understand the Tory mentality. Fundamentally they are capitalists. The system only works with consumption, and you can only have the needed levels of consumption is you pay people enough money to have spare cash to spend after paying their bills.
Set aside the immorality of nurses being reliant on a foodbank at their own hospital - and it IS deeply immoral - and look at the basic point. This is the entire system the Tories supposedly support being left to fail.
If their intention is to bring down their version of free market capitalism and have it replaced by a much more regulated system which is less immoral and actually works, they are going about it the right way.
We will get nowhere by paying people less than they are worth.
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
I was somewhat alarmed by the suggestion in your header that the Scotland bill will drive a coach and horses through the disclosure system and indeed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act by giving someone a "clean slate". There is nothing I can see in the Bill that would have that effect. What you say would only be correct if this currently happens for those that receive certificates under the 2004 Act and I do not believe that it does. Section 9(2) of the 2004 Act provides: "(2) Subsection (1) does not affect things done, or events occurring, before the certificate is issued; but it does operate for the interpretation of enactments passed, and instruments and other documents made, before the certificate is issued (as well as those passed or made afterwards)."
The consequences of a certificate under the 2004 Act are set out in ss9-21 of the 2004 Act. These will remain the law in Scotland after the bill has passed (as it inevitably will).
The question is therefore whether there is any evidence that the provisions of s 9(1) (put shortly that a person with a GRC is that gender for all purposes) have caused problems in the last 8 years or whether broadening the category of people with a GRC by reducing the criteria makes that likely. I am not aware of such evidence but I can certainly see the risk that making the process easier would give an open door for evil men to exploit. I just can't help feeling that there has been far more heat than light on this.
The issue is this. Under the DBS scheme there is a Sensitive Applications Process for those with a GRC. This relies on the person with a GRC making available to the team doing the checking their previous identity and any previous convictions so that they can be attached to their new identity. It is entirely reliant on the good faith and honesty of the sex offender.
But if a sex offender does not do that the DBS check I will come back "clean". That is the loophole.
An employer cannot ask if someone has a GRC because they may be guilty of discrimination. Another body who knows that the applicant has a GRC may also be in breach of the law by revealing this. So the DBS system relies entirely on a sex offender being honest.
There has as you know been concern in Scotland about sex offenders changing their name and failing to notify the police of this. So what do you think are the chances of these people being honest with the DBS service?
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
I don't understand the Tory mentality. Fundamentally they are capitalists. The system only works with consumption, and you can only have the needed levels of consumption is you pay people enough money to have spare cash to spend after paying their bills.
Set aside the immorality of nurses being reliant on a foodbank at their own hospital - and it IS deeply immoral - and look at the basic point. This is the entire system the Tories supposedly support being left to fail.
If their intention is to bring down their version of free market capitalism and have it replaced by a much more regulated system which is less immoral and actually works, they are going about it the right way.
If that was really the case then Hunt would not have increased benefits and the state pension and minimum wage by 10%.
The average full time nurse also earns £37k, I highly doubt they need to use food banks
Tories are also not pure capitalists and never have been, even Thatcher and Truss. Monarchy, inherited wealth, the established church, the landed gentry are true Tory values. Indeed in the 19th century the Whigs and Liberals were more laissez faire capitalist than Tories like Disraeli
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
Isn't the pension the big attraction financially?
Nobody whose primary motivation is remuneration is going to build a career in nursing. Even if every pay grade jumped up by £10k immediately, it still wouldn't compete with any number of other graduate professions, and it is difficult, skilled work with tough hours. People would still do it because it's what they *want* to do; they want to help people and work in a job that has social worth - something folk on the right struggle with is the very concept of not acting in self-interest at all times (hence why they love a 'hypocrisy' gotcha), so we end up with daft contortions of logic around attracting the wrong people if the pay is higher.
Nurses want pay that is commensurate with their difficult work, which keeps pace with rising prices. It's pretty simple.
No, I meant for MPs - they serve a terma dn get a full pension don't they?
While this is welcome, Brammal died with this man’s lies hanging over him (for clarity I mean Beech). Watson enabled that. He persued a fantasists witch hunt that collapsed when the police finally, FINALLY, died some proper detecting and spoke to Beeches wife. Why this wasn’t first on the list, I have no idea. Watson abused his position to hound innocent men. That he has been allowed to become a peer disgusts me really. People have, rightly, been all over Clarkson this week. Where is the leftie outrage about Watson? It was an innocent mistake, and as he was attacking nasty old Tories, somehow the tiny mistake was ok? FFS.
There's a theory, obv complete bollocks, this was a Spy Who Came In From The Cold op: get someone to make allegations which are true, in such a shambolic way they are laughed out of court, and everyone is safe.
Odd how few UK news reports are thrown up by googling Mountbatten kincora.
The allegations dreamt up by Beech were so out there weird that it’s a wonder anyone ever took them seriously. The idea of a cabal of senior politicians, military men etc would procure young boys, abuse them and murder them, and no one ever was reported missing is just beyond belief. The police were criminally negligent in the investigation, acting as if they wanted it to be true. Watson drove it night and day into the media, and as has been pointed out, did it with narrow party interest at heart. He is an utter slimeball.
They were also, like som many such weird stories, of long standing.
There is a cesspool of allegations ranging from the ugly to the plain bizarre. In the old days, whispered in pubs. Then badly photocopies leaflets. Now sludge on the internet.
Tom Watson came across some sludge that matched an inner hope - a hope that something would be true.
Once he started the ball rolling, any attempt to do any kind of due diligence on the accusations was pushed aside. Literally blocked.
As in many such stories, too many people become invested in the outcome to allow the facts to get in the way.
Golly. The Duke of Pork shelling out 12 large and pore ole Ghislaine getting 200 years is not enough to convince the unconvinceable that sex trading rings of the rich and powerful are a thing
Ah - so one crime being committed means that every allegation of a similar crime is also true?
Does one set of spurious allegations mean that all similar allegations are untrue?
It means that allegations should be investigated sensibly and with an open minds to discover those fact things.
When I did a journalism course at university (was editing the Student rag, so thought that I should learn), they emphasised Who, What, Where, When, Why - a story consists of provable facts. If someone says that X was in the Dog and Duck at 12:30 on Thursday, does he know that X looks like? Does the Dog and Duck exist? was it open at 12:30 on Thursday? Can anyone else say that X was there?
In the case of Carl Beech, he literally couldn't identify people. His description of where people were was provably wrong on a number of instances. His descriptions of places were provably wrong, trivially. His whole story was provably false.
In the case of Epstein and Co. the reverse is true. The physical evidence matches the testimonies. Records of place and time match the testimonies.
In the case of Rotherham et al, the same - testimonies matching physical evidence. matching records.
It is worth considering that with Rotherham, a vast establishment conspiracy was uncovered. People up to cabinet level had been told what was happening. The police, social services and the local government structure in Rotherham and similar areas worked together to contain and hide the allegations. And even to protect the abusers.
It's just the wrong kind of conspiracy - not the one that some people wanted to find.
This is also what we saw with the likes of William Roache case. One woman didn't even tell the story, her partner did, she couldn't even really give details and a simple check of things like where he lived, the car he drove etc, could have swiftly dismissed the complaints.
A part of the problem is the bizarre mindset that either
- All allegations are false. Therefore all the testimony must be lies.
or
- All allegations are true. Testing whether they are true means not believing in the allegations. Which is wrong.
The idea of intelligent enquiry, diligently building a structure of facts, seems to be beyond such people.
The Henriques report showed not only the the police did not understand basic investigative practice and were reversing the burden of proof, expecting people to prove themselves innocent, but that many of them still felt that was the correct thing to do.
Its utterly bizarre that there is still resistance to not simply believing complainants, but testing claims with an open mind. Self justified with twaddle about encouraging victims, as if it helps real victims to ignore processes to determine truth from fiction.
I think that this is in practice much more difficult than a neat summation on a PB post makes it sound. The reality is that many, possibly even most, alleged victims need a lot of support and encouragement to make their claims. They will be vulnerable in a variety of ways; drug dependency, alcohol addiction, some other form of behaviour that makes them wary of the police and the authorities in general. They start off with a default assumption that they will not be believed and their word will be given little value, all too often because that is their life experience. It is not enough to listen to victims with an open mind. If you do the prosecution will either not happen or fail. They need assurance that they are being believed, valued, cared about. For many this is so contrary to their expectations and experience that the need for assurance is almost constant and even minor deviations from this will bring the process to an end.
When I meet a rape complainer before they give evidence, as I did yesterday, I see it as my task to show I really care (and I do), that I am there to support and help them through the process and to help them give the best and clearest version that they can.
Of course this does not mean switching off critical faculties or being unaware of inconsistencies. These should be addressed but in a supportive manner with the complainer given a proper and respectful opportunity to explain rather than a got you.
It is, in my experience, all too often the case that these victims have been singled out because of their vulnerability and it has been exploited by the selfish and the cruel. An even handed approach is not enough to balance the playing field in such a scenario.
Your penultimate paragraph is the key though. I don't think anyone thinks it is easy, even if a brief internet post will be necessity condense discussion of nuances. Potential victims do need encouraging to come forward and not handled as brusquely as reporting a burglary, and the potential of it being true will affect how they are quizzed about it. Exploited and vulnerable people have probably been dismissed by police and others in shocking ways.
But the police by their own admission were turning off their critical faculties in these other cases. It isn't a matter of being tone deaf and unsupportive to vulnerable people and to not enable investigators to tease out details of a complaint, or just taking it on faith.
Those are not the only two options, but police were acting like it was. That is very neatly wrong, so they need to very neatly change that, and then the more complex and subtle reality you point out is able to be properly addressed.
What you have in the police are front line staff of varying ability, intelligence and attitude. As we have seen all too often recently some of their attitudes and behaviour can be appalling. How do you cope with that?
We have come from a situation where the vast majority of rapes were never prosecuted, not even reported. You need to have simple, clear, directions that the police will follow to change that. Once they had done so the outcome of their efforts will be looked at by prosecuting authorities who can look at the evidence critically but I think a default instruction to believe the complainer at first instance is an improvement on what we had before and necessary if these cases are to see the light of day. Once they have nuance and judgment can be applied but seeking to insert these too early in the process means evil men getting away with shocking crimes.
Great posts @DavidL , but while "I think a default instruction to believe the complainer at first instance is an improvement on what we had before" is true, wasn't that also a big part of the problem with the Carl Beech affair?
Yes, it was. Because the problem with investigating such matters is that it requires sensitivity, compassion, an open and enquiring mind and above all, discretion.
You can’t reinvent people to be like that - it needs training and above all, a suitable person at the start.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
Isn't the pension the big attraction financially?
Nobody whose primary motivation is remuneration is going to build a career in nursing. Even if every pay grade jumped up by £10k immediately, it still wouldn't compete with any number of other graduate professions, and it is difficult, skilled work with tough hours. People would still do it because it's what they *want* to do; they want to help people and work in a job that has social worth - something folk on the right struggle with is the very concept of not acting in self-interest at all times (hence why they love a 'hypocrisy' gotcha), so we end up with daft contortions of logic around attracting the wrong people if the pay is higher.
Nurses want pay that is commensurate with their difficult work, which keeps pace with rising prices. It's pretty simple.
No, I meant for MPs - they serve a terma dn get a full pension don't they?
Nope, it’s slightly better than what most people get after x years service but not brilliant.
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
I was somewhat alarmed by the suggestion in your header that the Scotland bill will drive a coach and horses through the disclosure system and indeed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act by giving someone a "clean slate". There is nothing I can see in the Bill that would have that effect. What you say would only be correct if this currently happens for those that receive certificates under the 2004 Act and I do not believe that it does. Section 9(2) of the 2004 Act provides: "(2) Subsection (1) does not affect things done, or events occurring, before the certificate is issued; but it does operate for the interpretation of enactments passed, and instruments and other documents made, before the certificate is issued (as well as those passed or made afterwards)."
The consequences of a certificate under the 2004 Act are set out in ss9-21 of the 2004 Act. These will remain the law in Scotland after the bill has passed (as it inevitably will).
The question is therefore whether there is any evidence that the provisions of s 9(1) (put shortly that a person with a GRC is that gender for all purposes) have caused problems in the last 8 years or whether broadening the category of people with a GRC by reducing the criteria makes that likely. I am not aware of such evidence but I can certainly see the risk that making the process easier would give an open door for evil men to exploit. I just can't help feeling that there has been far more heat than light on this.
The issue is this. Under the DBS scheme there is a Sensitive Applications Process for those with a GRC. This relies on the person with a GRC making available to the team doing the checking their previous identity and any previous convictions so that they can be attached to their new identity. It is entirely reliant on the good faith and honesty of the sex offender.
But if a sex offender does not do that the DBS check I will come back "clean". That is the loophole.
An employer cannot ask if someone has a GRC because they may be guilty of discrimination. Another body who knows that the applicant has a GRC may also be in breach of the law by revealing this. So the DBS system relies entirely on a sex offender being honest.
There has as you know been concern in Scotland about sex offenders changing their name and failing to notify the police of this. So what do you think are the chances of these people being honest with the DBS service?
That ought, legislatively, to be an easy fix - has that actively been prevented, or just not properly debated ?
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
I don't understand the Tory mentality. Fundamentally they are capitalists. The system only works with consumption, and you can only have the needed levels of consumption is you pay people enough money to have spare cash to spend after paying their bills.
Set aside the immorality of nurses being reliant on a foodbank at their own hospital - and it IS deeply immoral - and look at the basic point. This is the entire system the Tories supposedly support being left to fail.
If their intention is to bring down their version of free market capitalism and have it replaced by a much more regulated system which is less immoral and actually works, they are going about it the right way.
Serious question - how many NHS staff are hourly paid and in the benefits trap of more hours just reduced their benefits as fast as they earn more?
Ireland have had gender self-ID since 2015 and the only differences I can work out where the Scottish scheme is more permissive is that 16-18 year olds do not require parent/guardian approval. What's happened in Ireland to demonstrate that gender self-ID harms women? Or is Scotland different to Ireland so that the same law will have horrible consequences? Or is the law different and I've just missed it completely?
A very good question.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
Ireland is a foreign country and nothing to go with the UK government.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
For most people yes but partners in city firms, QCs, ceos and directors of big companies are not going to be very attracted by a pay cut to £80k.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
I'm not sure why you think the first sentence is true. Most who are at this level are in it for the challenge, they aren't all greedy bastards. They have enough already and the evidence is there in that the HofC is full of people who have taken that pay cut from such jobs to become MPs (as per @NickPalmer) and it is certainly true in other walks of life also. I walked away from lucrative employment to set up my own business and work part time and then do voluntary work part time with the rest of my time and I know lots of others who have done the same.
When you are well enough off to do it there are other challenges in life other than money, money, money.
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
I was somewhat alarmed by the suggestion in your header that the Scotland bill will drive a coach and horses through the disclosure system and indeed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act by giving someone a "clean slate". There is nothing I can see in the Bill that would have that effect. What you say would only be correct if this currently happens for those that receive certificates under the 2004 Act and I do not believe that it does. Section 9(2) of the 2004 Act provides: "(2) Subsection (1) does not affect things done, or events occurring, before the certificate is issued; but it does operate for the interpretation of enactments passed, and instruments and other documents made, before the certificate is issued (as well as those passed or made afterwards)."
The consequences of a certificate under the 2004 Act are set out in ss9-21 of the 2004 Act. These will remain the law in Scotland after the bill has passed (as it inevitably will).
The question is therefore whether there is any evidence that the provisions of s 9(1) (put shortly that a person with a GRC is that gender for all purposes) have caused problems in the last 8 years or whether broadening the category of people with a GRC by reducing the criteria makes that likely. I am not aware of such evidence but I can certainly see the risk that making the process easier would give an open door for evil men to exploit. I just can't help feeling that there has been far more heat than light on this.
The issue is this. Under the DBS scheme there is a Sensitive Applications Process for those with a GRC. This relies on the person with a GRC making available to the team doing the checking their previous identity and any previous convictions so that they can be attached to their new identity. It is entirely reliant on the good faith and honesty of the sex offender.
But if a sex offender does not do that the DBS check I will come back "clean". That is the loophole.
An employer cannot ask if someone has a GRC because they may be guilty of discrimination. Another body who knows that the applicant has a GRC may also be in breach of the law by revealing this. So the DBS system relies entirely on a sex offender being honest.
There has as you know been concern in Scotland about sex offenders changing their name and failing to notify the police of this. So what do you think are the chances of these people being honest with the DBS service?
That ought, legislatively, to be an easy fix - has that actively been prevented, or just not properly debated ?
Last night Holyrood voted down the amendment which sought to address this. The only amendment which was passed was one which relies on only certain categories of sex offenders (not all of them) informing the police of their wish to obtain a GRC. In other words, it does not deal with the issue at all.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
For most people yes but partners in city firms, QCs, ceos and directors of big companies are not going to be very attracted by a pay cut to £80k.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
I'm not sure why you think the first sentence is true. Most who are at this level are in it for the challenge, they aren't all greedy bastards. They have enough already and the evidence is there in that the HofC is full of people who have taken that pay cut from such jobs to become MPs (as per @NickPalmer) and it is certainly true in other walks of life also. I walked away from lucrative employment to set up my own business and work part time and then do voluntary work part time with the rest of my time and I know lots of others who have done the same.
When you are well enough off to do it there are other challenges in life other than money, money, money.
There's a spectrum of how people's minds are wired, though.
For some, the money and the things it buys is how they keep score and the score matters to them.
For others, they reach a (lower than you might think, but not that low) threshold of "enough", and then other things- what's interesting, what gives meaning, not having to go in and ask for more- become more valuable.
You probably need both for society to work, but there's a lot of mutual incomprehension.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
I don't understand the Tory mentality. Fundamentally they are capitalists. The system only works with consumption, and you can only have the needed levels of consumption is you pay people enough money to have spare cash to spend after paying their bills.
Set aside the immorality of nurses being reliant on a foodbank at their own hospital - and it IS deeply immoral - and look at the basic point. This is the entire system the Tories supposedly support being left to fail.
If their intention is to bring down their version of free market capitalism and have it replaced by a much more regulated system which is less immoral and actually works, they are going about it the right way.
Serious question - how many NHS staff are hourly paid and in the benefits trap of more hours just reduced their benefits as fast as they earn more?
I can’t work out how I could get that information - it requires combining 3 different sources so no chance anything other than anecdotal data is available.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
Miss Cyclefree, your point (fear of male sex offenders in a women's prison) has a biological component. Men are massively stronger, on average, than women. This reality gets underplayed and, on rare occasions, even denied in the media by those who think being equal means being identical.
This leads to the suggestion there's no difference between having a man than a woman sex offender in women's prison. Which is crackers.
Reminds me a bit of a history channel I had to stop watching because the twonk fronting it claimed medieval peasants working jobs based on sex was due to outdated views of gender (and not the biological reality than men have circa twice the muscle of women).
While I'm a bit reluctant to enter the GRC debate, largely because it strikes me that much of what is written is somewhat lacking in evidence, I'm broadly sympathetic to the view in the header that safeguards for some "women's only" spaces should be built into the system - for example, prisons.
However, my main take-away is that I wish people got as exercised about the routine, daily threat to women from non-trans men, who present a much higher risk to women than the relatively small number who may wish to exploit any GRC loopholes to pursue abuse.
For example, recent evidence suggests that women in London are much more at risk from male Metropolitan police officers than they are from random trans people seeking to access women-only spaces.
I didn't realise this but Ukraine for the first time will celebrate Christmas on 25th December. It had previously used the Russian date of 7th January. Yet another way that Ukraine has seemingly irreversibly switched to looking westwards. This was a country that prior to the annexation of Crimea in 2014 had 80% of the population view Russia favourably.
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
I was somewhat alarmed by the suggestion in your header that the Scotland bill will drive a coach and horses through the disclosure system and indeed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act by giving someone a "clean slate". There is nothing I can see in the Bill that would have that effect. What you say would only be correct if this currently happens for those that receive certificates under the 2004 Act and I do not believe that it does. Section 9(2) of the 2004 Act provides: "(2) Subsection (1) does not affect things done, or events occurring, before the certificate is issued; but it does operate for the interpretation of enactments passed, and instruments and other documents made, before the certificate is issued (as well as those passed or made afterwards)."
The consequences of a certificate under the 2004 Act are set out in ss9-21 of the 2004 Act. These will remain the law in Scotland after the bill has passed (as it inevitably will).
The question is therefore whether there is any evidence that the provisions of s 9(1) (put shortly that a person with a GRC is that gender for all purposes) have caused problems in the last 8 years or whether broadening the category of people with a GRC by reducing the criteria makes that likely. I am not aware of such evidence but I can certainly see the risk that making the process easier would give an open door for evil men to exploit. I just can't help feeling that there has been far more heat than light on this.
The issue is this. Under the DBS scheme there is a Sensitive Applications Process for those with a GRC. This relies on the person with a GRC making available to the team doing the checking their previous identity and any previous convictions so that they can be attached to their new identity. It is entirely reliant on the good faith and honesty of the sex offender.
But if a sex offender does not do that the DBS check I will come back "clean". That is the loophole.
An employer cannot ask if someone has a GRC because they may be guilty of discrimination. Another body who knows that the applicant has a GRC may also be in breach of the law by revealing this. So the DBS system relies entirely on a sex offender being honest.
There has as you know been concern in Scotland about sex offenders changing their name and failing to notify the police of this. So what do you think are the chances of these people being honest with the DBS service?
That ought, legislatively, to be an easy fix - has that actively been prevented, or just not properly debated ?
Last night Holyrood voted down the amendment which sought to address this. The only amendment which was passed was one which relies on only certain categories of sex offenders (not all of them) informing the police of their wish to obtain a GRC. In other words, it does not deal with the issue at all.
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
I was somewhat alarmed by the suggestion in your header that the Scotland bill will drive a coach and horses through the disclosure system and indeed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act by giving someone a "clean slate". There is nothing I can see in the Bill that would have that effect. What you say would only be correct if this currently happens for those that receive certificates under the 2004 Act and I do not believe that it does. Section 9(2) of the 2004 Act provides: "(2) Subsection (1) does not affect things done, or events occurring, before the certificate is issued; but it does operate for the interpretation of enactments passed, and instruments and other documents made, before the certificate is issued (as well as those passed or made afterwards)."
The consequences of a certificate under the 2004 Act are set out in ss9-21 of the 2004 Act. These will remain the law in Scotland after the bill has passed (as it inevitably will).
The question is therefore whether there is any evidence that the provisions of s 9(1) (put shortly that a person with a GRC is that gender for all purposes) have caused problems in the last 8 years or whether broadening the category of people with a GRC by reducing the criteria makes that likely. I am not aware of such evidence but I can certainly see the risk that making the process easier would give an open door for evil men to exploit. I just can't help feeling that there has been far more heat than light on this.
The issue is this. Under the DBS scheme there is a Sensitive Applications Process for those with a GRC. This relies on the person with a GRC making available to the team doing the checking their previous identity and any previous convictions so that they can be attached to their new identity. It is entirely reliant on the good faith and honesty of the sex offender.
But if a sex offender does not do that the DBS check I will come back "clean". That is the loophole.
An employer cannot ask if someone has a GRC because they may be guilty of discrimination. Another body who knows that the applicant has a GRC may also be in breach of the law by revealing this. So the DBS system relies entirely on a sex offender being honest.
There has as you know been concern in Scotland about sex offenders changing their name and failing to notify the police of this. So what do you think are the chances of these people being honest with the DBS service?
If this were true it would be a concern but I do not think that it is. The basic check might be deceived by the information put in online but what in Scotland is called the Enhanced Disclosure Check for those working with vulnerable people would require the production of documents which would make it very straightforward for the certification authorities to tie the person with the GRC to the previous identity. This happens all the time when people try to mess around with dates of birth etc to avoid being picked up.
I was involved in a prosecution of a person who had obtained a GRC under the 2004 Act. Previous convictions prior to her gender reassignation were disclosed. I would not be confident about extrapolating from that prosecution to what the Disclosure Authorities would produce but I think you are wrong about this.
To me, the concern is that those who met the tougher criteria under the 2004 Act were much more likely to have either had surgery or hormones that would make them less capable of acting as a man sexually. They have had to show a commitment to the process over an extended period and they have to have objective evidence in the form of medical reports.
By making the registration easier it seems probable that more men who are fully functional sexually will obtain such certificates and such access. It seems probable that this will be exploited. We therefore need to either not allow this or build in other safeguards that don't currently exist under the 2004 Act regime (because the protections are elsewhere). The determination of the SNP government, the Greens and some Lib Dems and Labour MSPs to deny there is an issue here is simply bewildering.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
How is your comment any different from what you say of the header ?
I take issue with some of Cyclefree's points (see, for example, my post upthread), but if you're unhappy with the arguments, then address them.
What do Sturgeon / the SNP gain from this? Presumably she’s doing it because she believes it’s “the right thing” to do?
Nicola Sturgeon's attitude is essentially that "if lives have to be lost, that's just the way it is."
This is nonsense. And the header is misleading and biased imo. Several countries handle gender recognition in ways similar to the Scottish reforms ie a process based on self declaration rather than psychiatric diagnosis. There's solid precedent over a prolonged period. It's not some crazy experiment. There are issues to be considered, valid disagreements, but stuff like a "rapists charter"? C'mon. Neither evidence nor logic supports any such conclusion. It's as irrational as the other extreme of saying gender identity should replace birth sex in all aspects of life and the law. It's no slam dunk but on balance I support these reforms and see no "shame" in them at all. If anything Sturgeon is to be congratulated for holding firm on it.
There is lots of evidence of harm in other countries with self-ID. You simply choose to ignore it. The Scottish government which loudly claims that there is no evidence of harm admitted in a written Parliamentary answer that it had done no analysis of the effects of self-ID in other countries. I'd post the evidence if there was even the remotest chance of you reading it. But from your post I have to conclude that you support allowing convicted sex offenders to hide their identity and evade DBS checks. So I won't bother.
I'm supportive of both self-id and the equality act exemptions for single sex spaces. There's no fatal contradiction there imo. I don't ignore facts or argument which challenge this view - but I've yet to come across anything of much substance.
So, yes, around 20 countries have gone this route - demedicalizing the gender recognition process - and if there is indeed "lots of evidence" of serious consequential harm done I am definitely interested to see it.
Their own amendment does not achieve the same result because (a) it only applies to certain categories of convicted sex offenders not all of them; and (b) it relies on the sex offender voluntarily disclosing to the police their intention to apply for a GRC. If they don't, the so called safeguard vanishes.
The Scottish government wishes to put its trust in - and expects women to put their trust in - the good faith and honesty of convicted sex offenders.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
For most people yes but partners in city firms, QCs, ceos and directors of big companies are not going to be very attracted by a pay cut to £80k.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
I'm not sure why you think the first sentence is true. Most who are at this level are in it for the challenge, they aren't all greedy bastards. They have enough already and the evidence is there in that the HofC is full of people who have taken that pay cut from such jobs to become MPs (as per @NickPalmer) and it is certainly true in other walks of life also. I walked away from lucrative employment to set up my own business and work part time and then do voluntary work part time with the rest of my time and I know lots of others who have done the same.
When you are well enough off to do it there are other challenges in life other than money, money, money.
How many partners in investment banks and law firms and QCs are their in the Commons now? Very few. The last ceo of a FTSE 100 company was Archie Norman.
There are more political organisers and political researchers and SPADs in the House of Commons now than lawyers and army officers and those from working class jobs combined.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
For most people yes but partners in city firms, QCs, ceos and directors of big companies are not going to be very attracted by a pay cut to £80k.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
I'm not sure why you think the first sentence is true. Most who are at this level are in it for the challenge, they aren't all greedy bastards. They have enough already and the evidence is there in that the HofC is full of people who have taken that pay cut from such jobs to become MPs (as per @NickPalmer) and it is certainly true in other walks of life also. I walked away from lucrative employment to set up my own business and work part time and then do voluntary work part time with the rest of my time and I know lots of others who have done the same.
When you are well enough off to do it there are other challenges in life other than money, money, money.
How many partners in investment banks and law firms and QCs are their in the Commons now? Very few. The last ceo of a FTSE 100 company was Archie Norman.
There are more political organisers and political researchers and SPADs in the House of Commons now than lawyers and army officers and those from working class jobs combined.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
For most people yes but partners in city firms, QCs, ceos and directors of big companies are not going to be very attracted by a pay cut to £80k.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
I'm not sure why you think the first sentence is true. Most who are at this level are in it for the challenge, they aren't all greedy bastards. They have enough already and the evidence is there in that the HofC is full of people who have taken that pay cut from such jobs to become MPs (as per @NickPalmer) and it is certainly true in other walks of life also. I walked away from lucrative employment to set up my own business and work part time and then do voluntary work part time with the rest of my time and I know lots of others who have done the same.
When you are well enough off to do it there are other challenges in life other than money, money, money.
How many partners in investment banks and law firms and QCs are their in the Commons now? Very few. The last ceo of a FTSE 100 company was Archie Norman.
There are more political organisers and political researchers and SPADs in the House of Commons now than lawyers and army officers and those from working class jobs combined.
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
Lol. It's all political diagrams tonight. That one is from the Health Unions on their petition.
Their point is good, their presentation awful. They should consider real salaries, perhaps real take-home ones, not nominal ones. Plot growth since 2010 on the vertical axis. But no, they went for a wall of digits.
I don't think so - it's unconvincing. Imo they are relying on their supporters being fools who can be directed as a mob wanting to campaign by megaphones and shouting people down.
It reminds me of a previous campaign about allegedly poor pay for I think physiotherapists by the Trades Unions. They used the starting salary of a grad as a seemingly startling bit of poverty porn, and entirely forgot to mention that they all got a +25% salary uplift in year two which removed most of the impact for people who didn't swallow the thing hook, line and sinker.
The result is that they wash away chunks of their own credibility, except for their True Believers (in a theological sense) and gullibles.
Whereas PB Tories have a complete blind spot for supply and demand and appear not able to grasp that all roles in the NHS have horrendous and growing vacancies.
It's not exactly rocket science to work out that a large factor in thid is 12 years of real wage cuts due to the aforesaid PB Tories favoured Governments Public Sector wage policy
My GP reckons 1750 patients is the absolute maximum a full-time GP can safely be responsible for.
GP workload has changed tremendously too. 40% of consultations are with 10% of the patients, and that varies tremendously with the age and social deprivation of the practice.
Not just demographics but also other aspects of care. On my patch we have 4 times as many with diabetes as we did 25 years ago, approaching 10% of the population and nearly all are now managed in General Practice.
Picking this back up. It's worth a look at those charts.
eg "My GP reckons 1750 patients is the absolute maximum a full-time GP can safely be responsible for."
The Nuffield Chart puts the actual numbers at 70% of your suggested safe maximum, and that ignores all those who use alternative services:
Lots of people for many years and from many different points on the political spectrum have said that growth in the UK economy has underperformed. So that's not an original point from Truss.
Whether creating a run on the pound and a sovereign debt crisis was the way to tackle this long term problem is an exercise left to the reader.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
I live in a world where I - and every single woman I know - has suffered sexual abuse or assault of some kind, from indecent exposure to rape, and where men like you seek to excuse it or handwave it away if the perpetrator is famous or artistic or some such rubbish. Shall we go over the Roman Polanski case again?
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted in a TV interview that some men may abuse the provisions of this Bill but as it's likely (she says) to be a small number that's all ok.
So I ask you how many times would it be acceptable for a woman to be attacked? What is the limit which you will expect her to tolerate? How often does a woman have to be attacked before even you might think this is not acceptable?
Holyrood had the opportunity last night to exclude convicted sex offenders, all of them, from the provisions of this Bill. It chose not to. That sends a very clear message about how much it values the rights of sex offenders and how little it values the rights of their victims.
That the UK has been badly mismanaged by successive mostly Tory governments? Sure
That the UK could be fixed by more extreme Tory mismanagement? No
It is clear now that the UK’s economic model was permanently damaged in 2007 by the GFC. We had been outclassing our peers until then, after that we fell behind in multiple ways. And what was damaged in 2007 was then smashed by Covid
The Tories - and Brexit - have not helped, but the failing is more fundamental than party politics
I love my ghost. Step out of the office to make a brew. Lights are on. Come back 5 minutes later. Lights are off. I'm the only person in the building. Switch has been thrown to turn them off. Not by me.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
The header is not about the merits of the bill at all, it is about the way in which a loophole in it is closed off.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
How is your comment any different from what you say of the header ?
I take issue with some of Cyclefree's points (see, for example, my post upthread), but if you're unhappy with the arguments, then address them.
It isn't but it's shorter and it isn't a header. I know little about the subject other than what I've said so I was looking forward to this relatively long read which might throw some light on it.
There was a discussion on Ch4 News last night between an MSP and someone from Stonewall. The format (a wet evening outside the Scottish Parliament with brollies) was poor with an interviewer who knew nothing about the subject yet I found it more informative than the angry header.
Apologies if you or cyclefree were offended but sometimes it's better to lose your anger before writing
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
For most people yes but partners in city firms, QCs, ceos and directors of big companies are not going to be very attracted by a pay cut to £80k.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
I'm not sure why you think the first sentence is true. Most who are at this level are in it for the challenge, they aren't all greedy bastards. They have enough already and the evidence is there in that the HofC is full of people who have taken that pay cut from such jobs to become MPs (as per @NickPalmer) and it is certainly true in other walks of life also. I walked away from lucrative employment to set up my own business and work part time and then do voluntary work part time with the rest of my time and I know lots of others who have done the same.
When you are well enough off to do it there are other challenges in life other than money, money, money.
How many partners in investment banks and law firms and QCs are their in the Commons now? Very few. The last ceo of a FTSE 100 company was Archie Norman.
There are more political organisers and political researchers and SPADs in the House of Commons now than lawyers and army officers and those from working class jobs combined.
I grant you there are lot more SPADs etc now than there used to be, but that is just a consequence of the selection process. You don't have to be an Archie Norman to count as well off. I'm very, very well off but nobody has heard of me. The same will be true of many MPs. I'm sure there are a large number who have taken a pay cut to go into the HofC. I have been on numerous selection panels and I'm struggling to think of a single person who would not have been taking a pay cut (admittedly posh parts of Surrey), but all were looking to move on to something new or to give back to society..
Although some people in high paid jobs are driven by money, most aren't once they have it. They are driven by the challenge, or the desire to give something back, or to do something new. And those that are driven by money are doing so for the challenge, not the ability to spend more (as @Stuartinromford says it is the score).
It is very sad if you think everyone who is in the fortunate position of being well off is still driven by more money, more money, more money. It implies you have a very cynical view of humanity. A lot of us are better than that.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
How is your comment any different from what you say of the header ?
I take issue with some of Cyclefree's points (see, for example, my post upthread), but if you're unhappy with the arguments, then address them.
It is interesting to see that for some people the only possible response is -
“Bad think. Complex. Ignore. Me progressive because not think.”
I love my ghost. Step out of the office to make a brew. Lights are on. Come back 5 minutes later. Lights are off. I'm the only person in the building. Switch has been thrown to turn them off. Not by me.
Most likely explanation is that you switched the lights off without thinking when you left, but don't remember doing so.
This sort of thing happens to me a lot with things like locking the car/house, etc, all things that you do so often you no longer think about them as you do them
That the UK has been badly mismanaged by successive mostly Tory governments? Sure
That the UK could be fixed by more extreme Tory mismanagement? No
It is clear now that the UK’s economic model was permanently damaged in 2007 by the GFC. We had been outclassing our peers until then, after that we fell behind in multiple ways. And what was damaged in 2007 was then smashed by Covid
The Tories - and Brexit - have not helped, but the failing is more fundamental than party politics
Not just the UK, the global financial model and we need to go through some pain to get back to some sort of normality.
The days of cheap money and the consequential asset bubbles should be coming to an end.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
I live in a world where I - and every single woman I know - has suffered sexual abuse or assault of some kind, from indecent exposure to rape, and where men like you seek to excuse it or handwave it away if the perpetrator is famous or artistic or some such rubbish. Shall we go over the Roman Polanski case again?
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted in a TV interview that some men may abuse the provisions of this Bill but as it's likely (she says) to be a small number that's all ok.
So I ask you how many times would it be acceptable for a woman to be attacked? What is the limit which you will expect her to tolerate? How often does a woman have to be attacked before even you might think this is not acceptable?
Holyrood had the opportunity last night to exclude convicted sex offenders, all of them, from the provisions of this Bill. It chose not to. That sends a very clear message about how much it values the rights of sex offenders and how little it values the rights of their victims.
I am with you part of the way. As I said above the problem was, is, and will be men. We need to make some dickheads learn some respect and stop women from living in fear. But I do think there is a point where we lapse into absolutism. As the GRC isn't going to be inspected by anyone acting as gatekeepers for women's spaces, it doesn't make a difference in practice. That the police have the power to intervene is more important.
To expand on my previous comment a little it seemed to me that the designers of the 2004 Act had a choice. They could either have made gender alteration relatively easy but then built in a series of safeguards to protect vulnerable women (making the certificate much less that the "for all purposes" provision in s9 I quoted earlier) or they could forego the safeguards but make obtaining a certificate more difficult requiring substantial commitment, medical intervention if not actual surgery, and an objective assessment. The drafters of the 2004 Act went for the latter option.
I would say in passing neither of these options is perfect or incapable of exploitation. People born men have obtained GRCs under the 2004 regime and then committed sexual assaults. Sports in particular have struggled with the implications of gender reassignation with historic hormonal advantages. But the solution was balanced and the evidence is that it has caused relatively little trouble.
What the Scottish bill is doing is undoing one part of that compromise (the safeguards) without offering any alternative. This is, in fairness to the Scottish government, in part because putting in other safeguards (such as excluding those who have GRCs from specific areas without further checks) are beyond their power. The courts have been very clear that the rights given by the Equality Act are reserved and beyond their power to change. This is one of the reasons so many of the amendments were voted down last night. Any attempt to impose such restrictions would make the bill vulnerable to judicial challenge.
I can see the frustration. If you are of the view that transsexuals are unfairly treated by the medicalisation of their condition and want to change things you are stuck between a rock and hard place. What Nicola Sturgeon in particular has done is to resolve this tension by denying that there is a problem at all. the safeguards in the 2004 Act were simply not necessary. Many women with experience in these matters have been outraged by this, that hard won rights brought in to protect women are being thought to be less important than the rights of transsexuals.
A potential solution is that the UK government could amend the 2004 Act to impose restrictions on a certificate granted by the Scottish authorities imposing different safeguards. Kemi Badenoch has already hinted that England may do so if this legislation comes into force but this does not have to be a confrontational issue. It would be better if the governments worked together to resolve this as they keep promising (and failing) to do.
I love my ghost. Step out of the office to make a brew. Lights are on. Come back 5 minutes later. Lights are off. I'm the only person in the building. Switch has been thrown to turn them off. Not by me.
Most likely explanation is that you switched the lights off without thinking when you left, but don't remember doing so.
This sort of thing happens to me a lot with things like locking the car/house, etc, all things that you do so often you no longer think about them as you do them
I really didn't. As the ghost likes to turn the lights off I leave and think - and sometimes say out loud - "I'm leaving the lights on". Unlikely that having done so I then turned them off and forgot.
Besides which, I and various other people have seen this particular ghosts. And there's various other poltergeist activity. Not just the lights.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
I live in a world where I - and every single woman I know - has suffered sexual abuse or assault of some kind, from indecent exposure to rape, and where men like you seek to excuse it or handwave it away if the perpetrator is famous or artistic or some such rubbish. Shall we go over the Roman Polanski case again?
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted in a TV interview that some men may abuse the provisions of this Bill but as it's likely (she says) to be a small number that's all ok.
So I ask you how many times would it be acceptable for a woman to be attacked? What is the limit which you will expect her to tolerate? How often does a woman have to be attacked before even you might think this is not acceptable?
Holyrood had the opportunity last night to exclude convicted sex offenders, all of them, from the provisions of this Bill. It chose not to. That sends a very clear message about how much it values the rights of sex offenders and how little it values the rights of their victims.
I am with you part of the way. As I said above the problem was, is, and will be men. We need to make some dickheads learn some respect and stop women from living in fear. But I do think there is a point where we lapse into absolutism. As the GRC isn't going to be inspected by anyone acting as gatekeepers for women's spaces, it doesn't make a difference in practice. That the police have the power to intervene is more important.
It makes a difference in practice in places like prisons, or in terms of which teachers will supervise female students on a school trip, or single-sex hospital wards, or which police officer is allowed to strip search you and a myriad other circumstances.
I love my ghost. Step out of the office to make a brew. Lights are on. Come back 5 minutes later. Lights are off. I'm the only person in the building. Switch has been thrown to turn them off. Not by me.
Most likely explanation is that you switched the lights off without thinking when you left, but don't remember doing so.
This sort of thing happens to me a lot with things like locking the car/house, etc, all things that you do so often you no longer think about them as you do them
I really didn't. As the ghost likes to turn the lights off I leave and think - and sometimes say out loud - "I'm leaving the lights on". Unlikely that having done so I then turned them off and forgot.
Besides which, I and various other people have seen this particular ghosts. And there's various other poltergeist activity. Not just the lights.
You’ve actually seen the ghost?! That’s incredibly rare in hauntings; ie whether you believe in ghosts or not, hauntings follow a pattern and actually ‘seeing’ a ghost is quite unusual
Biden explains why Ukraine not given weapons to swiftly defeat Russia https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/22/biden-explains-why-ukraine-not-given-weapons-to-swiftly-defeat-russia/ ...“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? For two reasons,” he said. “One: There is an entire alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine, and the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and the European Union and the rest of the world.”
Mr. Biden continued: “We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to be able to defend itself, to be able to succeed, and to succeed on the battlefield.” ...
But there is definitely kit that has not been supplied, which would not have crossed these red lines, and might have had a very large impact on the battlefield.
I'm of the opinion that more and earlier military aid which could shorten the war would be a sensible policy. Just enough aid for Ukraine to hold out risks prolonging the conflict indefinitely, and will be more costly in the long run.
I love my ghost. Step out of the office to make a brew. Lights are on. Come back 5 minutes later. Lights are off. I'm the only person in the building. Switch has been thrown to turn them off. Not by me.
Most likely explanation is that you switched the lights off without thinking when you left, but don't remember doing so.
This sort of thing happens to me a lot with things like locking the car/house, etc, all things that you do so often you no longer think about them as you do them
What do Sturgeon / the SNP gain from this? Presumably she’s doing it because she believes it’s “the right thing” to do?
Nicola Sturgeon's attitude is essentially that "if lives have to be lost, that's just the way it is."
This is nonsense. And the header is misleading and biased imo. Several countries handle gender recognition in ways similar to the Scottish reforms ie a process based on self declaration rather than psychiatric diagnosis. There's solid precedent over a prolonged period. It's not some crazy experiment. There are issues to be considered, valid disagreements, but stuff like a "rapists charter"? C'mon. Neither evidence nor logic supports any such conclusion. It's as irrational as the other extreme of saying gender identity should replace birth sex in all aspects of life and the law. It's no slam dunk but on balance I support these reforms and see no "shame" in them at all. If anything Sturgeon is to be congratulated for holding firm on it.
There is lots of evidence of harm in other countries with self-ID. You simply choose to ignore it. The Scottish government which loudly claims that there is no evidence of harm admitted in a written Parliamentary answer that it had done no analysis of the effects of self-ID in other countries. I'd post the evidence if there was even the remotest chance of you reading it. But from your post I have to conclude that you support allowing convicted sex offenders to hide their identity and evade DBS checks. So I won't bother.
I'm supportive of both self-id and the equality act exemptions for single sex spaces. There's no fatal contradiction there imo. I don't ignore facts or argument which challenge this view - but I've yet to come across anything of much substance.
So, yes, around 20 countries have gone this route - demedicalizing the gender recognition process - and if there is indeed "lots of evidence" of serious consequential harm done I am definitely interested to see it.
You are going to have to do a lot of reading then.
First on the legal consequences of the Haldane judgment. If that judgment stands the Equality Act exemptions are meaningless because a man will legally be a woman and therefore cannot be excluded from a single sex space on the grounds of sex. As expert equality lawyers have explained, the interaction of the GRA, the EA, the Haldane Judgment and this Bill will affect those exemptions and on "equal opportunities" - a reserved matter under the devolution settlement. See this - https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2022/12/21/michael-foran-sex-gender-and-the-scotland-act/.
There is evidence from Canada, Argentina, Belgium, Ireland, Spain. Please note also that comparisons are not easy to make because how crime statistics are collected is not consistent. In some cases relevant information is not collected and the existing laws on discrimination and how they interact with gender recognition are very different to what they are in the U.K. Even the Scottish government has admitted that they did not have evidence to support their Equality Impact Assessment Report.
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
I live in a world where I - and every single woman I know - has suffered sexual abuse or assault of some kind, from indecent exposure to rape, and where men like you seek to excuse it or handwave it away if the perpetrator is famous or artistic or some such rubbish. Shall we go over the Roman Polanski case again?
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted in a TV interview that some men may abuse the provisions of this Bill but as it's likely (she says) to be a small number that's all ok.
So I ask you how many times would it be acceptable for a woman to be attacked? What is the limit which you will expect her to tolerate? How often does a woman have to be attacked before even you might think this is not acceptable?
Holyrood had the opportunity last night to exclude convicted sex offenders, all of them, from the provisions of this Bill. It chose not to. That sends a very clear message about how much it values the rights of sex offenders and how little it values the rights of their victims.
PS. and OT. .....I read your "They're trolling us now" header a few days ago when I was in Pisa and thought it excellent. One of your best and was going post something to that effect but by the time I was able to the thread had moved on so I thought it wouldn't be read .
Much of the fuss seems to be over the issuing of GRCs to sex offenders. Alex Cole-Hamilton has tweeted at length on this one, pointing out that no female spaces - changing rooms as an example - demand to see proof of gender such as a birth certificate or GRC before allowing access. And that the police will have the power to ask the authorities to ignore GRC requests made by sex offenders.
Only if the sex offender tells the police first. And why would they do that?
I was somewhat alarmed by the suggestion in your header that the Scotland bill will drive a coach and horses through the disclosure system and indeed the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act by giving someone a "clean slate". There is nothing I can see in the Bill that would have that effect. What you say would only be correct if this currently happens for those that receive certificates under the 2004 Act and I do not believe that it does. Section 9(2) of the 2004 Act provides: "(2) Subsection (1) does not affect things done, or events occurring, before the certificate is issued; but it does operate for the interpretation of enactments passed, and instruments and other documents made, before the certificate is issued (as well as those passed or made afterwards)."
The consequences of a certificate under the 2004 Act are set out in ss9-21 of the 2004 Act. These will remain the law in Scotland after the bill has passed (as it inevitably will).
The question is therefore whether there is any evidence that the provisions of s 9(1) (put shortly that a person with a GRC is that gender for all purposes) have caused problems in the last 8 years or whether broadening the category of people with a GRC by reducing the criteria makes that likely. I am not aware of such evidence but I can certainly see the risk that making the process easier would give an open door for evil men to exploit. I just can't help feeling that there has been far more heat than light on this.
The issue is this. Under the DBS scheme there is a Sensitive Applications Process for those with a GRC. This relies on the person with a GRC making available to the team doing the checking their previous identity and any previous convictions so that they can be attached to their new identity. It is entirely reliant on the good faith and honesty of the sex offender.
But if a sex offender does not do that the DBS check I will come back "clean". That is the loophole.
An employer cannot ask if someone has a GRC because they may be guilty of discrimination. Another body who knows that the applicant has a GRC may also be in breach of the law by revealing this. So the DBS system relies entirely on a sex offender being honest.
There has as you know been concern in Scotland about sex offenders changing their name and failing to notify the police of this. So what do you think are the chances of these people being honest with the DBS service?
That ought, legislatively, to be an easy fix - has that actively been prevented, or just not properly debated ?
Last night Holyrood voted down the amendment which sought to address this. The only amendment which was passed was one which relies on only certain categories of sex offenders (not all of them) informing the police of their wish to obtain a GRC. In other words, it does not deal with the issue at all.
Was the amendment (the one voted down) proposing a cross-check against criminal records as a routine part of the GRC process?
Biden explains why Ukraine not given weapons to swiftly defeat Russia https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/22/biden-explains-why-ukraine-not-given-weapons-to-swiftly-defeat-russia/ ...“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? For two reasons,” he said. “One: There is an entire alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine, and the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and the European Union and the rest of the world.”
Mr. Biden continued: “We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to be able to defend itself, to be able to succeed, and to succeed on the battlefield.” ...
But there is definitely kit that has not been supplied, which would not have crossed these red lines, and might have had a very large impact on the battlefield.
I'm of the opinion that more and earlier military aid which could shorten the war would be a sensible policy. Just enough aid for Ukraine to hold out risks prolonging the conflict indefinitely, and will be more costly in the long run.
It's quite a claim from Biden that giving Ukraine enough weaponry to defeat Russia more quickly would break up the EU.
I love my ghost. Step out of the office to make a brew. Lights are on. Come back 5 minutes later. Lights are off. I'm the only person in the building. Switch has been thrown to turn them off. Not by me.
Most likely explanation is that you switched the lights off without thinking when you left, but don't remember doing so.
This sort of thing happens to me a lot with things like locking the car/house, etc, all things that you do so often you no longer think about them as you do them
I really didn't. As the ghost likes to turn the lights off I leave and think - and sometimes say out loud - "I'm leaving the lights on". Unlikely that having done so I then turned them off and forgot.
Besides which, I and various other people have seen this particular ghosts. And there's various other poltergeist activity. Not just the lights.
You’ve actually seen the ghost?! That’s incredibly rare in hauntings; ie whether you believe in ghosts or not, hauntings follow a pattern and actually ‘seeing’ a ghost is quite unusual
If I may ask: what did you and others see?
I've talked about this before. We have at least three ghosts that I know of: "Jim" - various people have seen in mirrors, in the corner of the eye and even at one point stepping behind my wife whilst she was on a Zoom call. I saw him last year, about 15 metres away step from one doorway (my son's bedroom) into our laundry room. Thought it was my son - white shirt, black trousers, I shouted "oi" as I was working a power trip and the fusebox is in the laundry room. Get in there and nobody there. My son still in his room and I'd forgotten it was a non-uniform day. "Misty" - a black cat shape which we'd confused with our own black cat until we realised he was howling at this shape. Has been seen multiple times including broad daylight "Jane" - as in doe. A little girl of perhaps 6, only ever heard and thats only occasionally. Scottish accent calling for her mummy. And no, it isn't our 11-year old daughter playing a prank - unless she can throw her voice from school.
Jim the ghost we believe to be James Shives who was a bank employee who died here in the 1890s. Would fit the clothes seen and the link to the building.
That the UK has been badly mismanaged by successive mostly Tory governments? Sure
That the UK could be fixed by more extreme Tory mismanagement? No
It is clear now that the UK’s economic model was permanently damaged in 2007 by the GFC. We had been outclassing our peers until then, after that we fell behind in multiple ways. And what was damaged in 2007 was then smashed by Covid
The Tories - and Brexit - have not helped, but the failing is more fundamental than party politics
Our reliance on the finance sector. Live by the sword ...
But they will gleefully fill the pockets of their bent cronies. And themselves. Goes without saying.
There are also 600,000 nurses but only 600 MPs.
A jaw dropping comment even by your standard of tin-eared, jaw- dropping comments.
Not only is it true the two jobs are incomparable. MPs have a far greater responsibility and should be rewarded accordingly.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I was chatting to a Conservative voter at a Christmas lunch the other day, and he offered as a defence of the Government's position that paying nurses more risked attracting people who only do it for the money - better to pay less than the rate for other jobs so as to select people who were really dedicated. I disagreed with the argument for nurses, partly on fairness grounds but also because we do need the volume of nurses, which must surely include lots of people with mixed motives - wanting to help out AND have a decent standard of living.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
For most people yes but partners in city firms, QCs, ceos and directors of big companies are not going to be very attracted by a pay cut to £80k.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
I'm not sure why you think the first sentence is true. Most who are at this level are in it for the challenge, they aren't all greedy bastards. They have enough already and the evidence is there in that the HofC is full of people who have taken that pay cut from such jobs to become MPs (as per @NickPalmer) and it is certainly true in other walks of life also. I walked away from lucrative employment to set up my own business and work part time and then do voluntary work part time with the rest of my time and I know lots of others who have done the same.
When you are well enough off to do it there are other challenges in life other than money, money, money.
How many partners in investment banks and law firms and QCs are their in the Commons now? Very few. The last ceo of a FTSE 100 company was Archie Norman.
There are more political organisers and political researchers and SPADs in the House of Commons now than lawyers and army officers and those from working class jobs combined.
I grant you there are lot more SPADs etc now than there used to be, but that is just a consequence of the selection process. You don't have to be an Archie Norman to count as well off. I'm very, very well off but nobody has heard of me. The same will be true of many MPs. I'm sure there are a large number who have taken a pay cut to go into the HofC. I have been on numerous selection panels and I'm struggling to think of a single person who would not have been taking a pay cut (admittedly posh parts of Surrey), but all were looking to move on to something new or to give back to society..
Although some people in high paid jobs are driven by money, most aren't once they have it. They are driven by the challenge, or the desire to give something back, or to do something new. And those that are driven by money are doing so for the challenge, not the ability to spend more (as @Stuartinromford says it is the score).
It is very sad if you think everyone who is in the fortunate position of being well off is still driven by more money, more money, more money. It implies you have a very cynical view of humanity. A lot of us are better than that.
Nobody is going to become an MP solely for the money and as I said MPs pay is about right.
However PMs and Cabinet Ministers should certainly be in at least the top 1% of earners, which they aren't now, that doesn't require them to make the Sunday Times rich list either
Biden explains why Ukraine not given weapons to swiftly defeat Russia https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/22/biden-explains-why-ukraine-not-given-weapons-to-swiftly-defeat-russia/ ...“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? For two reasons,” he said. “One: There is an entire alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine, and the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and the European Union and the rest of the world.”
Mr. Biden continued: “We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to be able to defend itself, to be able to succeed, and to succeed on the battlefield.” ...
But there is definitely kit that has not been supplied, which would not have crossed these red lines, and might have had a very large impact on the battlefield.
I'm of the opinion that more and earlier military aid which could shorten the war would be a sensible policy. Just enough aid for Ukraine to hold out risks prolonging the conflict indefinitely, and will be more costly in the long run.
It's quite a claim from Biden that giving Ukraine enough weaponry to defeat Russia more quickly would break up the EU.
There is massive resistance to giving Ukraine western fighter jets, longer range missiles and western tanks.
Where that massive resistance is located is not clear.
Biden explains why Ukraine not given weapons to swiftly defeat Russia https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/22/biden-explains-why-ukraine-not-given-weapons-to-swiftly-defeat-russia/ ...“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? For two reasons,” he said. “One: There is an entire alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine, and the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and the European Union and the rest of the world.”
Mr. Biden continued: “We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to be able to defend itself, to be able to succeed, and to succeed on the battlefield.” ...
But there is definitely kit that has not been supplied, which would not have crossed these red lines, and might have had a very large impact on the battlefield.
I'm of the opinion that more and earlier military aid which could shorten the war would be a sensible policy. Just enough aid for Ukraine to hold out risks prolonging the conflict indefinitely, and will be more costly in the long run.
A possible additional factor, and one they likely wouldn't want to advertise, is the position of China.
One of the biggest single risks to a Ukrainian victory is the provision by China of large quantities of military aid to Russia. This also then risks a massive economic crisis if we impose sanctions on China to try and impede this support.
If the West had adopted an approach of providing everything to Ukraine from day one - as I've advocated - anything goes, then China may have been provoked to provide support to Russia in turn.
Acting more gradually, showing China that Russia's failure in Ukraine is not solely due to Western arms support, might make that less likely.
The situation with Iran is really interesting in this respect. It has supplied Russia with drones, but the expected ballistic missiles haven't arrived.
In terms of improving the balance of forces in Ukraine's favour it is as necessary to prevent Russia from receiving military supplies and components as it is to provide the same to Ukraine.
Biden explains why Ukraine not given weapons to swiftly defeat Russia https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/22/biden-explains-why-ukraine-not-given-weapons-to-swiftly-defeat-russia/ ...“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? For two reasons,” he said. “One: There is an entire alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine, and the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and the European Union and the rest of the world.”
Mr. Biden continued: “We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to be able to defend itself, to be able to succeed, and to succeed on the battlefield.” ...
But there is definitely kit that has not been supplied, which would not have crossed these red lines, and might have had a very large impact on the battlefield.
I'm of the opinion that more and earlier military aid which could shorten the war would be a sensible policy. Just enough aid for Ukraine to hold out risks prolonging the conflict indefinitely, and will be more costly in the long run.
It's quite a claim from Biden that giving Ukraine enough weaponry to defeat Russia more quickly would break up the EU.
I don't think that's quite what he was saying. But there are weapons denied to NATO members like Turkey which might fall into the category - F16s, for example, which have been requested by Turkey and up til now not agreed to.
Biden explains why Ukraine not given weapons to swiftly defeat Russia https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/22/biden-explains-why-ukraine-not-given-weapons-to-swiftly-defeat-russia/ ...“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? For two reasons,” he said. “One: There is an entire alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine, and the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and the European Union and the rest of the world.”
Mr. Biden continued: “We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to be able to defend itself, to be able to succeed, and to succeed on the battlefield.” ...
But there is definitely kit that has not been supplied, which would not have crossed these red lines, and might have had a very large impact on the battlefield.
I'm of the opinion that more and earlier military aid which could shorten the war would be a sensible policy. Just enough aid for Ukraine to hold out risks prolonging the conflict indefinitely, and will be more costly in the long run.
It's quite a claim from Biden that giving Ukraine enough weaponry to defeat Russia more quickly would break up the EU.
There is massive resistance to giving Ukraine western fighter jets, longer range missiles and western tanks.
Where that massive resistance is located is not clear.
Unless Russia gives up, which is unlikely, then the nettle will have to be grasped at some point, regardless of the effect it has on Western "unity".
Cyclefree lives in a black and white world where there are goodies and baddies. Unusual for a lawyer whose expertise is eking out the merits on both sides. I know a couple of young people who support this bill so It would have been more than a little interesting to hear the arguments. Unfortunately this header isn't even a presentation of a case but an angry rant.
I live in a world where I - and every single woman I know - has suffered sexual abuse or assault of some kind, from indecent exposure to rape, and where men like you seek to excuse it or handwave it away if the perpetrator is famous or artistic or some such rubbish. Shall we go over the Roman Polanski case again?
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted in a TV interview that some men may abuse the provisions of this Bill but as it's likely (she says) to be a small number that's all ok.
So I ask you how many times would it be acceptable for a woman to be attacked? What is the limit which you will expect her to tolerate? How often does a woman have to be attacked before even you might think this is not acceptable?
Holyrood had the opportunity last night to exclude convicted sex offenders, all of them, from the provisions of this Bill. It chose not to. That sends a very clear message about how much it values the rights of sex offenders and how little it values the rights of their victims.
I am with you part of the way. As I said above the problem was, is, and will be men. We need to make some dickheads learn some respect and stop women from living in fear. But I do think there is a point where we lapse into absolutism. As the GRC isn't going to be inspected by anyone acting as gatekeepers for women's spaces, it doesn't make a difference in practice. That the police have the power to intervene is more important.
Inspection of a GRC is not the point. If someone has it or claims to have it, the entity faces a potential discrimination claim and so will let a man in. At that point, practically, women have lost their single sex space - even if the entity was wrong to do what it did.
So women either have to take the risk (why?) or stay away. If they stay away of course there won't be incidents and so stupid people will claim that there is no issue. What they refuse to notice is that women are taking avoidance action to avoid risk and effectively having to limit themselves because men's needs have been put first.
Women having to restrict themselves, take avoidance action, be conscious of risks is the story of womens' lives. It happens because of men - not all, obviously - but it is men who are and will always remain the biggest risks to women.
And the number of people who refuse to see this or pretend that it does not matter or that it is a small risk or that somehow it can be wished away, is truly truly depressing.
I am signing off now as I have Xmas stuff to do and also because I am quite depressed enough as it is.
I wish you all the best and will, God willing, see you at some point next year.
Biden explains why Ukraine not given weapons to swiftly defeat Russia https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/22/biden-explains-why-ukraine-not-given-weapons-to-swiftly-defeat-russia/ ...“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? For two reasons,” he said. “One: There is an entire alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine, and the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and the European Union and the rest of the world.”
Mr. Biden continued: “We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to be able to defend itself, to be able to succeed, and to succeed on the battlefield.” ...
But there is definitely kit that has not been supplied, which would not have crossed these red lines, and might have had a very large impact on the battlefield.
I'm of the opinion that more and earlier military aid which could shorten the war would be a sensible policy. Just enough aid for Ukraine to hold out risks prolonging the conflict indefinitely, and will be more costly in the long run.
It's quite a claim from Biden that giving Ukraine enough weaponry to defeat Russia more quickly would break up the EU.
There is massive resistance to giving Ukraine western fighter jets, longer range missiles and western tanks.
Where that massive resistance is located is not clear.
Unless Russia gives up, which is unlikely, then the nettle will have to be grasped at some point, regardless of the effect it has on Western "unity".
That's probably why the US looks as though it might be shifting on giving Turkey F16s.
Comments
Was out for dinner with friends at the weekend. Amongst the party was one who has been living as a woman for 18 months and is about to start hormone treatment and another cis female who has suffered abuse from men in the past.
I'm sure we can find ways to allow the one to transition to the gender they feel they have always been despite biology whilst protecting the liberty and safety of biological women from predatory and abusive men. For starter my trans friend has compassion for women who are on the end of abuse from men, rather than saying "my rights trample your rights" as some suggest.
But the police by their own admission were turning off their critical faculties in these other cases. It isn't a matter of being tone deaf and unsupportive to vulnerable people and to not enable investigators to tease out details of a complaint, or just taking it on faith.
Those are not the only two options, but police were acting like it was. That is very neatly wrong, so they need to very neatly change that, and then the more complex and subtle reality you point out is able to be properly addressed.
We have a collective issue over MP's pay in this country which is absurd.
I wonder what SBF's bail will be set at.
I am really reluctant to touch Crypto at the moment. I just don't trust it.
I do think Kevin O'Leary is right when he says it needs some form of regulation. What that is and how it manifests itself remains to be seen. However with regulation it will lose its appeal to some of its advocats.
An element must be the current flailing around by Tories and British nationalists for anything to use in their woke wars and to beat the SG on the head with - and Ireland is not relevant to that so they ignore it, in contrast to Scotland. But that's certainly only part of it; look at the SLDs for one thing, they're as unionist as an Ian Paisley teddy bear.
"The law requires that you disclose all of your previous names and addresses to the National Vetting Bureau (NVB) so that your application can be correctly processed. The NVB does however have a process whereby you can disclose your previous gender/name to the NVB only and not reveal this data on the vetting application form."
This seems like an important difference, though whether the vetting process would detect someone who failed give a previous name after a gender change is uncertain.
The ones I've noticed are the ones in the education sphere. People who started out being provocative but interesting and often useful are now drowing in their own outraged spittle.
Given that the existence of hostility towards trans individuals is probably as prevalent within the medical system as it is in society would hand a great deal of power to medical professionals significant number of whom are prone to making decisions on a basis far from grounded in either science or evidence.
I speak as the parent of a child with some experience of the system, so this isn't a theoretical objection.
"I would be strongly supportive of investment " is, though not intended as such, a moral getout, since the likelihood of any such investment being given priority in a heavily pressured healthcare system is likely slim to non existent.
We have come from a situation where the vast majority of rapes were never prosecuted, not even reported. You need to have simple, clear, directions that the police will follow to change that. Once they had done so the outcome of their efforts will be looked at by prosecuting authorities who can look at the evidence critically but I think a default instruction to believe the complainer at first instance is an improvement on what we had before and necessary if these cases are to see the light of day. Once they have nuance and judgment can be applied but seeking to insert these too early in the process means evil men getting away with shocking crimes.
https://twitter.com/archeohistories/status/1605739077835558912
Oldest known song recording on stone 'Seikilos Stele' (200 BC), found in Tralleis (Aydın, Türkiye) BC.
While the light is still alive,
throw away the worry,
Life is short;
don't let anything get you down,
And as everything succumbs to time...
National Museum of Denmark
I
Though your basic original point was a fair one, in any case. However, part of the comparison is to do with managerial responsibility, too. It's not a common job that pays a MPs salary to someone who's responsible for one or two staff, perhaps their own relatives.* A better comparison would be a self-employed sole trader/contractor.
*Edit: more like 3-4 on reflection? But that'd be a low level section in almost any job.
But I'm less sure about MPs. I took a 30% pay cut when elected as I had a good job in industry, but I was keen to do it and felt that was a fair deal. I'm not sure that we want MPs who primarily see it as a way of making money. There is, after all, no shortage of people who want the 650 jobs available, so strict supply and demand suggests otherwise (unlike nurses, for whom there is a glaring shortage). We don't want to restrict Parliament to the very rich plus the ultra-fanatics, but £80K+ and free accommodation is a decent salary to support any moderately idealistic person with one eye to looking after their families.
It is interesting to get a perspective from someone who has actually gone into the role.
As for the Tory Voter's view, thats bizarre. Nurses do need a pay rise for sure better than the one on offer. My wife works in the NHS in HR and recruitment and retention is a major issue. Other elements of the package are very good but the salary is seen by people to lag.
The comment relating to MP's is really more suited to the below the line comments in the tabloids.
"You guys give up? Or are you thirsty for more?"
Kevin McCallister
Total combat losses of the enemy from Feb 24 to Dec 22:
https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1605850295036047360
Section 9(2) of the 2004 Act provides:
"(2) Subsection (1) does not affect things done, or events occurring, before the certificate is issued; but it does operate for the interpretation of enactments passed, and instruments and other documents made, before the certificate is issued (as well as those passed or made afterwards)."
The consequences of a certificate under the 2004 Act are set out in ss9-21 of the 2004 Act. These will remain the law in Scotland after the bill has passed (as it inevitably will).
The question is therefore whether there is any evidence that the provisions of s 9(1) (put shortly that a person with a GRC is that gender for all purposes) have caused problems in the last 8 years or whether broadening the category of people with a GRC by reducing the criteria makes that likely. I am not aware of such evidence but I can certainly see the risk that making the process easier would give an open door for evil men to exploit. I just can't help feeling that there has been far more heat than light on this.
It's a mystery.
We can do so, if we combat absolutism. The problem was, is and will remain men who think women are sport, chattels, theirs to use/abuse. We can have any protection we like and its only palliative. A campaign to make misogyny and abuse as socially acceptable as drink driving is needed - the best way to protect women from these scumbags is to make a minority of my fellow men stop acting like utter scumbags.
Nurses want pay that is commensurate with their difficult work, which keeps pace with rising prices. It's pretty simple.
However for a backbench MP it is still in top 10% of earners and about right. Most of their work is constituency case work, campaigning, select cttees and questions and votes in the House. It is the PM and Cabinet who are more underpaid, even the PM not in the top 1% of earners despite running the country. Even if they do get state housing in Central London and a country mansion and security and chauffeur
Set aside the immorality of nurses being reliant on a foodbank at their own hospital - and it IS deeply immoral - and look at the basic point. This is the entire system the Tories supposedly support being left to fail.
If their intention is to bring down their version of free market capitalism and have it replaced by a much more regulated system which is less immoral and actually works, they are going about it the right way.
But if a sex offender does not do that the DBS check I will come back "clean". That is the loophole.
An employer cannot ask if someone has a GRC because they may be guilty of discrimination. Another body who knows that the applicant has a GRC may also be in breach of the law by revealing this. So the DBS system relies entirely on a sex offender being honest.
There has as you know been concern in Scotland about sex offenders changing their name and failing to notify the police of this. So what do you think are the chances of these people being honest with the DBS service?
The average full time nurse also earns £37k, I highly doubt they need to use food banks
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/63587909.amp
Tories are also not pure capitalists and never have been, even Thatcher and Truss. Monarchy, inherited wealth, the established church, the landed gentry are true Tory values. Indeed in the 19th century the Whigs and Liberals were more laissez faire capitalist than Tories like Disraeli
You can’t reinvent people to be like that - it needs training and above all, a suitable person at the start.
When you are well enough off to do it there are other challenges in life other than money, money, money.
For some, the money and the things it buys is how they keep score and the score matters to them.
For others, they reach a (lower than you might think, but not that low) threshold of "enough", and then other things- what's interesting, what gives meaning, not having to go in and ask for more- become more valuable.
You probably need both for society to work, but there's a lot of mutual incomprehension.
This leads to the suggestion there's no difference between having a man than a woman sex offender in women's prison. Which is crackers.
Reminds me a bit of a history channel I had to stop watching because the twonk fronting it claimed medieval peasants working jobs based on sex was due to outdated views of gender (and not the biological reality than men have circa twice the muscle of women).
However, my main take-away is that I wish people got as exercised about the routine, daily threat to women from non-trans men, who present a much higher risk to women than the relatively small number who may wish to exploit any GRC loopholes to pursue abuse.
For example, recent evidence suggests that women in London are much more at risk from male Metropolitan police officers than they are from random trans people seeking to access women-only spaces.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-christmas-hope-for-ukraine-and-the-world/
I was involved in a prosecution of a person who had obtained a GRC under the 2004 Act. Previous convictions prior to her gender reassignation were disclosed. I would not be confident about extrapolating from that prosecution to what the Disclosure Authorities would produce but I think you are wrong about this.
To me, the concern is that those who met the tougher criteria under the 2004 Act were much more likely to have either had surgery or hormones that would make them less capable of acting as a man sexually. They have had to show a commitment to the process over an extended period and they have to have objective evidence in the form of medical reports.
By making the registration easier it seems probable that more men who are fully functional sexually will obtain such certificates and such access. It seems probable that this will be exploited. We therefore need to either not allow this or build in other safeguards that don't currently exist under the 2004 Act regime (because the protections are elsewhere). The determination of the SNP government, the Greens and some Lib Dems and Labour MSPs to deny there is an issue here is simply bewildering.
The SNP believes that the amendment Findlay proposed was not compatible with the ECHR and so would have resulted in the bill being thrown out.
They also believe that their own amendment on the topic achieves the same effect and does not run the risk of being thrown out.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23206439.msps-vote-to-allow-sex-criminals-change-gender/
I take issue with some of Cyclefree's points (see, for example, my post upthread), but if you're unhappy with the arguments, then address them.
So, yes, around 20 countries have gone this route - demedicalizing the gender recognition process - and if there is indeed "lots of evidence" of serious consequential harm done I am definitely interested to see it.
The Scottish government wishes to put its trust in - and expects women to put their trust in - the good faith and honesty of convicted sex offenders.
There are more political organisers and political researchers and SPADs in the House of Commons now than lawyers and army officers and those from working class jobs combined.
That the UK could be fixed by more extreme Tory mismanagement? No
eg "My GP reckons 1750 patients is the absolute maximum a full-time GP can safely be responsible for."
The Nuffield Chart puts the actual numbers at 70% of your suggested safe maximum, and that ignores all those who use alternative services:
Whether creating a run on the pound and a sovereign debt crisis was the way to tackle this long term problem is an exercise left to the reader.
Nicola Sturgeon has admitted in a TV interview that some men may abuse the provisions of this Bill but as it's likely (she says) to be a small number that's all ok.
So I ask you how many times would it be acceptable for a woman to be attacked? What is the limit which you will expect her to tolerate? How often does a woman have to be attacked before even you might think this is not acceptable?
Holyrood had the opportunity last night to exclude convicted sex offenders, all of them, from the provisions of this Bill. It chose not to. That sends a very clear message about how much it values the rights of sex offenders and how little it values the rights of their victims.
The Tories - and Brexit - have not helped, but the failing is more fundamental than party politics
There was a discussion on Ch4 News last night between an MSP and someone from Stonewall. The format (a wet evening outside the Scottish Parliament with brollies) was poor with an interviewer who knew nothing about the subject yet I found it more informative than the angry header.
Apologies if you or cyclefree were offended but sometimes it's better to lose your anger before writing
Although some people in high paid jobs are driven by money, most aren't once they have it. They are driven by the challenge, or the desire to give something back, or to do something new. And those that are driven by money are doing so for the challenge, not the ability to spend more (as @Stuartinromford says it is the score).
It is very sad if you think everyone who is in the fortunate position of being well off is still driven by more money, more money, more money. It implies you have a very cynical view of humanity. A lot of us are better than that.
“Bad think. Complex. Ignore. Me progressive because not think.”
This sort of thing happens to me a lot with things like locking the car/house, etc, all things that you do so often you no longer think about them as you do them
The days of cheap money and the consequential asset bubbles should be coming to an end.
The process has already begun.
I would say in passing neither of these options is perfect or incapable of exploitation. People born men have obtained GRCs under the 2004 regime and then committed sexual assaults. Sports in particular have struggled with the implications of gender reassignation with historic hormonal advantages. But the solution was balanced and the evidence is that it has caused relatively little trouble.
What the Scottish bill is doing is undoing one part of that compromise (the safeguards) without offering any alternative. This is, in fairness to the Scottish government, in part because putting in other safeguards (such as excluding those who have GRCs from specific areas without further checks) are beyond their power. The courts have been very clear that the rights given by the Equality Act are reserved and beyond their power to change. This is one of the reasons so many of the amendments were voted down last night. Any attempt to impose such restrictions would make the bill vulnerable to judicial challenge.
I can see the frustration. If you are of the view that transsexuals are unfairly treated by the medicalisation of their condition and want to change things you are stuck between a rock and hard place. What Nicola Sturgeon in particular has done is to resolve this tension by denying that there is a problem at all. the safeguards in the 2004 Act were simply not necessary. Many women with experience in these matters have been outraged by this, that hard won rights brought in to protect women are being thought to be less important than the rights of transsexuals.
A potential solution is that the UK government could amend the 2004 Act to impose restrictions on a certificate granted by the Scottish authorities imposing different safeguards. Kemi Badenoch has already hinted that England may do so if this legislation comes into force but this does not have to be a confrontational issue. It would be better if the governments worked together to resolve this as they keep promising (and failing) to do.
Besides which, I and various other people have seen this particular ghosts. And there's various other poltergeist activity. Not just the lights.
If I may ask: what did you and others see?
Biden explains why Ukraine not given weapons to swiftly defeat Russia
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/22/biden-explains-why-ukraine-not-given-weapons-to-swiftly-defeat-russia/
...“Why don’t we just give Ukraine everything there is to give? For two reasons,” he said. “One: There is an entire alliance that is critical to stay with Ukraine, and the idea that we would give Ukraine material that is fundamentally different than is already going there would have a prospect of breaking up NATO and the European Union and the rest of the world.”
Mr. Biden continued: “We’re going to give Ukraine what it needs to be able to defend itself, to be able to succeed, and to succeed on the battlefield.”
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But there is definitely kit that has not been supplied, which would not have crossed these red lines, and might have had a very large impact on the battlefield.
I'm of the opinion that more and earlier military aid which could shorten the war would be a sensible policy. Just enough aid for Ukraine to hold out risks prolonging the conflict indefinitely, and will be more costly in the long run.
First on the legal consequences of the Haldane judgment. If that judgment stands the Equality Act exemptions are meaningless because a man will legally be a woman and therefore cannot be excluded from a single sex space on the grounds of sex. As expert equality lawyers have explained, the interaction of the GRA, the EA, the Haldane Judgment and this Bill will affect those exemptions and on "equal opportunities" - a reserved matter under the devolution settlement. See this - https://ukconstitutionallaw.org/2022/12/21/michael-foran-sex-gender-and-the-scotland-act/.
Or this - https://murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2022/12/18/mbm-stage-3-briefing-on-the-gender-recognition-reform-scotland-bill/
On the evidence.
Well try this for starters.
https://medium.com/@cyclefree2/chestertons-fence-a23755f88684
There is evidence from Canada, Argentina, Belgium, Ireland, Spain. Please note also that comparisons are not easy to make because how crime statistics are collected is not consistent. In some cases relevant information is not collected and the existing laws on discrimination and how they interact with gender recognition are very different to what they are in the U.K. Even the Scottish government has admitted that they did not have evidence to support their Equality Impact Assessment Report.
Now ghosts.
PB.
LOL.
"Jim" - various people have seen in mirrors, in the corner of the eye and even at one point stepping behind my wife whilst she was on a Zoom call. I saw him last year, about 15 metres away step from one doorway (my son's bedroom) into our laundry room. Thought it was my son - white shirt, black trousers, I shouted "oi" as I was working a power trip and the fusebox is in the laundry room. Get in there and nobody there. My son still in his room and I'd forgotten it was a non-uniform day.
"Misty" - a black cat shape which we'd confused with our own black cat until we realised he was howling at this shape. Has been seen multiple times including broad daylight
"Jane" - as in doe. A little girl of perhaps 6, only ever heard and thats only occasionally. Scottish accent calling for her mummy. And no, it isn't our 11-year old daughter playing a prank - unless she can throw her voice from school.
Jim the ghost we believe to be James Shives who was a bank employee who died here in the 1890s. Would fit the clothes seen and the link to the building.
However PMs and Cabinet Ministers should certainly be in at least the top 1% of earners, which they aren't now, that doesn't require them to make the Sunday Times rich list either
Where that massive resistance is located is not clear.
One of the biggest single risks to a Ukrainian victory is the provision by China of large quantities of military aid to Russia. This also then risks a massive economic crisis if we impose sanctions on China to try and impede this support.
If the West had adopted an approach of providing everything to Ukraine from day one - as I've advocated - anything goes, then China may have been provoked to provide support to Russia in turn.
Acting more gradually, showing China that Russia's failure in Ukraine is not solely due to Western arms support, might make that less likely.
The situation with Iran is really interesting in this respect. It has supplied Russia with drones, but the expected ballistic missiles haven't arrived.
In terms of improving the balance of forces in Ukraine's favour it is as necessary to prevent Russia from receiving military supplies and components as it is to provide the same to Ukraine.
But there are weapons denied to NATO members like Turkey which might fall into the category - F16s, for example, which have been requested by Turkey and up til now not agreed to.
So women either have to take the risk (why?) or stay away. If they stay away of course there won't be incidents and so stupid people will claim that there is no issue. What they refuse to notice is that women are taking avoidance action to avoid risk and effectively having to limit themselves because men's needs have been put first.
Women having to restrict themselves, take avoidance action, be conscious of risks is the story of womens' lives. It happens because of men - not all, obviously - but it is men who are and will always remain the biggest risks to women.
And the number of people who refuse to see this or pretend that it does not matter or that it is a small risk or that somehow it can be wished away, is truly truly depressing.
I am signing off now as I have Xmas stuff to do and also because I am quite depressed enough as it is.
I wish you all the best and will, God willing, see you at some point next year.