Re; the earlier discussion on whether Ed Miliband was more ideological than Starmer, I would also say that about 10 years ago Ed M. was the only major person in British politics talking about issues such as our absurdly lax attitude to the ownership of strategic industries and intellectual capital, compared even to the US, or the unfortunate short-termism, and attitides to long-term investment , that result from over-financialisation of our economy.
Ten years on, and these faults are so glaringly obvious, particularly in the light of Brexit not making them any better, that even right-of-centre posters like Max on here regularly raise them nowadays. Starmer also understands a lot more of this than Blair did, because these ideas and concerns are becoming mainstream by comparison.
Ed Miliband was the soft left candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election v the centrist David Miliband.
Starmer by contrast was the centrist Labour leadership candidate in the 2020 Labour leadership election v the leftwing Rebecca Long Bailey
But crucially, that's because Miliband and then Corbyn had moved the Labour centre to the left.
Starmer is clearly further to the left than Blair.
Re; the earlier discussion on whether Ed Miliband was more ideological than Starmer, I would also say that about 10 years ago Ed M. was the only major person in British politics talking about issues such as our absurdly lax attitude to the ownership of strategic industries and intellectual capital, compared even to the US, or the unfortunate short-termism, and attitides to long-term investment , that result from over-financialisation of our economy.
Ten years on, and these faults are so glaringly obvious, particularly in the light of Brexit not making them any better, that even right-of-centre posters like Max on here regularly raise them nowadays. Starmer also understands a lot more of this than Blair did, because these ideas and concerns are becoming mainstream by comparison.
Ed Miliband was the soft left candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election v the centrist David Miliband.
Starmer by contrast was the centrist Labour leadership candidate in the 2020 Labour leadership election v the leftwing Rebecca Long Bailey
But crucially, that's because Miliband and then Corbyn had moved the Labour centre to the left.
Starmer is clearly further to the left than Blair.
It certainly matches personal experience (although I know that is a dubious basis for any claim) in that several friends and relatives who used to rent out flats or single properties have now sold them specifically because of the changes in regulation.
Yup - the government specifically raised costs for small private landlords. Chiefly on the mortgage interest tax allowance thing.
Increasing costs reduces the number of participants in a market? I’m shocked, shocked i tell you…
Not just the costs. There have been significant changes in terms and regulation for landlords which, whilst sometimes well meant, have basically ended up driving very large numbers of people out of the market entirely.
Landlords selling up doesn't improve home ownership levels unless house prices fall significantly and even then not if mortgage interest rates rise significantly for buyers too (unless for the minority who are largely cash buyers)
Amazed people think that the size of the UK rental sector could halve in 3 years!
What was found was that the average number of properties available to rent at a given time per branch, had halved, which is of course completely different and far less alarming. That is not to minimise the increased difficulty of finding rental properties at the moment and the competition for them.
A positive part of the reason for this is the average length of tenancy increasing from 3.9 years in 2016/17 to 4.3 years by 2021. Another minor reason will be an increase in people renting via online only estate agencies and social media.
The increased costs on landlords give increased benefits to tenants, hence, on average them staying longer. Landlords leaving the sector and selling moves people into home ownership.
The big negative reason is airbnb and similar style taking properties out of the number of secure homes.
Landlords leaving the sector doesn't lead to more home ownership unless house prices also fall.
What happens to these houses when the landlords sell?
1. Left Empty 2. Demolished 3. Sold to another landlord 4. Sold to a tenant 5. Sold as a second home 6. Changed to airbnb
I suggest 3 & 4 are the overwhelming majority, 1, 5 & 6 should all be (more) heavily taxed and 2 is extremely rare.
5 is the most common. Thus removing homes from the rental market.
23% of purchases are subject to additional stamp duty as being second homes, with the significant majority of those understood to be rental properties.
The article I quoted said that 94% of properties taken off the rental market by their owners were sold with less than half of those then returning to thecrental market. Basic maths means that if those numbers are correct as a minimum 47% of the properties coming off the rental market fall under the 5th option.
You are forgetting first time buyers!
Who still can't buy if mortgage rates stay high unless mainly cash buyers.
It would be second or third time buyers moving up the ladder who are the buyers primarily
You know what I am going to ask next right? What happens to the homes that they move out of......
Bought by those already on the ladder too mainly until mortgage interest rates fall, or the minority of first time buyers who are cash buyers
If cash buyers are the minority of first time buyers, who are the majority of first time buyers? And why can't you bring yourself to say that those first time buyers are buying the homes of landlords leaving the sector?
They aren't as they often can't afford the big repayments on mortgage loans now required after soaring mortgage interest rates even with falling house prices.
Cash buyers don't have that problem
So are you now claiming cash buyers are the majority, not the minority, of first time buyers?
Or that people who can't afford to buy are actually the majority of first time buyers???
Rising borrowing costs after the Ukraine war and mini Budget have reduced the number of first time buyers
Fascinating. Who would have imagined that? You certainly have a politicians knack of giving endless answers that fail to answer questions, going round in circles until the interviewer gives up. Well done.
I'm going to leave the politics to others. The tax part of the Zahawi story, and therefore my role, feels over. But I wanted to sign off by correcting three takes which we’re going to hear a lot of, and I think are wrong.
The point about SLAPP tactics which make it financially impossible for journalists to investigate stories unless they have very well financed and committed backing, is perhaps the most important one. Such abuse of the legal system by the rich will remain, long after this government is history, unless something is done about it. It needs addressing.
Neidle has performed a very valuable public service in not only exposing Zahawi’s tax situation, but also exposing SLAPP tactics for the paper tigers they are. I trust more recipients of such letters in future will be emboldened to respond with the reply given in Arkell vs Pressdram.
Sinn Féin 33% (+2) Fine Gael 21% (-3) Fianna Fáil 15% (nc) Social Democrats 6% (+2) Greens 4% (-1) Labour 4% (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 3% (nc) Aontú 2% (nc) others/independents 12% (+1)
I'm going to leave the politics to others. The tax part of the Zahawi story, and therefore my role, feels over. But I wanted to sign off by correcting three takes which we’re going to hear a lot of, and I think are wrong.
The point about SLAPP tactics which make it financially impossible for journalists to investigate stories unless they have very well financed and committed backing, is perhaps the most important one. Such abuse of the legal system by the rich will remain, long after this government is history, unless something is done about it. It needs addressing.
Neidle has performed a very valuable public service in not only exposing Zahawi’s tax situation, but also exposing SLAPP tactics for the paper tigers they are. I trust more recipients of such letters in future will be emboldened to respond with the reply given in Arkell vs Pressdram.
Or, if you have HBO's money behind you, Murray vs Oliver;
No - trans identified males compete in the male category. Or if there is a transgender category in that one.
But you cannot have a situation where a woman who dopes up gets banned but a man with the same level of testosterone or even more in his body and the advantages of a male body gets to compete against women. How can that possibly be fair? If men and women compete in the same categories women's sport will largely be destroyed.
We have seen it in weightlifting, swimming and rowing that men who are not good enough to win prizes in the male category call themselves women and then win the women's prizes and exclude women who would otherwise compete.
I take issue with this, if they genuinely believe they are a woman then who am I to say they aren't?
What else is a matter of self identification? Race?
Gender which is what I refer, is a concept made up by society, frequently we've had more than two genders in history.
And what some people seem to want to do is deny the existence of biological sex. Ultimately, that's what this is all about.
I spoke to this above, a few nutters do but virtually nobody is saying there aren't two sexes. People seem to dishonestly conflate the two.
Just as there are those who would deny the existence of transgender individuals. It was appearing to flirt with that position which made JK Rowling a hate figure for some, I think.
I think people are a bit quick to see that flirtation, as it is an easy way of not needing to engage, satisifed they are on the 'right' side..
We see that sort of thing all the time on political issues of course, and that's because this is a political issue, as any issues of balancing rights would be.
Re; the earlier discussion on whether Ed Miliband was more ideological than Starmer, I would also say that about 10 years ago Ed M. was the only major person in British politics talking about issues such as our absurdly lax attitude to the ownership of strategic industries and intellectual capital, compared even to the US, or the unfortunate short-termism, and attitides to long-term investment , that result from over-financialisation of our economy.
Ten years on, and these faults are so glaringly obvious, particularly in the light of Brexit not making them any better, that even right-of-centre posters like Max on here regularly raise them nowadays. Starmer also understands a lot more of this than Blair did, because these ideas and concerns are becoming mainstream by comparison.
Ed Miliband was the soft left candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election v the centrist David Miliband.
Starmer by contrast was the centrist Labour leadership candidate in the 2020 Labour leadership election v the leftwing Rebecca Long Bailey
But crucially, that's because Miliband and then Corbyn had moved the Labour centre to the left.
Starmer is clearly further to the left than Blair.
Yes but Blair was the most rightwing Labour leader in history, more a centrist Liberal than a socialist or even social democrat
Sinn Féin 33% (+2) Fine Gael 21% (-3) Fianna Fáil 15% (nc) Social Democrats 6% (+2) Greens 4% (-1) Labour 4% (nc) People Before Profit/Solidarity 3% (nc) Aontú 2% (nc) others/independents 12% (+1)
(Red C/Business Post; 25 January; 1,004)
Or in other words FG/FF 36%, SF 33%.
FG/FF now effectively nearly one party of the centre right now
That would be pretty hilarious given their historic positions.
So now we're heading into a situation where trans people cannot compete in any professional sport?
I think basically it's a very difficult and complicated issue - and I don't have the answers. And I am not sure anyone else does either. But what I do know is that using this point to point score is one of the worst things I see. Ultimately these are human beings, we should treat them with love and compassion.
I come from a position of inclusion being the default in sport, and where exclusion has to have very strong reasons. For me, safety is a really important factor, and I can well see why some trans athletes may be excluded from sports like rugby.
Fairness in sport is a curious concept, as all top athletes are essentially freaks of nature to one degree or another. It's not the fact they train harder than any of us; they have massive inbuilt advantages. Also, access to training facilities also grants massive advantages (which is one reason why smaller but richer countries such as the UK or Australia punch above our weight in the medal tables).
And we should not forget the wrongs that were done to Caster Semenya either.
Female categories in sports such as swimming are essentially a disability category. And a fairly uncontroversial category at that. I don't think saying "because lots of other things are unfair in sport we shouldn't care about maintaining fairness in this respect" is a particularly good argument.
Actually I do, because the unfairnesses are really, really arbitrary in many sports, and some could be easily fixed. Hence weight categories in boxing, or handicapping in other sports.
Completely off topic but I wonder why basketball has not tried height categories, would make it a far more accessible sport for half the population!
Some time ago, someone on here suggested something for rugby, of a total weight cap for the entire team. So you could have a few very heavy individuals, but would have to make up for it with lighter, more agile players.
Instead of height categories; you could do the same with basketball so that there is a maximum 'height' the total players could be. Although I don't know enough about that sport to know it it would utterly spoil it - i.e. if there's enough passing etc to make 'shorter' players useful on a team.
Re; the earlier discussion on whether Ed Miliband was more ideological than Starmer, I would also say that about 10 years ago Ed M. was the only major person in British politics talking about issues such as our absurdly lax attitude to the ownership of strategic industries and intellectual capital, compared even to the US, or the unfortunate short-termism, and attitides to long-term investment , that result from over-financialisation of our economy.
Ten years on, and these faults are so glaringly obvious, particularly in the light of Brexit not making them any better, that even right-of-centre posters like Max on here regularly raise them nowadays. Starmer also understands a lot more of this than Blair did, because these ideas and concerns are becoming mainstream by comparison.
Ed Miliband was the soft left candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election v the centrist David Miliband.
Starmer by contrast was the centrist Labour leadership candidate in the 2020 Labour leadership election v the leftwing Rebecca Long Bailey
But crucially, that's because Miliband and then Corbyn had moved the Labour centre to the left.
Starmer is clearly further to the left than Blair.
Yes but Blair was the most rightwing Labour leader in history, more a centrist Liberal than a socialist or even social democrat
A somewhat odd discussion today, but the science is clear. The reference limits depend on the units used, but there is no overlap between testosterone levels in the sexes - whether total, free or bioavailable. It is not like height or weight.
There are minor complications like in the rare varieties of intersex, but these are very rare. CAIS is for instance, around one birth in 50,000. Yes, in this case, the receptor deficit means there is little if any benefit from the androgen, despite the Y chromosome.
It varies with the sport, but having no differentiation usually means women can never rise to the top of most open sports.
You can still claim that Serena Williams is the greatest tennis player ever, but she still can't compete physically with men.
Physically, there's no doubt, but the mental qualitites are still an active source of debate, and where the overlap is much larger.
Re; the earlier discussion on whether Ed Miliband was more ideological than Starmer, I would also say that about 10 years ago Ed M. was the only major person in British politics talking about issues such as our absurdly lax attitude to the ownership of strategic industries and intellectual capital, compared even to the US, or the unfortunate short-termism, and attitides to long-term investment , that result from over-financialisation of our economy.
Ten years on, and these faults are so glaringly obvious, particularly in the light of Brexit not making them any better, that even right-of-centre posters like Max on here regularly raise them nowadays. Starmer also understands a lot more of this than Blair did, because these ideas and concerns are becoming mainstream by comparison.
Ed Miliband was the soft left candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election v the centrist David Miliband.
Starmer by contrast was the centrist Labour leadership candidate in the 2020 Labour leadership election v the leftwing Rebecca Long Bailey
But crucially, that's because Miliband and then Corbyn had moved the Labour centre to the left.
Starmer is clearly further to the left than Blair.
Yes but Blair was the most rightwing Labour leader in history, more a centrist Liberal than a socialist or even social democrat
While that's true, don't forget that Tory rhetoric today is substantially to the right of John Major, so there is a relativist effect too.
So now we're heading into a situation where trans people cannot compete in any professional sport?
I think basically it's a very difficult and complicated issue - and I don't have the answers. And I am not sure anyone else does either. But what I do know is that using this point to point score is one of the worst things I see. Ultimately these are human beings, we should treat them with love and compassion.
I come from a position of inclusion being the default in sport, and where exclusion has to have very strong reasons. For me, safety is a really important factor, and I can well see why some trans athletes may be excluded from sports like rugby.
Fairness in sport is a curious concept, as all top athletes are essentially freaks of nature to one degree or another. It's not the fact they train harder than any of us; they have massive inbuilt advantages. Also, access to training facilities also grants massive advantages (which is one reason why smaller but richer countries such as the UK or Australia punch above our weight in the medal tables).
And we should not forget the wrongs that were done to Caster Semenya either.
Female categories in sports such as swimming are essentially a disability category. And a fairly uncontroversial category at that. I don't think saying "because lots of other things are unfair in sport we shouldn't care about maintaining fairness in this respect" is a particularly good argument.
Actually I do, because the unfairnesses are really, really arbitrary in many sports, and some could be easily fixed. Hence weight categories in boxing, or handicapping in other sports.
Completely off topic but I wonder why basketball has not tried height categories, would make it a far more accessible sport for half the population!
Some time ago, someone on here suggested something for rugby, of a total weight cap for the entire team. So you could have a few very heavy individuals, but would have to make up for it with lighter, more agile players.
Instead of height categories; you could do the same with basketball so that there is a maximum 'height' the total players could be. Although I don't know enough about that sport to know it it would utterly spoil it - i.e. if there's enough passing etc to make 'shorter' players useful on a team.
The three-pointer reduces the importance of height, but purists don't like it and I can understand that. Much more interesting to watch teams open up defences that shoot speculatively from distance.
I was the one who suggested the team weight limit in rugby, but that's more to do with safety. The game wasn't designed to be played by the monsters that play it today.
Re; the earlier discussion on whether Ed Miliband was more ideological than Starmer, I would also say that about 10 years ago Ed M. was the only major person in British politics talking about issues such as our absurdly lax attitude to the ownership of strategic industries and intellectual capital, compared even to the US, or the unfortunate short-termism, and attitides to long-term investment , that result from over-financialisation of our economy.
Ten years on, and these faults are so glaringly obvious, particularly in the light of Brexit not making them any better, that even right-of-centre posters like Max on here regularly raise them nowadays. Starmer also understands a lot more of this than Blair did, because these ideas and concerns are becoming mainstream by comparison.
Ed Miliband was the soft left candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election v the centrist David Miliband.
Starmer by contrast was the centrist Labour leadership candidate in the 2020 Labour leadership election v the leftwing Rebecca Long Bailey
But crucially, that's because Miliband and then Corbyn had moved the Labour centre to the left.
Starmer is clearly further to the left than Blair.
Yes but Blair was the most rightwing Labour leader in history, more a centrist Liberal than a socialist or even social democrat
Utter nonsense.
It is, but in his defence a large chunk of Labour believed that, or pretended to believe it, during the Corbyn years, and it wasn't actually unheard of even before then to hear people claim New Labour won in 1997 by becoming the Tories, silly though that might be.
It is only a matter of time before the kompromat is revealed and Trump faces charges that will destroy him.
That ought to be the case. I’m far from certain that it will be.
. .
If I had a pound for every time someone has said that “this legal development is the end for Trump”, I’d have enough to buy a round.
Of cocktails, at the bar at Rules.
I suspect that one of the things that cushions Trump is the extent to which the fungal spores of kompromat have infected the global body politic. While he is the most visible and shameless exemplar, he is far from alone. If he falls, who goes next?
Re; the earlier discussion on whether Ed Miliband was more ideological than Starmer, I would also say that about 10 years ago Ed M. was the only major person in British politics talking about issues such as our absurdly lax attitude to the ownership of strategic industries and intellectual capital, compared even to the US, or the unfortunate short-termism, and attitides to long-term investment , that result from over-financialisation of our economy.
Ten years on, and these faults are so glaringly obvious, particularly in the light of Brexit not making them any better, that even right-of-centre posters like Max on here regularly raise them nowadays. Starmer also understands a lot more of this than Blair did, because these ideas and concerns are becoming mainstream by comparison.
Ed Miliband was the soft left candidate in the 2010 Labour leadership election v the centrist David Miliband.
Starmer by contrast was the centrist Labour leadership candidate in the 2020 Labour leadership election v the leftwing Rebecca Long Bailey
But crucially, that's because Miliband and then Corbyn had moved the Labour centre to the left.
Starmer is clearly further to the left than Blair.
Yes but Blair was the most rightwing Labour leader in history, more a centrist Liberal than a socialist or even social democrat
Utter nonsense.
It is, but in his defence a large chunk of Labour believed that, or pretended to believe it, during the Corbyn years, and it wasn't actually unheard of even before then to hear people claim New Labour won in 1997 by becoming the Tories, silly though that might be.
HYUFD has a long history of pretending to know about Labour Party leaders, internal politics and history when he knows very little. He's been shown up so many times, it is embarrassing he keeps posting this drivel.
I'm going to leave the politics to others. The tax part of the Zahawi story, and therefore my role, feels over. But I wanted to sign off by correcting three takes which we’re going to hear a lot of, and I think are wrong.
The point about SLAPP tactics which make it financially impossible for journalists to investigate stories unless they have very well financed and committed backing, is perhaps the most important one. Such abuse of the legal system by the rich will remain, long after this government is history, unless something is done about it. It needs addressing.
Neidle has performed a very valuable public service in not only exposing Zahawi’s tax situation, but also exposing SLAPP tactics for the paper tigers they are. I trust more recipients of such letters in future will be emboldened to respond with the reply given in Arkell vs Pressdram.
Or, if you have HBO's money behind you, Murray vs Oliver;
How the Scottish Prison Service arrived at its trans prisoner policy:
The EQIA showed which groups had been consulted as part of the process. The Scottish Trans Alliance and Stonewall Scotland were consulted but no women’s groups were consulted.
No - trans identified males compete in the male category. Or if there is a transgender category in that one.
But you cannot have a situation where a woman who dopes up gets banned but a man with the same level of testosterone or even more in his body and the advantages of a male body gets to compete against women. How can that possibly be fair? If men and women compete in the same categories women's sport will largely be destroyed.
We have seen it in weightlifting, swimming and rowing that men who are not good enough to win prizes in the male category call themselves women and then win the women's prizes and exclude women who would otherwise compete.
I take issue with this, if they genuinely believe they are a woman then who am I to say they aren't?
They don’t genuinely believe they are are a woman. They’re male sex offenders who see an opportunity to end up in the women’s prison instead of the men’s prison.
That’s a massive problem, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with those who suffer genuine gender disphoria. The Scottish law has a massive loophole that lets male sex offenders decide whether they want to be incarcerated with men or women. The women who have been incarcerated, appear to have no rights when it comes to demanding that they don’t get raped by biological men.
This is the second UN Rapporteur to intervene in the Scottish gender debate - the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture follows the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls. It’s getting embarrassing for Sturgeon.
I expect you’d be equally dismissive if the comments were about a Tory policy…
It's not that, it's just that I know you come on here to have these debates to score political points when the Tories are doing badly, it's not about any kind of conviction.
As I said to you many times, if you want to go down this road you will lose. We saw this in Oz.
Dismissing legitimate concerns as “culture war” is what got Sturgeon into the mess she’s in. Or do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
"Mess", I am sorry but deep down you know this will change absolutely nothing for her. I know you are desperate for her to do badly but let's be honest, she's going to win a majority of Scottish seats next time around and you know it
Dodging the question - do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
If a trans person wants to compete in men's chess then I don't see the problem no
Don't be an utter twit. How about a trans identified male competing in female rugby, boxing, athletics, weightlifting, swimming, tennis?
Or does fairness in sport no longer matter?
But that is exactly what the 'you can't self identify' lobby had led to: Texas brought in a rule for high school wrestling that you had to compete as your birth gender,and a ftm trans boy won the girls wrestling two or three years in a row.
This is the second UN Rapporteur to intervene in the Scottish gender debate - the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture follows the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls. It’s getting embarrassing for Sturgeon.
I expect you’d be equally dismissive if the comments were about a Tory policy…
It's not that, it's just that I know you come on here to have these debates to score political points when the Tories are doing badly, it's not about any kind of conviction.
As I said to you many times, if you want to go down this road you will lose. We saw this in Oz.
Dismissing legitimate concerns as “culture war” is what got Sturgeon into the mess she’s in. Or do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
"Mess", I am sorry but deep down you know this will change absolutely nothing for her. I know you are desperate for her to do badly but let's be honest, she's going to win a majority of Scottish seats next time around and you know it
Dodging the question - do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
If a trans person wants to compete in men's chess then I don't see the problem no
Don't be an utter twit. How about a trans identified male competing in female rugby, boxing, athletics, weightlifting, swimming, tennis?
Or does fairness in sport no longer matter?
But that is exactly what the 'you can't self identify' lobby had led to: Texas brought in a rule for high school wrestling that you had to compete as your birth gender,and a ftm trans boy won the girls wrestling two or three years in a row.
This is the second UN Rapporteur to intervene in the Scottish gender debate - the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture follows the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls. It’s getting embarrassing for Sturgeon.
I expect you’d be equally dismissive if the comments were about a Tory policy…
It's not that, it's just that I know you come on here to have these debates to score political points when the Tories are doing badly, it's not about any kind of conviction.
As I said to you many times, if you want to go down this road you will lose. We saw this in Oz.
Dismissing legitimate concerns as “culture war” is what got Sturgeon into the mess she’s in. Or do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
"Mess", I am sorry but deep down you know this will change absolutely nothing for her. I know you are desperate for her to do badly but let's be honest, she's going to win a majority of Scottish seats next time around and you know it
Dodging the question - do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
If a trans person wants to compete in men's chess then I don't see the problem no
Don't be an utter twit. How about a trans identified male competing in female rugby, boxing, athletics, weightlifting, swimming, tennis?
Or does fairness in sport no longer matter?
But that is exactly what the 'you can't self identify' lobby had led to: Texas brought in a rule for high school wrestling that you had to compete as your birth gender,and a ftm trans boy won the girls wrestling two or three years in a row.
Sounds a very edgy edge case. FTM in M sport sounds fine to me, and s/he probably could and should have been dqed from F for drugs.
But it's not and isn't going to be an edge case of the anti trans lobby get their way. He wasn't allowed to compete as a make because of anti trans law making
It certainly matches personal experience (although I know that is a dubious basis for any claim) in that several friends and relatives who used to rent out flats or single properties have now sold them specifically because of the changes in regulation.
Also FPT:
Landlords are unlikely to be on long-term fixed interest rate mortgages, government policy has been to slowly discourage small landlords with changes such as the inability to claim interest payments against income tax, there’s evidence of sale prices having reached a peak and starting to fall this year.
All of which is leading to landlords selling up, and a suppply squeeze for rental properties leading to price increases.
I was one of those landlords, albeit not in London.
If I continue in landlording beyond my current tenant, I would (a) sell the current property and (b) form a company to hold the new properties.
Plus, I would only do it if I could afford to buy several - at least five, possibly more - and make it a full time job. Which I think would take a capital of around £700,000.
I’ve actually been looking at a coastal town (the one that we both know) recently. Huge numbers of investment properties, let annually for what look like massive returns. There must be a catch somewhere, other than that no bank is going to lend against the property so they need cash buyers?
This is the second UN Rapporteur to intervene in the Scottish gender debate - the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture follows the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls. It’s getting embarrassing for Sturgeon.
I expect you’d be equally dismissive if the comments were about a Tory policy…
It's not that, it's just that I know you come on here to have these debates to score political points when the Tories are doing badly, it's not about any kind of conviction.
As I said to you many times, if you want to go down this road you will lose. We saw this in Oz.
Dismissing legitimate concerns as “culture war” is what got Sturgeon into the mess she’s in. Or do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
"Mess", I am sorry but deep down you know this will change absolutely nothing for her. I know you are desperate for her to do badly but let's be honest, she's going to win a majority of Scottish seats next time around and you know it
Dodging the question - do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
If a trans person wants to compete in men's chess then I don't see the problem no
Don't be an utter twit. How about a trans identified male competing in female rugby, boxing, athletics, weightlifting, swimming, tennis?
Or does fairness in sport no longer matter?
But that is exactly what the 'you can't self identify' lobby had led to: Texas brought in a rule for high school wrestling that you had to compete as your birth gender,and a ftm trans boy won the girls wrestling two or three years in a row.
Presumably the girl - as part of her transition - took testosterone. Why wouldn't that be caught by anti-doping rules? A girl who took testosterone to make her stronger would I assume be banned. So a girl doing the same to transition should also be banned or there should be a transgender category.
I think in the end some sort of transgender category will be necessary in order to be fair and allow people to compete on a level playing field.
So now we're heading into a situation where trans people cannot compete in any professional sport?
No - trans identified males compete in the male category. Or if there is a transgender category in that one.
But you cannot have a situation where a woman who dopes up gets banned but a man with the same level of testosterone or even more in his body and the advantages of a male body gets to compete against women. How can that possibly be fair? If men and women compete in the same categories women's sport will largely be destroyed.
We have seen it in weightlifting, swimming and rowing that men who are not good enough to win prizes in the male category call themselves women and then win the women's prizes and exclude women who would otherwise compete.
So you are calling for them not to be able to compete. Cool (not).
As I said: the default should be for inclusion, not exclusion. As with much in life (and this is something feminists have fought for for years).
That is not what I am saying. I think fairness is key. And men can include trans identified males in their sports rather than expect women to compete against people who by their very physical nature will outcompete them.
It certainly matches personal experience (although I know that is a dubious basis for any claim) in that several friends and relatives who used to rent out flats or single properties have now sold them specifically because of the changes in regulation.
Also FPT:
Landlords are unlikely to be on long-term fixed interest rate mortgages, government policy has been to slowly discourage small landlords with changes such as the inability to claim interest payments against income tax, there’s evidence of sale prices having reached a peak and starting to fall this year.
All of which is leading to landlords selling up, and a suppply squeeze for rental properties leading to price increases.
I was one of those landlords, albeit not in London.
If I continue in landlording beyond my current tenant, I would (a) sell the current property and (b) form a company to hold the new properties.
Plus, I would only do it if I could afford to buy several - at least five, possibly more - and make it a full time job. Which I think would take a capital of around £700,000.
I’ve actually been looking at a coastal town (the one that we both know) recently. Huge numbers of investment properties, let annually for what look like massive returns. There must be a catch somewhere, other than that no bank is going to lend against the property so they need cash buyers?
Very few locals? 40% of the population must be students.
What happens in Ukraine war if Trump gets back in? Does that save Putin? 😟 All Putin needs to do now one nil up is time waste until day Trump is sworn in, and the referee blows his whistle?
I think we can predict massive pressure on next US election from foreign interference 🤮
The answer is that Europe needs to be responsible for its own defence against Russia.
An awful lot of Amercians, faced with social problems at home, are questioning why so much money is being spent on Ukraine, and why some of the richest countries in the world can’t afford to defned themselves.
Biden’s policy of attaching wildly exaggerated dollar prices on every aid package, isn’t helping in this regard. If a 30-year-old HIMARS, due for scrapping next year, gets sent to Ukraine instead of the desert, it doesn’t suddenly become worth $10m in aid. It was depreciated already, and costs $100k to transport it.
This is the second UN Rapporteur to intervene in the Scottish gender debate - the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture follows the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls. It’s getting embarrassing for Sturgeon.
I expect you’d be equally dismissive if the comments were about a Tory policy…
It's not that, it's just that I know you come on here to have these debates to score political points when the Tories are doing badly, it's not about any kind of conviction.
As I said to you many times, if you want to go down this road you will lose. We saw this in Oz.
Dismissing legitimate concerns as “culture war” is what got Sturgeon into the mess she’s in. Or do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
"Mess", I am sorry but deep down you know this will change absolutely nothing for her. I know you are desperate for her to do badly but let's be honest, she's going to win a majority of Scottish seats next time around and you know it
Dodging the question - do you support men competing in women’s sports and sending male rapists with prison onset gender dysphoria to women’s prisons?
If a trans person wants to compete in men's chess then I don't see the problem no
Don't be an utter twit. How about a trans identified male competing in female rugby, boxing, athletics, weightlifting, swimming, tennis?
Or does fairness in sport no longer matter?
But that is exactly what the 'you can't self identify' lobby had led to: Texas brought in a rule for high school wrestling that you had to compete as your birth gender,and a ftm trans boy won the girls wrestling two or three years in a row.
Presumably the girl - as part of her transition - took testosterone. Why wouldn't that be caught by anti-doping rules? A girl who took testosterone to make her stronger would I assume be banned. So a girl doing the same to transition should also be banned or there should be a transgender category.
I think in the end some sort of transgender category will be necessary in order to be fair and allow people to compete on a level playing field.
They knew he was taking testosterone. But that was overridden in the mind of the anti trans legislators by the factb that he was born female and had to compete as a female. This is the end result of 'you can't change your gender' - the exact opposite of what that intended. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Beggs?wprov=sfla1
At the root of this is a lie - that you can “change your sex” - it’s impossible. Yes, you can change your gender, but where this has gone off the rails is the pretence that “sex is assigned” and “gender is innate” and hence more important than sex.
Literally nobody is claiming that. And it makes you look very silly saying that.
Er .... Stonewall do claim that and have been campaigning for a long time to replace all references to sex in legislation with gender. I believe - but can check - that one of their witnesses in the Bailey case said that people could change sex over their lifetime. You should also check out some of the nonsense that Maggie Chapman the Green MSP has been saying on this.
My issue was with the point that people are saying you can change your sex. Nobody is claiming that.
Saying you want to change the law to refer to gender instead isn't the same thing.
There are some politicians and TRAs who do say that people can change sex. They may be barking but it simply is not correct to say that nobody is claiming that.
At some point changing sex might be something we can actually do. Right now, not so much.
I actually look forward to the day that we live an a Banksian SF future where sex is just another choice people can make. Personal bodily autonomy meets techo-futurism.
Perhaps trans people are the vanguard movement of this long future. A messy, awkward and challenging vanguard to be sure. But social change tends to be difficult and messy, so this one would be no different to any of the others.
FFS are you cuckoo, you cannot change sex and it will never be possible.
A great amount of biological sex is determined by hormones, and so it's more malleable than you might imagine. Now, for most people, hormones are regulated by genetics and so it's normally quite easy to draw an equivalence between genetics and sex without realising that it's happening via hormones.
This means that it is possible for a genetically biological male, with the right hormone treatment, to breastfeed a baby. A friend of mine from university did this a few years ago. Ultimately, therefore, it's conceivable that we're not a huge amount of medical advancement away from a genetic, biological male from receiving sufficient hormone treatment, and a transplant operation, and then carrying a foetus to term and giving birth. Given the advances being made towards growing people replacement kidneys in the lab from their own stem cells, and eventually you can conceive of growing a man a womb and ovaries in the lab that match their genetics.
To most intents and purposes a man receiving such treatment would have changed sex and become female, although they would be reliant on continuing hormone treatment.
This is all a long way from self-ID being used to change legal sex with no medical treatment being received, but the biology is a lot more complicated and nuanced.
How the Scottish Prison Service arrived at its trans prisoner policy:
The EQIA showed which groups had been consulted as part of the process. The Scottish Trans Alliance and Stonewall Scotland were consulted but no women’s groups were consulted.
Comments
Starmer is clearly further to the left than Blair.
https://youtu.be/UN8bJb8biZU?t=1226
We see that sort of thing all the time on political issues of course, and that's because this is a political issue, as any issues of balancing rights would be.
The really bad incidents will follow on Monday
Instead of height categories; you could do the same with basketball so that there is a maximum 'height' the total players could be. Although I don't know enough about that sport to know it it would utterly spoil it - i.e. if there's enough passing etc to make 'shorter' players useful on a team.
(For the record I quite like song but it doesn’t reduce me to senescent dribbling)
Of cocktails, at the bar at Rules.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/oct/13/loved-loathed-and-everywhere-how-the-three-pointer-came-to-dominate-the-nba
The three-pointer reduces the importance of height, but purists don't like it and I can understand that. Much more interesting to watch teams open up defences that shoot speculatively from distance.
I was the one who suggested the team weight limit in rugby, but that's more to do with safety. The game wasn't designed to be played by the monsters that play it today.
NEW THREAD
Just that in this case Zaharwi took on someone with bigger legal guns.
The EQIA showed which groups had been consulted as part of the process. The Scottish Trans Alliance and Stonewall Scotland were consulted but no women’s groups were consulted.
https://twitter.com/mbmpolicy/status/1619670867570720768
That’s a massive problem, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with those who suffer genuine gender disphoria. The Scottish law has a massive loophole that lets male sex offenders decide whether they want to be incarcerated with men or women. The women who have been incarcerated, appear to have no rights when it comes to demanding that they don’t get raped by biological men.
He's only been in office about a week* and already it's going wahoonie shaped.
*Edir - exactly a month, in fact.
An awful lot of Amercians, faced with social problems at home, are questioning why so much money is being spent on Ukraine, and why some of the richest countries in the world can’t afford to defned themselves.
Biden’s policy of attaching wildly exaggerated dollar prices on every aid package, isn’t helping in this regard. If a 30-year-old HIMARS, due for scrapping next year, gets sent to Ukraine instead of the desert, it doesn’t suddenly become worth $10m in aid. It was depreciated already, and costs $100k to transport it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Beggs?wprov=sfla1
Not very sensible.