Quite The Victory – politicalbetting.com

System

Quite The Victory – politicalbetting.com

This is not a mock-up. It’s the SPS draft of its policy.If you don’t know the history here, have look at the document in the thread below. When @lnmackenzie1 extracted the policy’s equality impact assessment in 2018, what she found led to the article linked in the next tweet./ https://t.co/OE7QFB4zju pic.twitter.com/cLM5CkwCp6

Read the full story here

BatteryCorrectHorse

BatteryCorrectHorse

Mexicanpete

Interesting. But is there another side to the narrative?

Fishing

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

DavidL

Lucy Blackburn is excellent company and has a better insight into how the Scottish government actually works than any MSM journalist in Scotland. It is deeply depressing that so many were content to vote for the SNP when they continue to waste public money so extravagantly defying the law. It is now 2 years since the SC set this out for them in the clearest of terms and they continue to break it. Even now Swinney is urging the Prisons not to do anything too radical in light of this judgment whilst they "consider" it.

Sandpit

On topic. Quite the editor’s note from the BBC:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0e20ll9gz2o

How come these ‘journalistic errors’ only ever go in one direction?

carnforth

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

They were acting as civilians, not civil servants though.

turbotubbs

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

We are talking about a government not complying with the law FFS. Governments are not expected to civilly disobedient.

Richard_Tyndall

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

There is a world of difference between individuals or groups in society breaking the law and suffering the consequences, and various arms of the Government itself breaking the law and expecting to get away with it. The first is, as you say, an important part of civil disobedience and civil rights. The Second is simply a blueprint for anarchy and tyranny.

DavidL

For those interested Lady Ross's decision can be read here:https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/media/pnbpzgex/2026csoh59-petition-of-for-women-scotland-for-judicial-review.pdf

Maybe paragraph 179 is enough:
" Insofar as the Prisons Guidance allows SPS to accommodate trans prisoners in
prisons for the opposite biological sex, it is in conflict with the requirement that prison
accommodation be provided separately for men and women. That constitutes a
mis-statement of the law."

kyf_100

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

Fairliered

The Scottish Government, both politicians and civil servants, are scared of Stonewall and other trans activists, who were granted access to government during the Sturgeon era. Could female prisoners raise a class action against the Scottish Government and the SPS?

turbotubbs

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

Eabhal

Richard_Tyndall said:

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

There is a world of difference between individuals or groups in society breaking the law and suffering the consequences, and various arms of the Government itself breaking the law and expecting to get away with it. The first is, as you say, an important part of civil disobedience and civil rights. The Second is simply a blueprint for anarchy and tyranny.

FPT on the property tax thing - one thing I was surprised by was how little effect a flat rate would have on the poorer parts of London. It’s wrong to assume that property prices are high across the capital, and the primary distortion is between high and low value homes across the UK, rather than geography.

MustaphaMondeo

The underlying issue is the state doesn’t give a fuck about the incarcerated. .

IMO everyone held against their will should be safe. Properly safe. Safer than on the streets. The above discussion accepts that prisoners will be unsafe.

If people were safe when institutionalised, the approach to trans etc could be more positive.

(. They should have a vote too. )

Richard_Tyndall

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

rottenborough

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

ydoethur

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

Almost certainly yes, and very possibly sooner.

Richard_Tyndall

Eabhal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

There is a world of difference between individuals or groups in society breaking the law and suffering the consequences, and various arms of the Government itself breaking the law and expecting to get away with it. The first is, as you say, an important part of civil disobedience and civil rights. The Second is simply a blueprint for anarchy and tyranny.

FPT on the property tax thing - one thing I was surprised by was how little effect a flat rate would have on the poorer parts of London. It’s wrong to assume that property prices are high across the capital, and the primary distortion is between high and low value homes across the UK, rather than geography.

It is very easy to find the numbers. The median council tax in London is £2,200 a year. The median house price in London is £500,000 a year.

So the proposal would be to more than double the median amount paid by Londoners.

It makes neither economic nor political sense.

Richard_Tyndall

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

Mortimer

Richard_Tyndall said:

Eabhal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

There is a world of difference between individuals or groups in society breaking the law and suffering the consequences, and various arms of the Government itself breaking the law and expecting to get away with it. The first is, as you say, an important part of civil disobedience and civil rights. The Second is simply a blueprint for anarchy and tyranny.

FPT on the property tax thing - one thing I was surprised by was how little effect a flat rate would have on the poorer parts of London. It’s wrong to assume that property prices are high across the capital, and the primary distortion is between high and low value homes across the UK, rather than geography.

It is very easy to find the numbers. The median council tax in London is £2,200 a year. The median house price in London is £500,000 a year.

So the proposal would be to more than double the median amount paid by Londoners.

It makes neither economic nor political sense.

There you go again, bringing logic to an ideological fight...

Sandpit

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

PoodleInASlipstream

turbotubbs said:

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

We are talking about a government not complying with the law FFS. Governments are not expected to civilly disobedient.

The government regularly acts in defiance of the law, just usually in ways that gather few or no headlines.

HYUFD

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Fairliered

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

They could have used a drone, paid for by replacing some of their droning commentators.

Richard_Tyndall

Richard_Tyndall said:

Eabhal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

There is a world of difference between individuals or groups in society breaking the law and suffering the consequences, and various arms of the Government itself breaking the law and expecting to get away with it. The first is, as you say, an important part of civil disobedience and civil rights. The Second is simply a blueprint for anarchy and tyranny.

FPT on the property tax thing - one thing I was surprised by was how little effect a flat rate would have on the poorer parts of London. It’s wrong to assume that property prices are high across the capital, and the primary distortion is between high and low value homes across the UK, rather than geography.

It is very easy to find the numbers. The median council tax in London is £2,200 a year. The median house price in London is £500,000 a year.

So the proposal would be to more than double the median amount paid by Londoners.

It makes neither economic nor political sense.

By the way @Eabhal, don't get me wrong. I think for the majority of the country it is psobably a reaosnable idea and I have no great ideological opposition to an LVT as such. But I think that wiyth such large discrepencies in house prices across the country - without equivalent discrpnecies in average earnings - it is impractical and electorally suicidal.

turbotubbs

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

See also Glasto coverage.

rottenborough

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

LOL.

If it goes to the membership he'll get like one hundred votes.

ydoethur

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

Should have hired a drone.

Although that would have been more appropriate for Starmer.

Dopermean

On a different topic on which the judiciary have made a decision without thought to the consequences, I had a phone call from local services about the DOLS assessment for my parent in a dementia care home.
It was long and fairly tortuous but the post-ruling upshot is that social services understanding of the ruling is that, regardless of my parent having been unable to give informed consent for several years, if they can get the relatives and the home to agree that my parent is happy and knows they're in a home then they can be taken off the DOLS register and they don't get a representative who checks on their wellbeing.
Not so serious if you're someone with Alzheimer's who has no prospect of their condition improving but potentially quite serious for someone who might have a condition that does improve that there will be no one looking out for them.

Malmesbury

a

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

Imagine a government you don’t like.

Say one that really, really doesn’t like trans people.

Would you like them to be constrained by the law, or free to ignore it?

To write their own “law” out of their imaginations? Without all that messy, woke legalism of judges and courts.

"…you were dealing with grotesque law, the law of the lower guts, edicts from the black side of the brain. Serious stuff. 'We will have to risk regret,' one of the two told him."

Eabhal

Richard_Tyndall said:

Eabhal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

There is a world of difference between individuals or groups in society breaking the law and suffering the consequences, and various arms of the Government itself breaking the law and expecting to get away with it. The first is, as you say, an important part of civil disobedience and civil rights. The Second is simply a blueprint for anarchy and tyranny.

FPT on the property tax thing - one thing I was surprised by was how little effect a flat rate would have on the poorer parts of London. It’s wrong to assume that property prices are high across the capital, and the primary distortion is between high and low value homes across the UK, rather than geography.

It is very easy to find the numbers. The median council tax in London is £2,200 a year. The median house price in London is £500,000 a year.

So the proposal would be to more than double the median amount paid by Londoners.

It makes neither economic nor political sense.

And a flat 0.5% (the current average rate of council tax) would see no change. London is closer to the UK than you might think, except at the top end.

1% equals double…. because it is double.

rottenborough

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

kyf_100

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

If you mean no, it's not "legally wrong" that trans women can be placed in male prisons and "v coded" now (i.e. forcibly raped as punishment, as happens in America), the no, there's nothing wrong with the article.

If you believe that is *morally wrong* then yes, yes there is quite a lot wrong with the article. And I would suggest government agencies and individuals within them are right to push back against it.

Taz

rottenborough said:

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

rottenborough said:

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

Of course. They cancel stuff people may value or cut costs on the World Cup to make a point and grift for more money

Sandpit

Fairliered said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

They could have used a drone, paid for by replacing some of their droning commentators.

Drones are very much banned over central London, at least anything heavier than 250g and capable of flying over 400’ up.

Helicopters are required to be twin-engined, unless following a specific route over the river.

Some idiot TV types putting on a drone show that shuts down Heathrow Approach, would definitely make for an interesting news story though.

Driver

Evening all.

So, are we agreed yet that Starmer would have been better off with a majority of 60 gained with a real manifesto?

Taz

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Unlikely given Starmer has gone

BatteryCorrectHorse

I’ve had it on good authority that Jones will not stand.

ydoethur

Driver said:

Evening all.

So, are we agreed yet that Starmer would have been better off with a majority of 60 gained with a real manifesto?

The problem is the crazy split of the vote meant either a huge majority or no majority.

The mistake he made was thinking he was treading on eggshells and needed to avoid offence, instead of actually getting some fundamental change through and trying to get credit for them.

turbotubbs

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

If you mean no, it's not "legally wrong" that trans women can be placed in male prisons and "v coded" now (i.e. forcibly raped as punishment, as happens in America), the no, there's nothing wrong with the article.

If you believe that is *morally wrong* then yes, yes there is quite a lot wrong with the article. And I would suggest government agencies and individuals within them are right to push back against it.

To be fair you two will never be reconciled. I think you care a huge amount for what I am going to call ‘genuine’ trans women. I think Cyclefree believes that there an awful lot of predatory men pretending to be trans to say access women in a prison. So yes it’s unlikely that a trans woman who has had their penis removed will be a predatory man, most trans women are still intact ( for a variety of reasons).

rottenborough

Pretty much the same photo - Burnham surrounded by Lab MPs in Westminster Hall - but compare and contrast:


David Yelland
@davidyelland

Andy Burnham is such a natural communicator... there's also one thing which the Westminster lobby may miss, which is the sheer emotional impact on the early evening regional TV news in the north of England… of a northerner travelling down to London to take over the country... no matter what your politics that is quite a thing for millions of people from Liverpool to Hull and all points north.

https://x.com/davidyelland/status/2069127383123140666


Lisa Mckenzie
@redrumlisa

And he's already fucking up and has failed the Makerfield Test - deindustrialised working class people hate this kind of thing it represents business as usual down in London. Burnham needs to remember its not just Starmer who is hated its the Labour Party the people of Makerfield gave Burnham a chance they didnt vote for Labour

https://x.com/redrumlisa/status/2069084849114058908

viewcode

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

At the risk of sounding indelicate - although there's no way of describing this without being really gory:

Vulva

• Definition: the entrance to the vagina. Has associated structures like labia (lips) and clitoris (at the top).
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation as various bits reposition themselves.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed by reorganising/resection/flensing of existing parts. Incidentally one of those new parts is a clitoris, well ish.
  

Vagina

• Definition: a fleshy tube between the vulva and the body cavity
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex, a route for semen to enter the womb, a route for a baby to enter the world, a route for menstruation material to exit the body. Incidentally women don't pee nor poo through their vagina.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed as above. Can be constructed from the flensed penis, the detesticled scrotum, or in certain circumstances from resected colon. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex but the baby and menstruation function is absent because to date no trans woman has had a successful womb/ovary transplant. Generally trans women don't pee nor poo through their vagina, but if a fistula develops between the colon and the new vagina then poo can exit there. Isn't surgery fun?
  

Cervix

• Definition: a cylindrical "door" between the end of the vagina and the body cavity.
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include opening and closing to allow/prevent/restrict passage of material to/from the vagina
  
• Trans woman: Absent. There is an argument that the internal end of the surgically constructed vagina is a perpetually-closed cervix, but it's debatable at best.
  

Mexicanpete

rottenborough said:

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

I could save the BBC £800k per year in two hits. Kuenssberg and Mason.

boulay

rottenborough said:

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

Radio 1 Dance costs £500 per episode for their three hour afternoon show ex presenter costs which come out of the Radio 1 budget. That’s £2,500 per week for a channel which is completely superfluous as there are plenty of dance music options and Spotify channels and the BBC doesn’t need to be chasing ratings and it’s not a niche sector they should cover.

That is just a three hour weekday programme not the whole station.

That money could be better used with something like Moneybox.

DavidL

Wings latest contribution is a letter from the Chief Executive of the SPS. It says, amongst other things: "Whilst we carefully consider Lady Ross's determination and how we need to change our policy the admissions practice remains in place."
https://wingsoverscotland.com/

I am trying to work out why this is not contempt of court.

eek

Richard_Tyndall said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Eabhal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

Fishing said:

"Compliance with the law is not a “culture issue”. It is fundamental to good government and a well-ordered society."

Sorry, but that's way to absolutist. Civil disobedience of various kinds has got us some of our most important rights and freedoms down the centuries.

"Women’s rights are not a culture issue either."

In fact, would many women's rights have happened if the suffragettes or others had complied with the law?

There is a world of difference between individuals or groups in society breaking the law and suffering the consequences, and various arms of the Government itself breaking the law and expecting to get away with it. The first is, as you say, an important part of civil disobedience and civil rights. The Second is simply a blueprint for anarchy and tyranny.

FPT on the property tax thing - one thing I was surprised by was how little effect a flat rate would have on the poorer parts of London. It’s wrong to assume that property prices are high across the capital, and the primary distortion is between high and low value homes across the UK, rather than geography.

It is very easy to find the numbers. The median council tax in London is £2,200 a year. The median house price in London is £500,000 a year.

So the proposal would be to more than double the median amount paid by Londoners.

It makes neither economic nor political sense.

By the way @Eabhal, don't get me wrong. I think for the majority of the country it is psobably a reaosnable idea and I have no great ideological opposition to an LVT as such. But I think that wiyth such large discrepencies in house prices across the country - without equivalent discrpnecies in average earnings - it is impractical and electorally suicidal.

But you are looking at it as a replacement for council tax. Look at it as a proxy wealth tax at the same time and people in expensive houses paying more makes perfect sense. Want you tax bill to be less move somewhere not as pleasant.

carnforth

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

If you mean no, it's not "legally wrong" that trans women can be placed in male prisons and "v coded" now (i.e. forcibly raped as punishment, as happens in America), the no, there's nothing wrong with the article.

If you believe that is *morally wrong* then yes, yes there is quite a lot wrong with the article. And I would suggest government agencies and individuals within them are right to push back against it.

To be fair you two will never be reconciled. I think you care a huge amount for what I am going to call ‘genuine’ trans women. I think Cyclefree believes that there an awful lot of predatory men pretending to be trans to say access women in a prison. So yes it’s unlikely that a trans woman who has had their penis removed will be a predatory man, most trans women are still intact ( for a variety of reasons).

Perhaps we could have a new, strict, version of the GRC which requires certain irriversible physical changes, and change the law to genuinely call it a change of sex. And have the law be stricty anti-self-ID outside of that structure.

Mexicanpete

Driver said:

Evening all.

So, are we agreed yet that Starmer would have been better off with a majority of 60 gained with a real manifesto?

Much like Sunak, Truss, Johnson and May before him, he wasn't cut out for the job whatever the numbers.

MarqueeMark

DavidL said:

Wings latest contribution is a letter from the Chief Executive of the SPS. It says, amongst other things: "Whilst we carefully consider Lady Ross's determination and how we need to change our policy the admissions practice remains in place."
https://wingsoverscotland.com/

I am trying to work out why this is not contempt of court.

Telling the court "Fuck you" generally is...

turbotubbs

viewcode said:

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

At the risk of sounding indelicate - although there's no way of describing this without being really gory:

Vulva

• Definition: the entrance to the vagina. Has associated structures like labia (lips) and clitoris (at the top).
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation as various bits reposition themselves.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed by reorganising/resection/flensing of existing parts. Incidentally one of those new parts is a clitoris, well ish.
  

Vagina

• Definition: a fleshy tube between the vulva and the body cavity
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex, a route for semen to enter the womb, a route for a baby to enter the world, a route for menstruation material to exit the body. Incidentally women don't pee nor poo through their vagina.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed as above. Can be constructed from the flensed penis, the detesticled scrotum, or in certain circumstances from resected colon. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex but the baby and menstruation function is absent because to date no trans woman has had a successful womb/ovary transplant. Generally trans women don't pee nor poo through their vagina, but if a fistula develops between the colon and the new vagina then poo can exit there. Isn't surgery fun?
  

Cervix

• Definition: a cylindrical "door" between the end of the vagina and the body cavity.
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include opening and closing to allow/prevent/restrict passage of material to/from the vagina
  
• Trans woman: Absent. There is an argument that the internal end of the surgically constructed vagina is a perpetually-closed cervix, but it's debatable at best.
  

Feel free to believe what you want, I tend to stick to science not fantasy. A vagina is part of femail anatomy developed from the embryo. The wound a trans woman has is a simulacra.

Casino_Royale

viewcode said:

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

At the risk of sounding indelicate - although there's no way of describing this without being really gory:

Vulva

• Definition: the entrance to the vagina. Has associated structures like labia (lips) and clitoris (at the top).
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation as various bits reposition themselves.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed by reorganising/resection/flensing of existing parts. Incidentally one of those new parts is a clitoris, well ish.
  

Vagina

• Definition: a fleshy tube between the vulva and the body cavity
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex, a route for semen to enter the womb, a route for a baby to enter the world, a route for menstruation material to exit the body. Incidentally women don't pee nor poo through their vagina.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed as above. Can be constructed from the flensed penis, the detesticled scrotum, or in certain circumstances from resected colon. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex but the baby and menstruation function is absent because to date no trans woman has had a successful womb/ovary transplant. Generally trans women don't pee nor poo through their vagina, but if a fistula develops between the colon and the new vagina then poo can exit there. Isn't surgery fun?
  

Cervix

• Definition: a cylindrical "door" between the end of the vagina and the body cavity.
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include opening and closing to allow/prevent/restrict passage of material to/from the vagina
  
• Trans woman: Absent. There is an argument that the internal end of the surgically constructed vagina is a perpetually-closed cervix, but it's debatable at best.
  

I think I might log back on in the morning.

dixiedean

rottenborough said:

Pretty much the same photo - Burnham surrounded by Lab MPs in Westminster Hall - but compare and contrast:


David Yelland
@davidyelland

Andy Burnham is such a natural communicator... there's also one thing which the Westminster lobby may miss, which is the sheer emotional impact on the early evening regional TV news in the north of England… of a northerner travelling down to London to take over the country... no matter what your politics that is quite a thing for millions of people from Liverpool to Hull and all points north.

https://x.com/davidyelland/status/2069127383123140666


Lisa Mckenzie
@redrumlisa

And he's already fucking up and has failed the Makerfield Test - deindustrialised working class people hate this kind of thing it represents business as usual down in London. Burnham needs to remember its not just Starmer who is hated its the Labour Party the people of Makerfield gave Burnham a chance they didnt vote for Labour

https://x.com/redrumlisa/status/2069084849114058908

Speaking to a small number of people in Makerfield today, they are actually very chuffed. Quite a number didn't believe he'd be PM. They are pleasantly surprised.

Foss

rottenborough said:

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

Saving MoneyBox would have put the truly Reithian Bargain Hunt at risk.

viewcode

Casino_Royale said:

viewcode said:

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

At the risk of sounding indelicate - although there's no way of describing this without being really gory:

Vulva

• Definition: the entrance to the vagina. Has associated structures like labia (lips) and clitoris (at the top).
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation as various bits reposition themselves.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed by reorganising/resection/flensing of existing parts. Incidentally one of those new parts is a clitoris, well ish.
  

Vagina

• Definition: a fleshy tube between the vulva and the body cavity
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex, a route for semen to enter the womb, a route for a baby to enter the world, a route for menstruation material to exit the body. Incidentally women don't pee nor poo through their vagina.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed as above. Can be constructed from the flensed penis, the detesticled scrotum, or in certain circumstances from resected colon. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex but the baby and menstruation function is absent because to date no trans woman has had a successful womb/ovary transplant. Generally trans women don't pee nor poo through their vagina, but if a fistula develops between the colon and the new vagina then poo can exit there. Isn't surgery fun?
  

Cervix

• Definition: a cylindrical "door" between the end of the vagina and the body cavity.
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include opening and closing to allow/prevent/restrict passage of material to/from the vagina
  
• Trans woman: Absent. There is an argument that the internal end of the surgically constructed vagina is a perpetually-closed cervix, but it's debatable at best.
  

I think I might log back on in the morning.

I can talk more about Doctor Who if you like?

carnforth

Casino_Royale said:

viewcode said:

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

At the risk of sounding indelicate - although there's no way of describing this without being really gory:

Vulva

• Definition: the entrance to the vagina. Has associated structures like labia (lips) and clitoris (at the top).
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation as various bits reposition themselves.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed by reorganising/resection/flensing of existing parts. Incidentally one of those new parts is a clitoris, well ish.
  

Vagina

• Definition: a fleshy tube between the vulva and the body cavity
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex, a route for semen to enter the womb, a route for a baby to enter the world, a route for menstruation material to exit the body. Incidentally women don't pee nor poo through their vagina.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed as above. Can be constructed from the flensed penis, the detesticled scrotum, or in certain circumstances from resected colon. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex but the baby and menstruation function is absent because to date no trans woman has had a successful womb/ovary transplant. Generally trans women don't pee nor poo through their vagina, but if a fistula develops between the colon and the new vagina then poo can exit there. Isn't surgery fun?
  

Cervix

• Definition: a cylindrical "door" between the end of the vagina and the body cavity.
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include opening and closing to allow/prevent/restrict passage of material to/from the vagina
  
• Trans woman: Absent. There is an argument that the internal end of the surgically constructed vagina is a perpetually-closed cervix, but it's debatable at best.
  

I think I might log back on in the morning.

I'm not Googling "flensed" certainly.

BartholomewRoberts

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

If you mean no, it's not "legally wrong" that trans women can be placed in male prisons and "v coded" now (i.e. forcibly raped as punishment, as happens in America), the no, there's nothing wrong with the article.

If you believe that is *morally wrong* then yes, yes there is quite a lot wrong with the article. And I would suggest government agencies and individuals within them are right to push back against it.

If men who identify as women are at risk in the men's prisons then they can and should be put into protective solitary custody on the men's estate.

Not into the women's estate.

carnforth

Casino_Royale said:

viewcode said:

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

At the risk of sounding indelicate - although there's no way of describing this without being really gory:

Vulva

• Definition: the entrance to the vagina. Has associated structures like labia (lips) and clitoris (at the top).
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation as various bits reposition themselves.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed by reorganising/resection/flensing of existing parts. Incidentally one of those new parts is a clitoris, well ish.
  

Vagina

• Definition: a fleshy tube between the vulva and the body cavity
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex, a route for semen to enter the womb, a route for a baby to enter the world, a route for menstruation material to exit the body. Incidentally women don't pee nor poo through their vagina.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed as above. Can be constructed from the flensed penis, the detesticled scrotum, or in certain circumstances from resected colon. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex but the baby and menstruation function is absent because to date no trans woman has had a successful womb/ovary transplant. Generally trans women don't pee nor poo through their vagina, but if a fistula develops between the colon and the new vagina then poo can exit there. Isn't surgery fun?
  

Cervix

• Definition: a cylindrical "door" between the end of the vagina and the body cavity.
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include opening and closing to allow/prevent/restrict passage of material to/from the vagina
  
• Trans woman: Absent. There is an argument that the internal end of the surgically constructed vagina is a perpetually-closed cervix, but it's debatable at best.
  

I think I might log back on in the morning.

Word choice, man.

Sandpit

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

If you mean no, it's not "legally wrong" that trans women can be placed in male prisons and "v coded" now (i.e. forcibly raped as punishment, as happens in America), the no, there's nothing wrong with the article.

If you believe that is *morally wrong* then yes, yes there is quite a lot wrong with the article. And I would suggest government agencies and individuals within them are right to push back against it.

To be fair you two will never be reconciled. I think you care a huge amount for what I am going to call ‘genuine’ trans women. I think Cyclefree believes that there an awful lot of predatory men pretending to be trans to say access women in a prison. So yes it’s unlikely that a trans woman who has had their penis removed will be a predatory man, most trans women are still intact ( for a variety of reasons).

The problems occur when authorities decide that a woman is anyone who says they’re a woman.

Which means that the genuinely gender desphoric are quickly outnumbered by the fetishists, perverts, and sex offenders, men who get off on making women feel uncomfortable. Especially so in places such as prisons and shelters, from where the women have no escape.

The courts are trying to rein in the authorities going down this route, but the authorities appear ideologically captured and determined to ignore the law.

Mexicanpete

turbotubbs said:

viewcode said:

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

At the risk of sounding indelicate - although there's no way of describing this without being really gory:

Vulva

• Definition: the entrance to the vagina. Has associated structures like labia (lips) and clitoris (at the top).
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation as various bits reposition themselves.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed by reorganising/resection/flensing of existing parts. Incidentally one of those new parts is a clitoris, well ish.
  

Vagina

• Definition: a fleshy tube between the vulva and the body cavity
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex, a route for semen to enter the womb, a route for a baby to enter the world, a route for menstruation material to exit the body. Incidentally women don't pee nor poo through their vagina.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed as above. Can be constructed from the flensed penis, the detesticled scrotum, or in certain circumstances from resected colon. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex but the baby and menstruation function is absent because to date no trans woman has had a successful womb/ovary transplant. Generally trans women don't pee nor poo through their vagina, but if a fistula develops between the colon and the new vagina then poo can exit there. Isn't surgery fun?
  

Cervix

• Definition: a cylindrical "door" between the end of the vagina and the body cavity.
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include opening and closing to allow/prevent/restrict passage of material to/from the vagina
  
• Trans woman: Absent. There is an argument that the internal end of the surgically constructed vagina is a perpetually-closed cervix, but it's debatable at best.
  

Feel free to believe what you want, I tend to stick to science not fantasy. A vagina is part of femail anatomy developed from the embryo. The wound a trans woman has is a simulacra.

I can understand your disdain for c***s in frocks using female only spaces, but once all the work has been done the argument seems churlish.

Driver

ydoethur said:

Driver said:

Evening all.

So, are we agreed yet that Starmer would have been better off with a majority of 60 gained with a real manifesto?

The problem is the crazy split of the vote meant either a huge majority or no majority.

The mistake he made was thinking he was treading on eggshells and needed to avoid offence, instead of actually getting some fundamental change through and trying to get credit for them.

With the campaign he chose to run, yes. A differently-run campaign would have had a different vote split.

Mexicanpete

Foss said:

rottenborough said:

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

Saving MoneyBox would have put the truly Reithian Bargain Hunt at risk.

My son who works on BH tells me the model is exactly what the BBC are currently threatening to cut, however it syndicates well so he suspects all that foreign cash keeps it safe for the medium term.

kyf_100

BartholomewRoberts said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

If you mean no, it's not "legally wrong" that trans women can be placed in male prisons and "v coded" now (i.e. forcibly raped as punishment, as happens in America), the no, there's nothing wrong with the article.

If you believe that is *morally wrong* then yes, yes there is quite a lot wrong with the article. And I would suggest government agencies and individuals within them are right to push back against it.

If men who identify as women are at risk in the men's prisons then they can and should be put into protective solitary custody on the men's estate.

Not into the women's estate.

Solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days is recognised under international human rights law as torture.

Then again, given your views on other topics, perhaps you're already aware of that.

viewcode

turbotubbs said:

viewcode said:

turbotubbs said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

What do mean functioning vagina? Really? A trans woman has no such thing.

At the risk of sounding indelicate - although there's no way of describing this without being really gory:

Vulva

• Definition: the entrance to the vagina. Has associated structures like labia (lips) and clitoris (at the top).
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation as various bits reposition themselves.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed by reorganising/resection/flensing of existing parts. Incidentally one of those new parts is a clitoris, well ish.
  

Vagina

• Definition: a fleshy tube between the vulva and the body cavity
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex, a route for semen to enter the womb, a route for a baby to enter the world, a route for menstruation material to exit the body. Incidentally women don't pee nor poo through their vagina.
  
• Trans woman: Surgically constructed as above. Can be constructed from the flensed penis, the detesticled scrotum, or in certain circumstances from resected colon. Functions include providing a place for the penis to situate itself during sex but the baby and menstruation function is absent because to date no trans woman has had a successful womb/ovary transplant. Generally trans women don't pee nor poo through their vagina, but if a fistula develops between the colon and the new vagina then poo can exit there. Isn't surgery fun?
  

Cervix

• Definition: a cylindrical "door" between the end of the vagina and the body cavity.
  
• Cis woman: Evolved during gestation. Functions include opening and closing to allow/prevent/restrict passage of material to/from the vagina
  
• Trans woman: Absent. There is an argument that the internal end of the surgically constructed vagina is a perpetually-closed cervix, but it's debatable at best.
  

Feel free to believe what you want, I tend to stick to science not fantasy. A vagina is part of femail anatomy developed from the embryo. The wound a trans woman has is a simulacra.

Leaving aside the fact that the word "simulation" might have been a better word, my intent was to establish that a surgically-constructed vagina performs at least one function of a natural-born vagina, and hence the possessor can be described as having a (semi-) functional vagina.

kinabalu

Self ID is in place in several countries without widespread abuse. Our regime on gender change is tracking to be one of the most exclusionary and restrictive. Perhaps this is to some extent a kickback against over-zealous trans activism but I think it's a shame. We are making a meal of this imo and it's not helping anyone.

Andy_JS

Thanks for the header Cyclefree.

RightChuck

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

There is nothing "transphobic" about defending women's rights.

There is everything misogynistic about attempting to withdraw from women the hard-fought-for and hard-won right to exclusively female spaces and activities.

Many "trans"-identifying men are kept perfectly safely in men's prisons, and none of the notorious cases of male rapists in Scottish (and American) prisons involve post-operative men. The whole point of this ridiculous movement is to allow men to self-id as women, with no requirement for surgery or drugs, and force their way into spaces and activities women could reasonably expect to be reserved for them on the basis of sex. The law, in this instance, is good and right.

Sunil_Prasannan

If you're XY, you're a guy
If you're XX, you're of the fairer sex

Foxy

MustaphaMondeo said:

The underlying issue is the state doesn’t give a fuck about the incarcerated. .

IMO everyone held against their will should be safe. Properly safe. Safer than on the streets. The above discussion accepts that prisoners will be unsafe.

If people were safe when institutionalised, the approach to trans etc could be more positive.

(. They should have a vote too. )

Yes, our prisons are truly disgusting. It is hard to see how anyone comes out a better person.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/22/rats-children-prisons-incarceration-ferrets?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

viewcode

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Good. Coronations only work for Kings.

Mexicanpete

Foss said:

rottenborough said:

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

Saving MoneyBox would have put the truly Reithian Bargain Hunt at risk.

So you want some cost cutting to save the World Tonight and Moneybox live? If you start with culling Montague and Davis you could keep lots of R4 output going for years.

See below.

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/entertainment/bbc-pay-list-2025-gary-lineker-newsupdate/

FF43

kinabalu said:

Self ID is in place in several countries without widespread abuse. Our regime on gender change is tracking to be one of the most exclusionary and restrictive. Perhaps this is to some extent a kickback against over-zealous trans activism but I think it's a shame. We are making a meal of this imo and it's not helping anyone.

We have to wait for kinder, more understanding, indeed more sensible, times.

Big_G_NorthWales

Good evening

I am with @Casino_Royale on this and will log off for now, but would just say be kind to @kyf_100 as he does have an emotional interest in this subject

Foss

Mexicanpete said:

Foss said:

rottenborough said:

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

BBC cancelled MoneyBox live last week "to save money". That is a presenter and someone in the back office answer the bloody phone. About £200 an hour.

They have a fake studio for the World Cup meant to look like America whereas it is in Salford in order to "save money".

Then they do this stunt.

Saving MoneyBox would have put the truly Reithian Bargain Hunt at risk.

So you want some cost cutting to save the World Tonight and Moneybox live? If you start with culling Montague and Davis you could keep lots of R4 output going for years.

See below.

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/entertainment/bbc-pay-list-2025-gary-lineker-newsupdate/

Seems sensible. And it'd be nice to see some experiments with text-to-speech (and similar) for routine announcements.

kyf_100

RightChuck said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

There is nothing "transphobic" about defending women's rights.

There is everything misogynistic about attempting to withdraw from women the hard-fought-for and hard-won right to exclusively female spaces and activities.

Many "trans"-identifying men are kept perfectly safely in men's prisons, and none of the notorious cases of male rapists in Scottish (and American) prisons involve post-operative men. The whole point of this ridiculous movement is to allow men to self-id as women, with no requirement for surgery or drugs, and force their way into spaces and activities women could reasonably expect to be reserved for them on the basis of sex. The law, in this instance, is good and right.

Where America leads, Britain follows. This is what you are advocating for:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-coding

Key facts: 59% of trans women held in male prisons sexually assaulted (compared to 4% of all inmates). 69% (ho hum) forced to perform oral sex against their will. 27% forced to perform a sex act *on a prison officer*.

The law, in this instance, is neither good, nor right.

Mexicanpete

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good evening

I am with @Casino_Royale on this and will log off for now, but would just say be kind to @kyf_100 as he does have an emotional interest in this subject

Well said BigG.

Andy_JS

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

There are laws I don't like as well.

Big_G_NorthWales

viewcode said:

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Good. Coronations only work for Kings.

It seems to be promoted by the Telegraph who see a 3 month bun fight an advantage, as they are worried that Burnham may well give Farage and Lowe a run for their money

Burnham offers hope and whilst I may be wrong I want him to succeed and not just be tribal

Mexicanpete

Big_G_NorthWales said:

viewcode said:

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Good. Coronations only work for Kings.

It seems to be promoted by the Telegraph who see a 3 month bun fight an advantage, as they are worried that Burnham may well give Farage and Lowe a run for their money

Burnham offers hope and whilst I may be wrong I want him to succeed and not just be tribal

I think he's a tw@t and he overstepped the mark first thing re: Starmer's resignation. Since then he's been on point. Let's just hope he doesn't turn Downing Street in to the Hacienda in the same way Johnson turned it into Anabel's.

malcolmg

Fairliered said:

The Scottish Government, both politicians and civil servants, are scared of Stonewall and other trans activists, who were granted access to government during the Sturgeon era. Could female prisoners raise a class action against the Scottish Government and the SPS?

They are hand in glove with them given the cabal that run the government were all of the same ilk

MarqueeMark

viewcode said:

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Good. Coronations only work for Kings.

Will the King of the North get to use the Gold State Coach?

DavidL

Foxy said:

MustaphaMondeo said:

The underlying issue is the state doesn’t give a fuck about the incarcerated. .

IMO everyone held against their will should be safe. Properly safe. Safer than on the streets. The above discussion accepts that prisoners will be unsafe.

If people were safe when institutionalised, the approach to trans etc could be more positive.

(. They should have a vote too. )

Yes, our prisons are truly disgusting. It is hard to see how anyone comes out a better person.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/22/rats-children-prisons-incarceration-ferrets?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

One of the major problems with our prisons is that many of those who end up there are not very nice people. They are selfish, greedy, arrogant, all too often suffering from personality disorders, violent and not entirely honest. Locking them up together in a confined space is highly problematic from a risk assessment point of view.

StillWaters

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

If the government doesn’t like the law they can, I dunno, change the f*****g law.

If, say, Boris Johnson had ignored the SC ruling on the prorogation of parliament I suspect you might have found that to be inappropriate

MelonB

kyf_100 said:

RightChuck said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

There is nothing "transphobic" about defending women's rights.

There is everything misogynistic about attempting to withdraw from women the hard-fought-for and hard-won right to exclusively female spaces and activities.

Many "trans"-identifying men are kept perfectly safely in men's prisons, and none of the notorious cases of male rapists in Scottish (and American) prisons involve post-operative men. The whole point of this ridiculous movement is to allow men to self-id as women, with no requirement for surgery or drugs, and force their way into spaces and activities women could reasonably expect to be reserved for them on the basis of sex. The law, in this instance, is good and right.

Where America leads, Britain follows. This is what you are advocating for:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-coding

Key facts: 59% of trans women held in male prisons sexually assaulted (compared to 4% of all inmates). 69% (ho hum) forced to perform oral sex against their will. 27% forced to perform a sex act *on a prison officer*.

The law, in this instance, is neither good, nor right.

I fear that the prevalent sentiment, among male public opinion (because men have on average much more hard-line views on transgender issues than women, as they do on homosexuality, notwithstanding the occasional very vocal exception) is that "they have what's coming to them".

This makes reasonable argument on the topic impossible. It's like trying to talk to the Turks about 1915. "Yeah, but the Armenians were committing their own atrocities in the Russian army against the Ottomans".

IanB2

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

They’re fools. I assumed these putative rivals were simply flying a kite to get some publicity and mark the media’s card as people to watch next time

Sunil_Prasannan

viewcode said:

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Good. Coronations only work for Kings.

Context is for kings.

IanB2

Mexicanpete said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

viewcode said:

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Good. Coronations only work for Kings.

It seems to be promoted by the Telegraph who see a 3 month bun fight an advantage, as they are worried that Burnham may well give Farage and Lowe a run for their money

Burnham offers hope and whilst I may be wrong I want him to succeed and not just be tribal

I think he's a tw@t and he overstepped the mark first thing re: Starmer's resignation. Since then he's been on point. Let's just hope he doesn't turn Downing Street in to the Hacienda in the same way Johnson turned it into Anabel's.

What has Starmer done with that hideous room Johnson created, assuming Sunak didn’t junk it already?

ThomasNashe

Burnham has delivered nothing for the country. Let's not waste any more time on him.

David Miliband for PM! The campaign starts here. SKS should stand down as MP to trigger a byelection in Holborn and St Pancras and allow DM to get back to Parliament.

Andy_JS

It's against the law to enter the country without permission, but the authorities don't seem to apply that law very much.

Sunil_Prasannan

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

I think you mean a Burnham coronation?

ThomasNashe

IanB2 said:

Mexicanpete said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

viewcode said:

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Good. Coronations only work for Kings.

It seems to be promoted by the Telegraph who see a 3 month bun fight an advantage, as they are worried that Burnham may well give Farage and Lowe a run for their money

Burnham offers hope and whilst I may be wrong I want him to succeed and not just be tribal

I think he's a tw@t and he overstepped the mark first thing re: Starmer's resignation. Since then he's been on point. Let's just hope he doesn't turn Downing Street in to the Hacienda in the same way Johnson turned it into Anabel's.

What has Starmer done with that hideous room Johnson created, assuming Sunak didn’t junk it already?

He'll have had John Lewis in for the refurb.

Pro_Rata

Mexicanpete said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

viewcode said:

HYUFD said:

Darren Jones being argued to stand for leader by Labour MPs who don’t want a Starmer coronation

https://x.com/harriet_symonds/status/2069075826411221170?s=20

Good. Coronations only work for Kings.

It seems to be promoted by the Telegraph who see a 3 month bun fight an advantage, as they are worried that Burnham may well give Farage and Lowe a run for their money

Burnham offers hope and whilst I may be wrong I want him to succeed and not just be tribal

I think he's a tw@t and he overstepped the mark first thing re: Starmer's resignation. Since then he's been on point. Let's just hope he doesn't turn Downing Street in to the Hacienda in the same way Johnson turned it into Anabel's.

I like that he's from the north and wears it on his sleeve, but I hope he doesn't go too heavy on the afflecktations.

BartholomewRoberts

kyf_100 said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kyf_100 said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

Richard_Tyndall said:

kyf_100 said:

Oh, here we go. Again.

Contrary to Cyclefree's nasty transphobia, other views are available.

Readers may be interested to know that the recent FWS ruling means post-operative trans women, including those with functional vaginas, can be placed in male prisons, where they face an obvious and substantial risk of sexual assault. That may seem perfectly acceptable to the cruel absolutists of TERFland, but to anyone with even a shred of common sense it is an absurd and dangerous outcome. Even Reform spokeswoman Anne Widdecombe has argued that post-op trans women should be housed with other women.

As for the claim that we must simply comply because "it's the law", compliance with the law has always been, and always will be, a cultural and moral question.

There is no inherent virtue in obeying an unjust law. For centuries, slavery was legal while homosexuality was criminalised. Until the law was reinterpreted by the courts in 1991, marital rape was effectively lawful. History is full of laws that were legal, enforceable, and still profoundly wrong, from coverture laws that erased married women's legal identities to the sus laws of the twentieth century.

Legality and morality are not the same thing. The fact that something is the law does not make it just, sensible, or worthy of unquestioning obedience. The law gets things wrong, often for very long periods of time. Treating legal compliance as the end of the argument is an abdication of any kind of moral compass.

So nothing in Cyclefree's article is actually wrong then. You just don't like it.

And as I, and others, have just said, civil disobedience by individuals and groups is acceptable. And we suffer the consequences as an accepted price for that disobedience. Sections of the Government itself disobeying or ignoring the law - and expecting to get away with it with no consequences to themselves - is not acceptable. Those doing so should not expect to keep their jobs.

If you mean no, it's not "legally wrong" that trans women can be placed in male prisons and "v coded" now (i.e. forcibly raped as punishment, as happens in America), the no, there's nothing wrong with the article.

If you believe that is *morally wrong* then yes, yes there is quite a lot wrong with the article. And I would suggest government agencies and individuals within them are right to push back against it.

If men who identify as women are at risk in the men's prisons then they can and should be put into protective solitary custody on the men's estate.

Not into the women's estate.

Solitary confinement lasting more than 15 days is recognised under international human rights law as torture.

Then again, given your views on other topics, perhaps you're already aware of that.

The UK has a spectrum of protective custody arrangements and specific Vulnerable Prisoner wings etc

If a man is at high risk they should be protected. Not violate the protection of all women.

viewcode

kinabalu said:

Self ID is in place in several countries without widespread abuse. Our regime on gender change is tracking to be one of the most exclusionary and restrictive. Perhaps this is to some extent a kickback against over-zealous trans activism but I think it's a shame. We are making a meal of this imo and it's not helping anyone.

Whilst I take your point, prison assignment is one of the two or three issues[1] in trans that have little to no public support and lots of disgust/revulsion. The Irish approach (self-ID but periodic review on difficult aspects) takes account of this and they are making cross-biological-sex prison accommodation illegal. The Scottish approach regarding prisons is unlikely to survive and I'm surprised they kept it going for so long.

Incidentally, I do remember that I promised to look up other country's approaches for you. I thought of compiling EU figures country by country but it would take too long. Instead I intend to take the ILGA-Rainbow Map figures and extract the trans stuff, which would be a lot quicker.

[1] You'd think it'd be toilets, but I think they're prison, rape crisis centres, and juvenile surgical/hormonal transition. I can investigate stats for these things but given that a non-trivial group of people think that the acceptable threshold is zero under any circumstances, there is unlikely to be a political consensus for them

Foxy

Andy_JS said:

It's against the law to enter the country without permission, but the authorities don't seem to apply that law very much.

Important not to mislead. It is legal to enter the country with the intention of applying for asylum.

Andy_JS

Sandpit said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

rottenborough said:

So, the BBC has closed The World Tonight on R4 to save money but has paid for a helicopter to follow Andy B's train down from Manchester this morning.

FFS.

To be fair I thought it was Sky who had the helicopter.

BBC had one too.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2069043298035986885

Something like £10k/hour on a good day.

Ridiculous that the two networks couldn't agree on just using one, if they had to use one at all.

carnforth

Foxy said:

Andy_JS said:

It's against the law to enter the country without permission, but the authorities don't seem to apply that law very much.

Important not to mislead. It is legal to enter the country with the intention of applying for asylum.

Does it become retrospectively illegal if one fails to claim? If so, after how long? If not, it's angels on a pin stuff.

Foxy

DavidL said:

Foxy said:

MustaphaMondeo said:

The underlying issue is the state doesn’t give a fuck about the incarcerated. .

IMO everyone held against their will should be safe. Properly safe. Safer than on the streets. The above discussion accepts that prisoners will be unsafe.

If people were safe when institutionalised, the approach to trans etc could be more positive.

(. They should have a vote too. )

Yes, our prisons are truly disgusting. It is hard to see how anyone comes out a better person.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/22/rats-children-prisons-incarceration-ferrets?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

One of the major problems with our prisons is that many of those who end up there are not very nice people. They are selfish, greedy, arrogant, all too often suffering from personality disorders, violent and not entirely honest. Locking them up together in a confined space is highly problematic from a risk assessment point of view.

Well obviously so. But should prisons also be rat infested, understaffed, and full of drugs?

Stuartinromford

DavidL said:

Foxy said:

MustaphaMondeo said:

The underlying issue is the state doesn’t give a fuck about the incarcerated. .

IMO everyone held against their will should be safe. Properly safe. Safer than on the streets. The above discussion accepts that prisoners will be unsafe.

If people were safe when institutionalised, the approach to trans etc could be more positive.

(. They should have a vote too. )

Yes, our prisons are truly disgusting. It is hard to see how anyone comes out a better person.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/22/rats-children-prisons-incarceration-ferrets?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

One of the major problems with our prisons is that many of those who end up there are not very nice people. They are selfish, greedy, arrogant, all too often suffering from personality disorders, violent and not entirely honest. Locking them up together in a confined space is highly problematic from a risk assessment point of view.

Though if you want, there are ways of managing those risks. Smaller complexes, better able to keep connections to healthy society at home. Really intensive theraputic and educational work. No, they don't work perfectly, but they improve the odds. Trouble is, the state (driven by the demands of voters) would rather have an expensive system that makes bad people worse than a very expensive system that makes bad people somewhat better.

And then, there's all the preventative stuff- social work, remedial education et cetera, that we also voted to have cut.

(See also the medical changing room stories that have underpinned some of the recent trans cases. Why, in the name of all that's good, are we not providing individual changing cubicles for medical staff to change in, so that it really doesn't matter one jot what bits they do or don't expose? Oh yes- that would mean spending money one step back from the "frontline". Anyone know if the leader-in-waiting has an answer to the Nation of Cheapskates problem?)

StillWaters

DavidL said:

Wings latest contribution is a letter from the Chief Executive of the SPS. It says, amongst other things: "Whilst we carefully consider Lady Ross's determination and how we need to change our policy the admissions practice remains in place."
https://wingsoverscotland.com/

I am trying to work out why this is not contempt of court.

If they had taken a few weeks to consider then it’s probably reasonable. A year…

ohnotnow

DavidL said:

Foxy said:

MustaphaMondeo said:

The underlying issue is the state doesn’t give a fuck about the incarcerated. .

IMO everyone held against their will should be safe. Properly safe. Safer than on the streets. The above discussion accepts that prisoners will be unsafe.

If people were safe when institutionalised, the approach to trans etc could be more positive.

(. They should have a vote too. )

Yes, our prisons are truly disgusting. It is hard to see how anyone comes out a better person.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/22/rats-children-prisons-incarceration-ferrets?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

One of the major problems with our prisons is that many of those who end up there are not very nice people. They are selfish, greedy, arrogant, all too often suffering from personality disorders, violent and not entirely honest. Locking them up together in a confined space is highly problematic from a risk assessment point of view.

The refurb of the House of Commons really can't come soon enough.