Nothing to worry about, for sure, but do we need to get AZ to put another shilling in the meter?
Looks pretty healthy to me - is the UK share going down not simply a function of the EU finally pulling its finger out? The UK's share was only so large because the EU were doing so badly. But in absolute numbers, we're still doing pretty well.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
Interestingly, the transgender Caitlyn Jenner is standing on an anti-woke platform for Governor of California.
I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
Indeed they are all Professors (rather like in Hogwarts). Over here you have to have a chair to be one, which seems a fairly mundane qualification I would say.
I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.
Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.
That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.
After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.
Much like the centre right of the Labour Party finding Owen Smith as the best candidate to challenge Corbyn in 1995 the right wing of the Tory Party thought John Redwood was the best candidate to take on John Major.
Even as a stalking horse candidate he was dire.
Although three more votes for Redwood and Major would have gone.
Shame. There would have been no way back for the Conservatives for 50 years. Much like Labour post Corbyn.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
No. Sorry to disappoint.
And with that simple answer, the Trans PB Express failed to set off.
I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.
Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.
That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.
After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.
Much like the centre right of the Labour Party finding Owen Smith as the best candidate to challenge Corbyn in 1995 the right wing of the Tory Party thought John Redwood was the best candidate to take on John Major.
Even as a stalking horse candidate he was dire.
Although three more votes for Redwood and Major would have gone.
A fair few of those who voted for Major must have regretted doing so come 1 May 1997.
I guess they were all counting on him delivering as he had in 1992. They really needed to look at who the opponent was, though.
I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
Professors over here are a lot like doctors over here, they are fine with Mr/Mrs etc but their partners/parents get quite cross when people don't use the correct title.
Unless you are a surgeon and then you get cross about being called Dr.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
Do you have a history of over-analysing stuff that doesn't need over- analysing?
Talk about gender and sexual identity is interesting. I would point out that the two - whilst related - are separate. Being a cis gay male is different to being a trans gay male as an example.
My 20 year old son still hasn't settled on a sexuality label - uses "not strictly straight" to describe it. His current boyfriend is a gay trans man (who is 21, "man" sounds predatory for some reason) which means he identifies as male, is sexually attracted only to men but is biologically female.
My son's previous BF was also a gay trans man - not saying that he is exclusively attracted to them but two on the bounce may be indicative...! For me I don't care what he's into as long as he is happy. The joy is that he can be out and open as he defines his identity instead of having to be locked in the closet like his old man was at 20.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.
*very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
Actresses used to be called actresses, but they are now called "actors". Perhaps they got fed up with being connected to a conversation with a bishop?
Not in general usage. In general usage, actress is the dominant term. (I realise you are joking on your latter point).
"There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.
But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.
Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."
There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards. Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.
If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.
We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
There is no issue with equivalence, there is an issue with alignment.
The UK has always been OK with equivalence AFAIK, it is the EU that has been demanding alignment. If you've got no qualms with either then lets hope the EU catch up and we can agree to equivalence and move on.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
No. Sorry to disappoint.
Very decent of you to answer. No disappointment
So if you're not trans, what does "not having a gender identity" mean?
I am sincerely curious. It's a new way of looking at the world, and those are always interesting
Do you fancy men, women, both, neither, trans people? Or is it nothing to do with erotic desire, and more about social personae? Again, you are under no obligation to answer
I have one trans friend, post op. She uses the Eddie Izzard expression to explain her feelings "I felt like a lesbian trapped in a man's body". It helped me understand
White privilege and unconscious bias are simply sociological theories that some loudly agree with and others vociferously disagree with.
I'd add that whilst young people often have a fresh take on the world, and can see things their elders cannot, they're not always "right" about everything - far from it. I had very black and white views when I was young (you're trying to understand the world so you try and fit it into a theory you can subscribe to and understand) and it's only as you get older that you realise through experience how grey everything is, and how there are no theories and everyone has a point.
That's why we have democracy: to take the views of all age groups and backgrounds into account, and figure it out.
I largely agree (though I do think unconscious bias is a thing for most people including me) - my point was that young people feel the matter's settled, in the same way that climate change used to be disputed but is now generlaly (though not universally) accepted.
If I may say so, I think you've evolved on this forum, as have most of us - you're more open-minded tthan I remember unless directly provoked, as am I (I think).
I've never met an academic who was stuffy about such a thing in truth, but maybe they are only amongst themselves (though I think in america they all get called Professor?)
Within academia people don't tend to use titles for the obvious reason that we (pretty much) all have them. Just checked my email signature and it does indeed say 'Dr' but I think I copied and pasted from my boss's when I started and changed as appropriate. I fill in forms with Dr, but I never correct anyone who calls me Mr. I just put my name on presentations, no title or qualifications.
People are generally a bit coy about 'Prof' too. My boss (now 'Prof') doesn't like people calling her Prof but mainly, I think, because she prefers to be addressed by first name. I've seen newly professorised profs get introduced as 'Dr' on several occasions (meetings/presentations) and never seen one correct the introducer. Probably we all hate the patriarchical hierarchical (something-ist) structure it implies... If you insist on Dr/Prof or use it ostentatiously you look a bit needy.
Everyone still wants to get to be 'Prof' though, so they can not use the title. It's enough that everyone knows
Nothing to worry about, for sure, but do we need to get AZ to put another shilling in the meter?
I think we need the MHRA to approve Novavax, and then we can stop using AZ for first doses. Hopefully there's a big shipment of Novavax ready to go as soon as they're approved, but then I've hoped similar before.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
Do you have a history of over-analysing stuff that doesn't need over- analysing?
Jeepers. If you think I'm "over analysing" sexual identity, let me introduce you to "Social Media, 2012-2021", and every Feminism and Gender Studies Department in the Western World
I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.
Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.
That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.
After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.
Much like the centre right of the Labour Party finding Owen Smith as the best candidate to challenge Corbyn in 1995 the right wing of the Tory Party thought John Redwood was the best candidate to take on John Major.
Even as a stalking horse candidate he was dire.
Although three more votes for Redwood and Major would have gone.
A fair few of those who voted for Major must have regretted doing so come 1 May 1997.
I guess they were all counting on him delivering as he had in 1992. They really needed to look at who the opponent was, though.
It wasn't so much Blair as it was Black Wednesday.
I remember reading a conversation between a few Tory MPs in 1994/95 which the gist of was 'Well interest rates went up for a few hours, then went back to normal, the economy motored on, so like in 1992 we will because of the economy.'
I don't think they realised how much it preyed on the minds of the voters.
The other factor is that people thought Redwood was a joke figure, all they really knew about him as a campaigner was his attempts to sing the Welsh national anthem. So he couldn't be in the same high ability as Major.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.
*very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
Actresses used to be called actresses, but they are now called "actors". Perhaps they got fed up with being connected to a conversation with a bishop?
Not in general usage. In general usage, actress is the dominant term. (I realise you are joking on your latter point).
How long before the achingly-woke Hollywood types at the Oscars run into trouble, with having different categories for traditional male and female awards?
Nothing to worry about, for sure, but do we need to get AZ to put another shilling in the meter?
Looks pretty healthy to me - is the UK share going down not simply a function of the EU finally pulling its finger out? The UK's share was only so large because the EU were doing so badly. But in absolute numbers, we're still doing pretty well.
Its a Bank Holiday Monday figure too. Not bad for a Bank Holiday Monday, and good as you say that the EU are now getting into gear. No idea how many other countries across Europe had this Monday as a public holiday?
I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.
Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.
That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.
After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.
Much like the centre right of the Labour Party finding Owen Smith as the best candidate to challenge Corbyn in 1995 the right wing of the Tory Party thought John Redwood was the best candidate to take on John Major.
Even as a stalking horse candidate he was dire.
Although three more votes for Redwood and Major would have gone.
A fair few of those who voted for Major must have regretted doing so come 1 May 1997.
I guess they were all counting on him delivering as he had in 1992. They really needed to look at who the opponent was, though.
It wasn't so much Blair as it was Black Wednesday.
I remember reading a conversation between a few Tory MPs in 1994/95 which the gist of was 'Well interest rates went up for a few hours, then went back to normal, the economy motored on, so like in 1992 we will because of the economy.'
I don't think they realised how much it preyed on the minds of the voters.
The other factor is that people thought Redwood was a joke figure, all they really knew about him as a campaigner was his attempts to sing the Welsh national anthem. So he couldn't be in the same high ability as Major.
He also looked weird, sounded weird and came over as a wacko. That wasn't considered a good thing in the Conservative Party back then like it is now.
"There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.
But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.
Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."
There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards. Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.
If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.
We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
There is no issue with equivalence, there is an issue with alignment.
The UK has always been OK with equivalence AFAIK, it is the EU that has been demanding alignment. If you've got no qualms with either then lets hope the EU catch up and we can agree to equivalence and move on.
The EU is simultaneously worried that the U.K. will raise food standards to block EU exports, and debase them to allow US exports.
“Alignment” to the EU means that EU exports to the U.K. will *always* be good, while slowly marginalising U.K. exports to the EU.
"There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.
But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.
Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."
There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards. Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.
If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.
We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
There is no issue with equivalence, there is an issue with alignment.
The UK has always been OK with equivalence AFAIK, it is the EU that has been demanding alignment. If you've got no qualms with either then lets hope the EU catch up and we can agree to equivalence and move on.
Alignment - following EU rules. Equivalence - having UK rules that are accepted as having parity with EU rules. Whatever. Our rules are their rules are our rules because nether side have changed the sodding rules. Drop the barriers and worry about future divergence as and when it happens. As we both say we will be moving in the same direction on standards there won't be a problem.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.
*very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
Actresses used to be called actresses, but they are now called "actors". Perhaps they got fed up with being connected to a conversation with a bishop?
Not in general usage. In general usage, actress is the dominant term. (I realise you are joking on your latter point).
How long before the achingly-woke Hollywood types at the Oscars run into trouble, with having different categories for traditional male and female awards?
Presumably it would be opposed by actors and actresses because it would imply only half as many oscars?
I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.
Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.
That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.
After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.
Much like the centre right of the Labour Party finding Owen Smith as the best candidate to challenge Corbyn in 1995 the right wing of the Tory Party thought John Redwood was the best candidate to take on John Major.
Even as a stalking horse candidate he was dire.
Although three more votes for Redwood and Major would have gone.
A fair few of those who voted for Major must have regretted doing so come 1 May 1997.
I guess they were all counting on him delivering as he had in 1992. They really needed to look at who the opponent was, though.
It wasn't so much Blair as it was Black Wednesday.
I remember reading a conversation between a few Tory MPs in 1994/95 which the gist of was 'Well interest rates went up for a few hours, then went back to normal, the economy motored on, so like in 1992 we will because of the economy.'
I don't think they realised how much it preyed on the minds of the voters.
The other factor is that people thought Redwood was a joke figure, all they really knew about him as a campaigner was his attempts to sing the Welsh national anthem. So he couldn't be in the same high ability as Major.
Had Major resigned (as you say, he beat his own target by a few votes), would Redwood have automatically become leader and PM? Or would the contest have moved to another round with others able to throw their hats into the ring?
I think I'm still mentally in 'governments lose lots of seats' mode, as even with things being as they are that only one of the scenarios predicts the LDs making net gains, and then not many, still seems surprising, even though it shouldn't be.
Last year, just before the plague struck, I had planned to do a piece saying 2020 was the 25th anniversary of the Tories losing 2,000 council seats in one night.
That night is burned in the psyche of myself and many many Tory activists.
After that, the governing party losing a few hundred council seats in one night doesn't seem that bad.
And the Tories still didn't ditch Major.
Much like the centre right of the Labour Party finding Owen Smith as the best candidate to challenge Corbyn in 1995 the right wing of the Tory Party thought John Redwood was the best candidate to take on John Major.
Even as a stalking horse candidate he was dire.
Although three more votes for Redwood and Major would have gone.
A fair few of those who voted for Major must have regretted doing so come 1 May 1997.
I guess they were all counting on him delivering as he had in 1992. They really needed to look at who the opponent was, though.
It wasn't so much Blair as it was Black Wednesday.
I remember reading a conversation between a few Tory MPs in 1994/95 which the gist of was 'Well interest rates went up for a few hours, then went back to normal, the economy motored on, so like in 1992 we will because of the economy.'
I don't think they realised how much it preyed on the minds of the voters.
The other factor is that people thought Redwood was a joke figure, all they really knew about him as a campaigner was his attempts to sing the Welsh national anthem. So he couldn't be in the same high ability as Major.
Had Major resigned (as you say, he beat his own target by a few votes), would Redwood have automatically have become leader and PM? Or would the contest have moved to another round with others able to throw their hats into the ring?
Major had already resigned and would have resigned again, triggering a new leadership contest, so Redwood wouldn't have become leader and PM in those circumstances, other people would have entered the contest.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
No. Sorry to disappoint.
Very decent of you to answer. No disappointment
So if you're not trans, what does "not having a gender identity" mean?
I am sincerely curious. It's a new way of looking at the world, and those are always interesting
Do you fancy men, women, both, neither, trans people? Or is it nothing to do with erotic desire, and more about social personae? Again, you are under no obligation to answer
I have one trans friend, post op. She uses the Eddie Izzard expression to explain her feelings "I felt like a lesbian trapped in a man's body". It helped me understand
You are confusing gender identity and sexuality. I am a bisexual male. I identify as a male, have male parts and am attracted to parts whether they are male or female parts.
Not having gender identity means not identifying as male or female. You can be gender neutral with either set of genitals and it doesn't mean you are seeking to transition from one to the other. You can be gender neutral and be only attracted to one sex or both sexes or all sexualities.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.
*very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
Actresses used to be called actresses, but they are now called "actors". Perhaps they got fed up with being connected to a conversation with a bishop?
Not in general usage. In general usage, actress is the dominant term. (I realise you are joking on your latter point).
How long before the achingly-woke Hollywood types at the Oscars run into trouble, with having different categories for traditional male and female awards?
Presumably it would be opposed by actors and actresses because it would imply only half as many oscars?
Perhaps they will introduce a third category? Best leading/supporting (both are equal you know) genderfluid "actoress" category
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.
*very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
Yeah, the use/lack of use of gendered terms is interesting. Actor/actress, for example, where it's mostly 'actor' now in the press.
I have actualy heard women renting out houses called 'landlord'. That's how we spoke about our female landlord (most of the time we referred to her by name, but if talking about 'the landlord' to someone who didn't know her, that's the term we used). 'Landlady' is, in my head, someone who lives in. Makes no sense, but I'm probably thinking of an old widow renting out a few rooms, as opposed to the male businessman renting out properties (which is clearly very sexist when you think about it). So I don't attach a sex to 'landlord' but I do attach a different role to 'landlord' versus 'landlady'.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
Not energised at all I would say.
I'm struggling to convince my girlfriend to vote tomorrow, for example.
The non-U (in the 21st-century sense) woke yout' may not be energized. However, they represent the reserves (or territorials if that term is still used) of wokeism.
As this group gets older, their voting propensity is likely to increase, maybe not to same level as higher-educated people in same age cohort, but still something to be reckoned with methinks.
And their "good old days" will NOT be same as your, oldtimer.
On other hand, best not take these emerging voters for granted. Or any other!
"There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.
But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.
Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."
There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards. Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.
If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.
We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
There is no issue with equivalence, there is an issue with alignment.
The UK has always been OK with equivalence AFAIK, it is the EU that has been demanding alignment. If you've got no qualms with either then lets hope the EU catch up and we can agree to equivalence and move on.
Alignment - following EU rules. Equivalence - having UK rules that are accepted as having parity with EU rules. Whatever. Our rules are their rules are our rules because nether side have changed the sodding rules. Drop the barriers and worry about future divergence as and when it happens. As we both say we will be moving in the same direction on standards there won't be a problem.
Good you've caught up with us. What you're talking about is equivalence, which is what we want. We can't make the EU grant that yet though, but if they do it will be sensible.
White privilege and unconscious bias are simply sociological theories that some loudly agree with and others vociferously disagree with.
I'd add that whilst young people often have a fresh take on the world, and can see things their elders cannot, they're not always "right" about everything - far from it. I had very black and white views when I was young (you're trying to understand the world so you try and fit it into a theory you can subscribe to and understand) and it's only as you get older that you realise through experience how grey everything is, and how there are no theories and everyone has a point.
That's why we have democracy: to take the views of all age groups and backgrounds into account, and figure it out.
I largely agree (though I do think unconscious bias is a thing for most people including me) - my point was that young people feel the matter's settled, in the same way that climate change used to be disputed but is now generlaly (though not universally) accepted.
If I may say so, I think you've evolved on this forum, as have most of us - you're more open-minded tthan I remember unless directly provoked, as am I (I think).
I think subconscious bias (of all types, not only but including racial bias) is way more than a theory. There is considerable hard neurological and social science evidence (social science using the reproducible experimentation methods from the hard sciences) that strongly suggest that such subconscious biases happen at at least 4 levels in the operation of our brains:
1. brain architecture and chemistry 2. brain heuristics 3. personality and fear factors 4. social practices and culture
These subconscious biases assert themselves more when we are stressed or tired - witness the fact that statistically black applicants are far more likely to be accepted for parole when assessors are fresh and alert (and their pre-frontal cortex can assert rationality over subconscious emotional biases) than they are after lunch (when their brains' self-discipline centres take a rest).
This type of phenomena is seen time and time again in multiple different contexts.
PS This bias works both ways: both in the person showing bias towards the other person, and in the self-expectations of the person being discriminated against.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
That's fine in theory, but I think in practice the result will end up turning on the public's views of the politicians leading each side of the debate, certainly for those voters who are uncertain.
That's why the polls were so good for Independence earlier in the year. It was a choice between an Independent Scotland lead by sensible Nicola Sturgeon who is keeping you safe from Covid, or a Union with England lead by bumbling buffoon Boris Johnson who sent the kids back to school for one day, fifteen days before the peak in deaths, the twit.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
No. Sorry to disappoint.
And with that simple answer, the Trans PB Express failed to set off.
Use of preferred pronouns is bullshit. It started with Ms.. I have never used 'Ms' nor will I ever use 'they' or whatever other title they might choose to invent. Dinosaur I may be, but its woke nonsense.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.
*very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
Actresses used to be called actresses, but they are now called "actors". Perhaps they got fed up with being connected to a conversation with a bishop?
Not in general usage. In general usage, actress is the dominant term. (I realise you are joking on your latter point).
How long before the achingly-woke Hollywood types at the Oscars run into trouble, with having different categories for traditional male and female awards?
Presumably it would be opposed by actors and actresses because it would imply only half as many oscars?
We are probably only a couple of years away from a woke protest about gendered roles in Hollywood. Maybe there will be a really woke film about such gender issues, that’s a clear runner for multiple awards but leaves the Acadamy worrying in which category certain people should be nominated. Followed by arches of commentary on both sides, that leaves the Acadamy with no choice but to have a single award for the best ‘actor’ of any gender identity?
"There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.
But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.
Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."
There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards. Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.
If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.
We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
There is no issue with equivalence, there is an issue with alignment.
The UK has always been OK with equivalence AFAIK, it is the EU that has been demanding alignment. If you've got no qualms with either then lets hope the EU catch up and we can agree to equivalence and move on.
Alignment - following EU rules. Equivalence - having UK rules that are accepted as having parity with EU rules. Whatever. Our rules are their rules are our rules because nether side have changed the sodding rules. Drop the barriers and worry about future divergence as and when it happens. As we both say we will be moving in the same direction on standards there won't be a problem.
Good you've caught up with us. What you're talking about is equivalence, which is what we want. We can't make the EU grant that yet though, but if they do it will be sensible.
Its the same bloody thing. We left the EU but kept UK standards which are also UK standards. We have the right to change our standards but have pledged to only increase them and not decrease them to allow weevil-invested american food in.
So why have we demanded and implemented 3rd country status to give us the ability to do things we aren't going to do? We have shagged our own food sector and now are going to unshag it having gained literally nothing. Petulant posturing from a government who haven't a clue how any of this works.
The Seychelles - an island nation in the Indian Ocean - has fully vaccinated more of its population than any other country worldwide.
More than 60% of its 100,000 citizens have had both doses of a jab - the majority of which, Bloomberg reports, were the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine, and the rest AstraZeneca.
But the government is now reimposing restrictions to bring the virus back under control amid a surge in cases. The country has recorded around 1,000 active cases, a third of whom have had two vaccine doses
------
So thats Chile, Uruguay and Seychelles having this problem after using Chinese vaccines.
China caused COVID pandemic, now causing a new wave with a duff vaccine. But again there won't be any punishment by the international community for this.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
No. Sorry to disappoint.
And with that simple answer, the Trans PB Express failed to set off.
Preferred pronouns is bullshit. It started with Ms.. I have never used it nor will I ever use they or whatever. Dinosaur I may be but its woke nonsense.
Actually, I think Ms makes a lot of sense, though my eyes always rolled when I saw I had got a teacher with that pronoun!
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
Most of mine do too, apart from the ones who aren't.
I don't know about who is straight that identifies as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid". I think Leon spends more time on Twitter than with young people.
The point is that the idea of "identifying" is pretty irrelevant to 99% of people under 40, as I think it should be.
I have friends that are gay, they're gay. No problem with that, I suppose they do "identify" but it's not a conversation we have. We talk about football, or tech or whatever. I don't know what Leon is going on about to be honest.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
The English language itself provides a neater alternative – doctor and (the archaic) doctress, which would avoid the need for the awkward parentheses. Of course, in most (but not all) roles*, we've adopted the masculine as neuter – which seems sexist to me given that women are in the majority.
*very few people in the UK call landladies landlords, barmaids barmen or waitresses waiters.
Actresses used to be called actresses, but they are now called "actors". Perhaps they got fed up with being connected to a conversation with a bishop?
Not in general usage. In general usage, actress is the dominant term. (I realise you are joking on your latter point).
How long before the achingly-woke Hollywood types at the Oscars run into trouble, with having different categories for traditional male and female awards?
Presumably it would be opposed by actors and actresses because it would imply only half as many oscars?
Perhaps they will introduce a third category? Best leading/supporting (both are equal you know) genderfluid "actoress" category
Why are there two categories nowadays? In sports, where there are clear physical differences, it makes sense. But in acting? Why should we not simply have a best actor award? And if we keep best male/best female (to ensure equal number of prizes for each sex) then why not best white, best black etc?
Would be interesting to go back through the oscars of the last 10-20 years and try and get a consensus on how many women vs men would have won best actor in a single category. Do men get more of the kinds of roles that would win?
The Seychelles - an island nation in the Indian Ocean - has fully vaccinated more of its population than any other country worldwide.
More than 60% of its 100,000 citizens have had both doses of a jab - the majority of which, Bloomberg reports, were the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine, and the rest AstraZeneca.
But the government is now reimposing restrictions to bring the virus back under control amid a surge in cases. The country has recorded around 1,000 active cases, a third of whom have had two vaccine doses
------
So thats Chile, Uruguay and Seychelles having this problem after using Chinese vaccines.
China caused COVID pandemic, now causing a new wave with a duff vaccine. But again there won't be any punishment by the international community for this.
The Chile data do not support what is being implied here.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
No. Sorry to disappoint.
Very decent of you to answer. No disappointment
So if you're not trans, what does "not having a gender identity" mean?
I am sincerely curious. It's a new way of looking at the world, and those are always interesting
Do you fancy men, women, both, neither, trans people? Or is it nothing to do with erotic desire, and more about social personae? Again, you are under no obligation to answer
I have one trans friend, post op. She uses the Eddie Izzard expression to explain her feelings "I felt like a lesbian trapped in a man's body". It helped me understand
Oh, I see. I am what would usually be classified as a "straight cis male" by society. My point about gender identity is that it's something that nobody ever heard of until fairly recently, so I wouldn't have had one, say ten years ago. When younger, I might have said it means I like football and am not drawn to the colour pink, but I think we've pretty much all consigned that kind of thinking to the "unhelpful stereotype" bin.
Now everyone is assumed to have a gender identity, because there's a minority of people for whom this really matters. It doesn't matter to me, but I'm unclear why the way I view myself has to change somehow because of external factors.
Another way of looking at this is by comparison to religion. People describe as "atheist" or "agnostic", primarily because the societal default used to be that everyone was religious, so you needed a label to identify those who weren't. If religion was invented from scratch, it would be strange to have terms for people who just didn't buy into it. In the same way that I don't routinely describe myself as a "non stamp collector". The presence of Flat Earthers also does not automatically make me a "Globe Earther".
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
And I have friends just a bit under 20 as well, this is all a load of rubbish from you. Utter, utter nonsense. You're just making it up as you go along.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
That's fine in theory, but I think in practice the result will end up turning on the public's views of the politicians leading each side of the debate, certainly for those voters who are uncertain.
That's why the polls were so good for Independence earlier in the year. It was a choice between an Independent Scotland lead by sensible Nicola Sturgeon who is keeping you safe from Covid, or a Union with England lead by bumbling buffoon Boris Johnson who sent the kids back to school for one day, fifteen days before the peak in deaths, the twit.
The key trigger will be the reaction of the UK government. If they say "this is a democracy, you can have a vote if you want one but don't you have other priorities?" then the public appetite for independence will be lower than if they actually go through with blocking the idea saying "we don't care what you want you can't have it unless we say so".
Covid will quickly recede into the past - who wants to relive this? The argument will be about recovery and the future. Does Scotland have the right to decide its future or do the English retain the whip hand? Its way bigger than Sturgeon or Johnson, though of course some people will vote to give them a kicking.
The Seychelles - an island nation in the Indian Ocean - has fully vaccinated more of its population than any other country worldwide.
More than 60% of its 100,000 citizens have had both doses of a jab - the majority of which, Bloomberg reports, were the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine, and the rest AstraZeneca.
But the government is now reimposing restrictions to bring the virus back under control amid a surge in cases. The country has recorded around 1,000 active cases, a third of whom have had two vaccine doses
------
So thats Chile, Uruguay and Seychelles having this problem after using Chinese vaccines.
China caused COVID pandemic, now causing a new wave with a duff vaccine. But again there won't be any punishment by the international community for this.
The Chile data do not support what is being implied here.
There was a report the other day that (CH4 news I think) stated hospitals in Chile are now struggling and seeing significant numbers of fully vaccinated patients in their hospitals, not just those that rushed out the day after their jab and caught it.
Even the Chinese bod stated their vaccines were duffers (i presume before being removed from their position and sent to a work camp). The government also removed top officials from the company behind the vaccine.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
Most of mine do too, apart from the ones who aren't.
I don't know about who is straight that identifies as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid". I think Leon spends more time on Twitter than with young people.
The point is that the idea of "identifying" is pretty irrelevant to 99% of people under 40, as I think it should be.
I have friends that are gay, they're gay. No problem with that, I suppose they do "identify" but it's not a conversation we have. We talk about football, or tech or whatever. I don't know what Leon is going on about to be honest.
1) what time do polling stations close tonight, and is it the same from Land's End to John o' Groats?
2) when will actual results start to come in, for various races using various counting systems?
They close tomorrow night, not tonight. England is always 10 pm I believe. Not sure if other nations are different. It is possible to vote later if you are present and queueing, but rarely happens. Most counts seem to be Friday at the earliest, so results coming out friday PM and on.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
Ok, but we had @rcs1000 say the other day that all his kids friends identify as non-binary. So does one of my colleagues daughters and her friends (she's 17) so may there's a difference between Gen Z and Y?
"There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.
But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.
Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."
There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards. Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.
If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.
We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
There is no issue with equivalence, there is an issue with alignment.
The UK has always been OK with equivalence AFAIK, it is the EU that has been demanding alignment. If you've got no qualms with either then lets hope the EU catch up and we can agree to equivalence and move on.
Alignment - following EU rules. Equivalence - having UK rules that are accepted as having parity with EU rules. Whatever. Our rules are their rules are our rules because nether side have changed the sodding rules. Drop the barriers and worry about future divergence as and when it happens. As we both say we will be moving in the same direction on standards there won't be a problem.
Good you've caught up with us. What you're talking about is equivalence, which is what we want. We can't make the EU grant that yet though, but if they do it will be sensible.
Its the same bloody thing. We left the EU but kept UK standards which are also UK standards. We have the right to change our standards but have pledged to only increase them and not decrease them to allow weevil-invested american food in.
So why have we demanded and implemented 3rd country status to give us the ability to do things we aren't going to do? We have shagged our own food sector and now are going to unshag it having gained literally nothing. Petulant posturing from a government who haven't a clue how any of this works.
The EU don’t want us to be allowed to increase our standards, because it might mean that they no longer meet them.
1) what time do polling stations close tonight, and is it the same from Land's End to John o' Groats?
2) when will actual results start to come in, for various races using various counting systems?
They close tomorrow night, not tonight. England is always 10 pm I believe. Not sure if other nations are different. It is possible to vote later if you are present and queueing, but rarely happens. Most counts seem to be Friday at the earliest, so results coming out friday PM and on.
Thanks! Must be addlepated geezer syndrome, but yours truly was convinced when I woke up (it's 7am here) that it was Wednesday!
Of course has zero impact on my cogent analysis that I don't even know the freaking day of the week. Carry on.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
Ok, but we had @rcs1000 say the other day that all his kids friends identify as non-binary. So does one of my colleagues daughters and her friends (she's 17) so may there's a difference between Gen Z and Y?
Perhaps more likely there's a difference between California and Newcastle?
"There is a grand deal to be done with Brussels to keep Scotland in the union. European leaders are no fans of separatism. From Catalonia to Flanders and Transylvania to the Basques, most have separatist movements of their own they are keen to quash. As they did during the 2014 independence campaign, senior EU figures have quietly suggested to our ministers that they are prepared to be very helpful on an independent Scotland’s ambitions to rejoin the EU: a rejection that would kill Sturgeon’s project dead.
But the EU has a price: an agreement to heal the festering sore that is the Northern Ireland Protocol once and for all. It wants the UK to align to a thinned-down book of EU standards on food and agriculture, a move that would slash the need for the lion’s share of disruptive and costly border checks on imports into the province from the British mainland in a stroke. Some ministers in Johnson’s Cabinet also want closer alignment on sanitary and phytosanitary measures (as they’re technically known), and have pressed Brexit negotiator Lord Frost on it. And I understand this is now happening.
Frost and his opposite number in the EU, Commission vice president Maroš Šefčovič, are inching towards agreeing a set of common standards on agri-food. It won’t be called alignment (No10 prefers the terms “equivalence”). It may even involve the option to diverge if the UK feels it must, to avoid the incandescent rage of hardline Brexiteers who insist the UK must never again be beholden to Brussels on anything. But it amounts to the same thing."
There’s a huge difference between “alignment” and “equivalence” relating to future standards. Basically, the U.K. doesn’t trust the EU not to “evolve” their “standards” in a way that deliberately targets U.K. exports to the EU.
If they can solve that issue, with a classic piece of NI fudge, then we have progress.
As that is just paranoia as a result of the EU having to be the big bad, they'll get past it. I don't care what they call it, lets go back to the sensible solution of the UK standards remaining as they are. As the EU standards are also as they are, we can remove overnight the game ending barriers that we have had to postpone.
We aren't (so they say) going to lower food standards, we're going to enhance them. So there is no problem staying aligned / equivalenced to the EU standards. We will have the right to have babies without having the ability to have babies. Huzzah!
There is no issue with equivalence, there is an issue with alignment.
The UK has always been OK with equivalence AFAIK, it is the EU that has been demanding alignment. If you've got no qualms with either then lets hope the EU catch up and we can agree to equivalence and move on.
Alignment - following EU rules. Equivalence - having UK rules that are accepted as having parity with EU rules. Whatever. Our rules are their rules are our rules because nether side have changed the sodding rules. Drop the barriers and worry about future divergence as and when it happens. As we both say we will be moving in the same direction on standards there won't be a problem.
Good you've caught up with us. What you're talking about is equivalence, which is what we want. We can't make the EU grant that yet though, but if they do it will be sensible.
Its the same bloody thing. We left the EU but kept UK standards which are also UK standards. We have the right to change our standards but have pledged to only increase them and not decrease them to allow weevil-invested american food in.
So why have we demanded and implemented 3rd country status to give us the ability to do things we aren't going to do? We have shagged our own food sector and now are going to unshag it having gained literally nothing. Petulant posturing from a government who haven't a clue how any of this works.
The EU don’t want us to be allowed to increase our standards, because it might mean that they no longer meet them.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
I've thought about this a lot (genuinely) and I've decided I don't have a gender identity. I don't know what it means anyway, and all it seems to affect is pronouns, and which toilets you use. I don't care at all about the former, and on the latter I use the gents as a courtesy to women who might feel uncomfortable at my presence, not because of anything I identify as.
Are you trans? Sincere question. You clearly don't have to answer, of course.
It would be good to have a trans person on the site. We need that perspective as this debate has become so energetic
No. Sorry to disappoint.
And with that simple answer, the Trans PB Express failed to set off.
Preferred pronouns is bullshit. It started with Ms.. I have never used it nor will I ever use they or whatever. Dinosaur I may be but its woke nonsense.
Actually, I think Ms makes a lot of sense, though my eyes always rolled when I saw I had got a teacher with that pronoun!
I always think less of people who.insist on this kind of political.correctness.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
Most of mine do too, apart from the ones who aren't.
I don't know about who is straight that identifies as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid". I think Leon spends more time on Twitter than with young people.
The point is that the idea of "identifying" is pretty irrelevant to 99% of people under 40, as I think it should be.
I have friends that are gay, they're gay. No problem with that, I suppose they do "identify" but it's not a conversation we have. We talk about football, or tech or whatever. I don't know what Leon is going on about to be honest.
100% agreed.
To be honest, you are both geeky political obsessives who spend 24 hours a day on a politicalbetting website, arguing about the probable turnout in the locals in Cwm Rhondda and the evolution of phyto-sanitary standards on quasi-open EU borders, so you're not exactly normal (neither am I, naturally)
Go on Insta or TikTok. The tendency of kids under 20 to seek shelter under the LGBTQIKP banner is very real. And also understandable, given societal pressures
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
The Seychelles - an island nation in the Indian Ocean - has fully vaccinated more of its population than any other country worldwide.
More than 60% of its 100,000 citizens have had both doses of a jab - the majority of which, Bloomberg reports, were the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine, and the rest AstraZeneca.
But the government is now reimposing restrictions to bring the virus back under control amid a surge in cases. The country has recorded around 1,000 active cases, a third of whom have had two vaccine doses
------
So thats Chile, Uruguay and Seychelles having this problem after using Chinese vaccines.
China caused COVID pandemic, now causing a new wave with a duff vaccine. But again there won't be any punishment by the international community for this.
The Chile data do not support what is being implied here.
There was a report the other day that (CH4 news I think) stated hospitals in Chile are now struggling and seeing significant numbers of fully vaccinated patients in their hospitals, not just those that rushed out the day after their jab and caught it.
Even the Chinese bod stated their vaccines were duffers (i presume before being removed from their position and sent to a work camp). The government also removed top officials from the company behind the vaccine.
Trying to find it on twitter, but the evidence I saw was that the elderly in Chile are seeing a big vaccine protection boost in relation to the unvaccinated young, with the calculation that, to date, vaccines have saved 1500 lives in the country. Can't find it on twitter.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
And I have friends just a bit under 20 as well, this is all a load of rubbish from you. Utter, utter nonsense. You're just making it up as you go along.
I have friends under 20. You don't know them, they attend another school online discussion forum.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
In fact, the opposite. Polls consistently show a majority of Scots don't want another vote for 5 years at least, and a plurality don't want one ever
So in this instance, the UK government is bending to the will of the Scottish people, and Sturgeon is trying to overturn it (or is pretending to try to overturn it, such is the paradox)
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
And for my generation, a bit before yours, it was kick the crap out of anyone suspected of being a bit different. On which. Fights in school. Do they happen anymore? There was at least one every break time. I blame the lead in the petrol.
Everybody wants a new break away super league these days.
I'd have thought it would be very simple for the R&A, USGA, and the PGA of America to ban anyone who plays on that from competing at their major championships.
@squareroot2 I use "Ms X" in every professional correspondence with a woman who has not first indicated otherwise because I have no idea if they're married or not. Just seems more appropriate, and also seems weird that a woman would be defined by their marital status in any case.
I believe Mademoiselle is seen as antiquated in France also, for the same reason.
Everybody wants a new break away super league these days.
I'd have thought it would be very simple for the R&A, USGA, and the PGA of America to ban anyone who plays on that from competing at their major championships.
TBH, the pga tour already owns a significant stake in european tour, I am surprised they haven't moved to a "world tour" aka super league or very least made a subset of tournaments from both tours the equivalent of the super league of golf.
They could then leverage the big bucks from the large us tournaments with the money the european tour has got from deals with middle east and china.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
Fair enough - I certainly can't claim any deep insight into the priorities of that age group, other than to say that Uni/non-Uni is often a dividing line of sorts. The only other point I'd make on that is whether it's just what people that age talk about, or if they are actually energised enough to campaign/protest/vote along those lines as well.
I can confirm the generational difference from some personal experience - younger office colleagues, not into party politics as far as I know (and not all graduates), pressed vigorously for all emails to indicate the preferred gender use in their email signatures, and when that was finally agreed there were comments that we were very late getting round to it and organisations where friends work had done it ages ago. They are very keen to back BLM and similar causes.
It feels like a sea change similar to the change in attitudes 20 or so years ago towards gays - it's not that it comes up in everyday discussion (and nobody every talks about being woke), just a steady underlying assumption. The concept of white privilege and unconscious bias which puzzles some here is seen similarly to climate change - yes, they know some people don't get it, but they can't imagine why as it seems obvious to them.
Not voting Tory is a given among the youngest who express a political opinion, but they don't feel especially pro- any party, except perhaps the Greens, and they generally vote without enthusiasm for the best-placed non-Tory.
I've always thought a flip side to the pronoun thing is what if people dont want to get into a personal detail like that at work?
Obviously we dont want people to feel like they cannot be open about who they are, or in some bizarre it's ok so long as no one asks and no one tells situation, but voluntary personal questions on things like sexuality or religion people often dont see as an employers business other than avoiding discrimination.
It's not really a personal question. It's just telling people how you wish to be addressed. I assume that if you don't put anything, people will just use pronouns that society would assume, which is fine.
I personally don't put "my pronouns" on anything because they are just what society would expect, so why would I bother? To be honest even if someone addressed me as "she" I don't think I'd be bothered either way.
I agree with that, actually.
Where I'd take umbrage is if I was compelled to put my pronouns on my email signature.
What you've laid out is fine.
The other point (especially on email signatures) is that it's helpful in an environment where you can't necessarily tell a person's gender just from their name, either because it's ambiguous or because you're both part of a large multinational organisation and you aren't familiar with the naming conventions in their country. However, it's usually easy enough to get round the issue somehow, and it's clearly not why proponents of the idea push for it.
Would have been handy for my misapprehensions about Jo Grimond being a woman if every mention of him had had in brackets afterwards "he/his"
My title is Dr and so insurers always ask sex too (maybe they always ask sex* anyway?) but I sometimes get the insurance letters through addressed to "Dr (male) Selebian" and, on one memorable occasion when it was addressed to my wife too "Dr (male) Selebian and Dr (female) Selebian"
*I'll have to check, if they ask for 'gender' I can presumably self-identify as female for a lower premium?
Gender/sex-based pricing on personal lines was banned by the EU about ten years ago, so it won't affect your premium. Insurers still ask because it affects the risk, especially for things like life insurance.
On Medical Malpractice, I imagine that insurers would have a view on whether male and female doctors have similar claims profiles or not, although that would more likely be a reflection of bedside manner rather than skill if they did. I would guess (although I don't know) that MedMal is probably priced on a gender neutral basis, regardless of whether it was affected by the rule change.
Not that kind of Dr (the fake/real kind, depending who you speak to). Our elderly neighbours at the time were quite excited when we moved in, got called round in the first week by next door neighbour as his wife had feinted. Explained we weren't 'real' doctors, but went round and saw enough to persuade him to call for an ambulance.
I'd forgotten about the banning of sex-based pricing.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Everybody wants a new break away super league these days.
I'd have thought it would be very simple for the R&A, USGA, and the PGA of America to ban anyone who plays on that from competing at their major championships.
TBH, the pga tour already owns a significant stake in european tour, I am surprised they haven't moved to a "world tour" aka super league or very least made a subset of tournaments from both tours the equivalent of the super league of golf.
They could then leverage the big bucks from the large us tournaments with the money the european tour has got from deals with middle east and china.
Indeed. I mark this one down as "surprised it hasn't happened sooner". It is the way of tennis after all.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
In Rome, at certain points at least, it was ok to be a gay guy if you were the man, but if you were on the receiving end (and not an adolescent) it was seen as shameful.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Be true to yourself.
But also respect the wisdom of the crowd.
Esp. if it's turning into a lynch mob - and you risk being guest of honor at the necktie party.
I would like a patriotic Scot to explain to me what benefit there would be in holding another referendum just 7 years after the last very divisive referendum when all the polls indicate that Scotland is split down the middle and whilst we are attempting to recover from a health and economic disaster.
As a committed Unionist the case is very clear - the referendum in 2014 was fought, in part, on a falsehood, that only by voting No would Scotland remain in the EU.
There is therefore an understandable bitterness that the 2016 referendum has resulted in Scotland leaving the EU. Another referendum would be a chance to settle the question of whether that was sufficient for voters to choose Independence or renew the mandate for the Union in the new circumstances created by Brexit.
I don't think the English living in England get the fundamental self-determination question. Scotland has been dragged out of something it voted to not be dragged out of, it has caused economic damage and the government is saying tough. Whats then worse is that the government is saying that it has the legal right to do whatever it likes in and to Scotland and that the Scottish people have no ability to do anything about it.
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
So there must be another referendum even if there isn't a clear majority who want one? Scots are being oppressed whether they realise it or not.
If people elect a majority of MSPs on a manifesto of independence that is the literal definition of wanting one. We have a representative democracy not one based on opinion polls or even national vote tallies in elections - all that counts is who gets elected.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
It is a reserved power. The UK government has every right to say you had a referendum just seven years ago. By your logic every time there is a majority for independent parties they should be allowed to hold another referendum. Leaving the EU may represent a substantial change but I still don't see the case for another referendum unless there is overwhelming support for it. It doesn't appear that there is.
Yes every time there's a majority for a party, that party gets to implement its manifesto. That's called democracy.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
So they are allowed "one referendum" per parliament? Or can they have one every two years? Every month?
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
Politico.com - Trump still blocked from Facebook — for now "Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7," the company's oversight board said.
Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook account should remain suspended for the time being, the company’s oversight board announced Wednesday — agreeing that his rhetoric had created "a serious risk of violence" but saying the social network had been "arbitrary" in ousting him indefinitely.
"Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty," the board said in its ruling.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
You are obsessed. Seek help.
I'm the one that's obsessed??
Have you not noticed the trans-TERF wars? Entire careers are being ruined over this. Tsk
Everybody wants a new break away super league these days.
I'd have thought it would be very simple for the R&A, USGA, and the PGA of America to ban anyone who plays on that from competing at their major championships.
TBH, the pga tour already owns a significant stake in european tour, I am surprised they haven't moved to a "world tour" aka super league or very least made a subset of tournaments from both tours the equivalent of the super league of golf.
They could then leverage the big bucks from the large us tournaments with the money the european tour has got from deals with middle east and china.
I think the 4 World Golf Championship (WGC) tournaments which stand as official money list events for both tours play this purpose already. And of course, the majors as well.
So that's 8 tournaments that are effectively the super-league now. No reason why this concept couldn't be extended further.
The basic purse for a bog-standard European Tour event is way less than the equivalent on the PGA Tour though - a run of the mill European Tour event will have a purse of around 1.5 millions euros.
Everybody wants a new break away super league these days.
I'd have thought it would be very simple for the R&A, USGA, and the PGA of America to ban anyone who plays on that from competing at their major championships.
TBH, the pga tour already owns a significant stake in european tour, I am surprised they haven't moved to a "world tour" aka super league or very least made a subset of tournaments from both tours the equivalent of the super league of golf.
They could then leverage the big bucks from the large us tournaments with the money the european tour has got from deals with middle east and china.
Isn't that what the WGC events are? Look at the PGA Tour schedule:
Feb 28 - WGC Mar 14 - The Players Mar 28 - WGC (matchplay) Apr 11 - Masters Tournament May 23 - PGA Championship Jun 20 - U.S. Open Jul 18 - The Open Championship Aug 08 - WGC Oct ?? - WGC
Those events are kind of a world tour schedule.
In a way the PGA Tour is the super league of golf, especially when you consider the playoffs at the end of the season.
This, to me, epitomizes the new divide in British politics. And I think it's why Labour will continue to struggle ... it is on the side of diversity officers and translation services, which your ordinary voter thinks is BS.
That strikes me as a very Little England view, and I agree that is why Labour are struggling.
Little Englanders are in the ascendancy and the Tories are their party, for now.
Call it a Little England view if you like but it's becoming a Bigger England view as the woke BS increases. I'm not sure how Labour copes with that. Does it even want to?
You're relying on the young becoming less "woke" as they grow older. They probably will not. The Overton window will simply shift, as it has done over the past 100 years. Believing in gay marriage used to be woke af.
Very possibly. I think there are three (interrelated) counterarguments:
1) It's easy to forget that over half of people don't go to University. A lot of the "woke" agenda is driven by people with did, got excited about issues, and use social media to amplify their voices. However, they do not necessarily represent the consensus among their age group.
2) Priorities change as people settle down and have children, and stop caring about whatever it was that exercised them as students.
3) It's easy to support rights for a particular group in principle with seemingly no consequences, but as you get older you realise that the world is more complicated, and (for example) the trans rights issue becomes more difficult if you're suddenly worried about your daughter being assaulted in a public facility.
I counteract your first point somewhat from personal experience.
My girlfriend is 25, from Ashington, and never went to university and neither did many of her friends.
They don't spend their time discussing pronouns socially, obviously — they're not weirdos, but their views on things like self-ID and BLM are incredibly "woke" and would make some of those here on the right blush. They don't discuss them because they're just normal for them and their age group, it seems.
Maybe they're unusual but I would guess not. They spent their formative years on Facebook groups and watching YouTube influencers, both British and American, where these things are completely normalised.
In some respects, I don't blame them.
If the "worst" you can be now is a straight cisgender white male, and that's all down to self-ID, why on earth would you identify as one if you could avoid it? It could threaten to disadvantages you in your career, and possibly put you on the defensive socially.
You'd need to shield yourself with some individual intersectionality so you don't get targeted - so I might say instead that I'm non-binary, male was just my birth gender and I'm not wedded to it, and emphasise I had family all over the world.
Of course, it's comestic; I'm still interested in girls, but I'm reframing myself to protect my interests in the context of the times.
Astute
It's almost impossible to find a person between 15-20 who self IDs as "straight". Why would you expose yourself like that? Zero Oppression Boxes Ticked, plus you also sound conservative in the most boring way
They all self-ID as "genderqueer, queer, bi-curious, genderfluid" - or whatever. I presume 95% of them are actually straight, as there is no reason gayness or lesbianism should have ten-tupled overnight, as a proportion of society.
And of course the deep irony is that, despite this obsession with sexual identities, they are having much less sex than their parents or maybe grandparents did, at the same age
Wut, literally all of my younger friends "identify" as straight
I'm talking under 20, and I'm talking specifically of my daughters and their friends - 14-15. They ALL claim some letter or other on LGBTQAIPK
Edit: and I am also, I think, talking more of females than males. It is still socially more problematic, I guess, for a boy to pose as gay than for a girl to say she's "genderfluid". This is a guess, however
When I was at school, we all made jokes about so-and-so being "gay" or looking or being "a bit gay" all the time. And that was for males across the political spectrum, including those who were solid Lefties then and are still so today. Even one or two gay teenagers I knew at the time did the same.
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
A gay friend of mine got REALLY angry when I casually described a naff restaurant as "a bit gay"
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Don't the negative connotations of "a bit gay" come from homophobia, though? That's what I always thought - it came about when 'gay' meant 'homosexual' and mainstream opinion was that was a bad thing.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
Mr. Leon, I remember reading (I think it was Cicero praising Caesar's literary talents, although I could be wrong) that the best way to use vocabulary is to use words your audience knows but rarely uses. That way they understand everything you're saying and think you're smart (and it makes them feel clever too)..
If you use words others don't understand deliberately it makes you sound compunctuous.
Comments
The union - in the sense of being a union of equals and not an annexation like NI and Wales are - is dead. That is why there must be another referendum. Everything has changed since 2014. Literally everything.
I would prefer a new constitutional settlement to create a federation that is fit for the future. But as we aren't going to get that Scotland and NI and potentially Wales are going to get a divorce.
I guess they were all counting on him delivering as he had in 1992. They really needed to look at who the opponent was, though.
https://twitter.com/i/events/1389710145249157122
My 20 year old son still hasn't settled on a sexuality label - uses "not strictly straight" to describe it. His current boyfriend is a gay trans man (who is 21, "man" sounds predatory for some reason) which means he identifies as male, is sexually attracted only to men but is biologically female.
My son's previous BF was also a gay trans man - not saying that he is exclusively attracted to them but two on the bounce may be indicative...! For me I don't care what he's into as long as he is happy. The joy is that he can be out and open as he defines his identity instead of having to be locked in the closet like his old man was at 20.
The UK has always been OK with equivalence AFAIK, it is the EU that has been demanding alignment. If you've got no qualms with either then lets hope the EU catch up and we can agree to equivalence and move on.
So if you're not trans, what does "not having a gender identity" mean?
I am sincerely curious. It's a new way of looking at the world, and those are always interesting
Do you fancy men, women, both, neither, trans people? Or is it nothing to do with erotic desire, and more about social personae? Again, you are under no obligation to answer
I have one trans friend, post op. She uses the Eddie Izzard expression to explain her feelings "I felt like a lesbian trapped in a man's body". It helped me understand
If I may say so, I think you've evolved on this forum, as have most of us - you're more open-minded tthan I remember unless directly provoked, as am I (I think).
People are generally a bit coy about 'Prof' too. My boss (now 'Prof') doesn't like people calling her Prof but mainly, I think, because she prefers to be addressed by first name. I've seen newly professorised profs get introduced as 'Dr' on several occasions (meetings/presentations) and never seen one correct the introducer. Probably we all hate the patriarchical hierarchical (something-ist) structure it implies... If you insist on Dr/Prof or use it ostentatiously you look a bit needy.
Everyone still wants to get to be 'Prof' though, so they can not use the title. It's enough that everyone knows
I remember reading a conversation between a few Tory MPs in 1994/95 which the gist of was 'Well interest rates went up for a few hours, then went back to normal, the economy motored on, so like in 1992 we will because of the economy.'
I don't think they realised how much it preyed on the minds of the voters.
The other factor is that people thought Redwood was a joke figure, all they really knew about him as a campaigner was his attempts to sing the Welsh national anthem. So he couldn't be in the same high ability as Major.
Remarkable that although its getting close, the EU 7 day average has never been as high as the UK average.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita?tab=chart&country=USA~GBR~European+Union
Hopefully we get a good figure today as we bounce back from the Bank Holiday. Be good to get ~500-600k again.
“Alignment” to the EU means that EU exports to the U.K. will *always* be good, while slowly marginalising U.K. exports to the EU.
Not having gender identity means not identifying as male or female. You can be gender neutral with either set of genitals and it doesn't mean you are seeking to transition from one to the other. You can be gender neutral and be only attracted to one sex or both sexes or all sexualities.
I have actualy heard women renting out houses called 'landlord'. That's how we spoke about our female landlord (most of the time we referred to her by name, but if talking about 'the landlord' to someone who didn't know her, that's the term we used). 'Landlady' is, in my head, someone who lives in. Makes no sense, but I'm probably thinking of an old widow renting out a few rooms, as opposed to the male businessman renting out properties (which is clearly very sexist when you think about it). So I don't attach a sex to 'landlord' but I do attach a different role to 'landlord' versus 'landlady'.
As this group gets older, their voting propensity is likely to increase, maybe not to same level as higher-educated people in same age cohort, but still something to be reckoned with methinks.
And their "good old days" will NOT be same as your, oldtimer.
On other hand, best not take these emerging voters for granted. Or any other!
1. brain architecture and chemistry
2. brain heuristics
3. personality and fear factors
4. social practices and culture
These subconscious biases assert themselves more when we are stressed or tired - witness the fact that statistically black applicants are far more likely to be accepted for parole when assessors are fresh and alert (and their pre-frontal cortex can assert rationality over subconscious emotional biases) than they are after lunch (when their brains' self-discipline centres take a rest).
This type of phenomena is seen time and time again in multiple different contexts.
PS This bias works both ways: both in the person showing bias towards the other person, and in the self-expectations of the person being discriminated against.
That's why the polls were so good for Independence earlier in the year. It was a choice between an Independent Scotland lead by sensible Nicola Sturgeon who is keeping you safe from Covid, or a Union with England lead by bumbling buffoon Boris Johnson who sent the kids back to school for one day, fifteen days before the peak in deaths, the twit.
1) what time do polling stations close tonight, and is it the same from Land's End to John o' Groats?
2) when will actual results start to come in, for various races using various counting systems?
So why have we demanded and implemented 3rd country status to give us the ability to do things we aren't going to do? We have shagged our own food sector and now are going to unshag it having gained literally nothing. Petulant posturing from a government who haven't a clue how any of this works.
More than 60% of its 100,000 citizens have had both doses of a jab - the majority of which, Bloomberg reports, were the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine, and the rest AstraZeneca.
But the government is now reimposing restrictions to bring the virus back under control amid a surge in cases. The country has recorded around 1,000 active cases, a third of whom have had two vaccine doses
------
So thats Chile, Uruguay and Seychelles having this problem after using Chinese vaccines.
China caused COVID pandemic, now causing a new wave with a duff vaccine. But again there won't be any punishment by the international community for this.
I have friends that are gay, they're gay. No problem with that, I suppose they do "identify" but it's not a conversation we have. We talk about football, or tech or whatever. I don't know what Leon is going on about to be honest.
Would be interesting to go back through the oscars of the last 10-20 years and try and get a consensus on how many women vs men would have won best actor in a single category. Do men get more of the kinds of roles that would win?
Now everyone is assumed to have a gender identity, because there's a minority of people for whom this really matters. It doesn't matter to me, but I'm unclear why the way I view myself has to change somehow because of external factors.
Another way of looking at this is by comparison to religion. People describe as "atheist" or "agnostic", primarily because the societal default used to be that everyone was religious, so you needed a label to identify those who weren't. If religion was invented from scratch, it would be strange to have terms for people who just didn't buy into it. In the same way that I don't routinely describe myself as a "non stamp collector". The presence of Flat Earthers also does not automatically make me a "Globe Earther".
Covid will quickly recede into the past - who wants to relive this? The argument will be about recovery and the future. Does Scotland have the right to decide its future or do the English retain the whip hand? Its way bigger than Sturgeon or Johnson, though of course some people will vote to give them a kicking.
Even the Chinese bod stated their vaccines were duffers (i presume before being removed from their position and sent to a work camp). The government also removed top officials from the company behind the vaccine.
Most counts seem to be Friday at the earliest, so results coming out friday PM and on.
If I vote SNP or Green or Alba tomorrow I vote for an independence referendum. It is explicit in their manifestos. I won't vote for them, but more of their MSPs will get elected than those opposed to independence. It is - to retread the Brexit line - the will of the people.
Of course has zero impact on my cogent analysis that I don't even know the freaking day of the week. Carry on.
https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2017/tracing-terminology-researching-early-uses-of-cisgender
None of us thought we were being homophobic at the time, because we weren't - we used "gay" to mean pathetic/crap/stupid. But, we'd obviously never do that today.
Times change.
Go on Insta or TikTok. The tendency of kids under 20 to seek shelter under the LGBTQIKP banner is very real. And also understandable, given societal pressures
Everybody wants a new break away super league these days.
If the Scottish voters don't want that manifesto, they can elect a different party instead.
There is a way to tell if there is a "case for another referendum" or not, and that is whether those pledging one win a majority at an election or not.
Though he would say that, wouldn't he? After all, he WAS batting for more than one team!
So in this instance, the UK government is bending to the will of the Scottish people, and Sturgeon is trying to overturn it (or is pretending to try to overturn it, such is the paradox)
On which. Fights in school. Do they happen anymore?
There was at least one every break time. I blame the lead in the petrol.
West Wokeshire East? Not so much!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riNI5HHG4xY
I believe Mademoiselle is seen as antiquated in France also, for the same reason.
They could then leverage the big bucks from the large us tournaments with the money the european tour has got from deals with middle east and china.
I'd forgotten about the banning of sex-based pricing.
It occurred to me that he had a good point, and I was possibly skirting around homophobia (which was not my intention). I could have gotten into a long heated debate about "Well you guys stole the word in the first place and you don't own it", but life is too short, really
I have not publicly used it in that way since, and won't - unless lexical fashions change. Which is also possible
Am curious what YOUR take is on the political prospects tomorrow in the wilds of North Britain?
In Rome, at certain points at least, it was ok to be a gay guy if you were the man, but if you were on the receiving end (and not an adolescent) it was seen as shameful.
But also respect the wisdom of the crowd.
Esp. if it's turning into a lynch mob - and you risk being guest of honor at the necktie party.
What are the rules? There aren't any. Your pulling it your ass.
The power to approve referendums is reserved to Westminster for a reason, no state can withstand the constitutional and economic chaos of endless referendums threatening to break up the country - and plunging everyone - not just Scotland - into deep recession and a decade of bitter arguments.
It is commonly accepted that grave constitutional matters - and it doesn't get bigger than shattering the UK - should be addressed by very rare referendums. We had two EU votes in forty-odd years.
"Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7," the company's oversight board said.
Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook account should remain suspended for the time being, the company’s oversight board announced Wednesday — agreeing that his rhetoric had created "a serious risk of violence" but saying the social network had been "arbitrary" in ousting him indefinitely.
"Within six months of this decision, Facebook must reexamine the arbitrary penalty it imposed on January 7 and decide the appropriate penalty," the board said in its ruling.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/05/trump-still-blocked-from-facebook-for-now-485428
Have you not noticed the trans-TERF wars? Entire careers are being ruined over this. Tsk
So that's 8 tournaments that are effectively the super-league now. No reason why this concept couldn't be extended further.
The basic purse for a bog-standard European Tour event is way less than the equivalent on the PGA Tour though - a run of the mill European Tour event will have a purse of around 1.5 millions euros.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020–21_PGA_Tour
Feb 28 - WGC
Mar 14 - The Players
Mar 28 - WGC (matchplay)
Apr 11 - Masters Tournament
May 23 - PGA Championship
Jun 20 - U.S. Open
Jul 18 - The Open Championship
Aug 08 - WGC
Oct ?? - WGC
Those events are kind of a world tour schedule.
In a way the PGA Tour is the super league of golf, especially when you consider the playoffs at the end of the season.
If you'd been referring to the restaurant having a happy and jolly atmosphere, then you'd have had your friend bang to rights with the "you guys stole the word" argument.
If you use words others don't understand deliberately it makes you sound compunctuous.