A WOMAN who lost her job after tweeting that “male people are not women” has won a landmark employment case.
The victory for Maya Forstater, who was backed by JK Rowling and SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC, means people with ‘gender critical’ beliefs must not be sacked simply for holding them.
However, they cannot express them in a way that discriminates against trans people.
Ms Cherry said the decision should end discrimination against academics, trade unionists and others like herself who had been bullied and threatened because of their beliefs.
“This judgment does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can ‘misgender’ trans persons with impunity.The Claimant, like everyone else, will continue to be subject to the prohibitions on discrimination and harassment that apply to everyone else. Whether or not conduct in a given situation does amount to harassment or discrimination within the meaning of EqA will be for a tribunal to determinein a given case.”
It seems that the judgement is essentially saying that GC beliefs are not grounds for dismissal, as they are philosophical beliefs & thus protected. However, if Forster acts on those beliefs then that action would be grounds for dismissal.
Do I have that right? I think that’s the court’s conclusion.
Since the whole subject of the tweets for which Forster was let go was her insistence on being able to call trans women men to their face, which the court has explictly told her she can’t do, this isn’t quite the victory she thinks it is.
Right decision IMO: uphold the law, but not the idea that mere thoughtcrime is grounds for dismissal.
I expect the GC crowd to crow about this for a few days, until eventually they realise that nothing has actually changed.
Interesting. Not having the tables in front of me are trans people really "one of the most discriminated against" in the UK?
I suppose if the proportion of trans people who are discriminated against is higher that the proportion of other minorities then perhaps. Who has the stats?
I mean of course one trans person discriminated against is one too much but what a strange thing for SKS to say.
Impolitic perhaps, but not strange, since it's quite likely true.
You won't find any 'tables' since for reasons which ought to be obvious, it's not a group easy for statisticians to identify even if it were a priority for them, which it hasn't been.
Even the government's own publications suggest as much. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721642/GEO-LGBT-factsheet.pdf How many trans people are there? We don’t know. No robust data on the UK trans population exists. We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK. The Office for National Statistics is researching whether and how to develop a population estimate. Facts and Figures 41% of trans men and trans women responding to a Stonewall survey said they had experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months. They also found that 25% of trans people had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. Our national LGBT survey found similar results, with 67% of trans respondents saying they had avoided being open about their gender identity for fear of a negative reaction from others...
I'd be wary about believing what Stonewall issues these days on this topic since they give out misleading and incorrect advice on what the law on sex-based rights actually is. This ought to be a bigger scandal than it is, especially given that they are paid by a lot of government departments and other big companies to issue advice. Lying about what the law says in order to suit a particular agenda is utterly disgraceful.
If you have better statistics, I'm happy to see them.
I am sure it is very dispiriting for SKS. SKS can see Johnson is a rogue, as we all can.
But, enough of the UK electorate think Johnson is a loveable old rogue.
It is very obvious SKS is going down to defeat in 2024.
SKS is MORE wooden and accident-prone than Ed Miliband. (Even some of the accidents are the same -- remember when Ed Miliband could not name the SLAB leader).
How come Labour carries on making the same mistakes again and again?
Presumably we are due for Corbyn Mark II, after SKS has resigned at 3.00 am on Friday 3rd May 2024.
Doesn't matter that he's wooden. It matters that he has not opposed the government in any vote in parliament over the past 15 months.
Why would anyone vote for an opposition that has supported the government at every turn during one of the most important periods of post-war history?
Even Jezza realised that an opposition should oppose.
And national emergency my arse. Of course it was an extreme time but we weren't at war.
It worse than not opposing anything, it is then how he then moans the government got it all wrong several months down the line...
LotO is a difficult job during something like a pandemic, but he doesn’t even seem to be trying.
He could have played to his strengths as a serious, thoughtful type, to come up with constructive suggestions on how things might be done better, but he’s said nothing substantive except in hindsight, and focussed excessively on trivialities like wallpaper.
Jeremy Hunt has shown him how it could be done. He has repeatedly made sensible suggestions e.g. we should keep schools open for kids of key workers.
In a defence of Starmer, despite his invisibility as LOTO, he is up against Johnson who the voters have perceived has had an inch-perfect, error-free pandemic.
Johnson's genius has been his non-stop campaigning throughout the pandemic (something I was critical of, considering it tasteless during the height of a pandemic where thousands of people were dying each week). The campaigning has paid dividends and has given the impression that vaccine, procurement, programming and delivery were all entirely his gift to the nation, and now we a reaping the benefits- a nation unlocked and Covid vanquished. (Remember, perception, not reality, although the link between Covid and deaths seems over).
I still cannot see past the early stages of a chaotic economy this time next year, which is why I feel Johnson should go very, very, early Spring/ early Autumn 2022. I believe the economic strife will take a year or so to fully make its mark on Johnson, which is why 2024 is too late.
It's going to be very amusing when the economy's still strong in 12 months' time. What will the mantra be then?
A WOMAN who lost her job after tweeting that “male people are not women” has won a landmark employment case.
The victory for Maya Forstater, who was backed by JK Rowling and SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC, means people with ‘gender critical’ beliefs must not be sacked simply for holding them.
However, they cannot express them in a way that discriminates against trans people.
Ms Cherry said the decision should end discrimination against academics, trade unionists and others like herself who had been bullied and threatened because of their beliefs.
And on the day Starmer wades in on the other side of the debate.....
Did he ? The tribunal decision seems pretty uncontroversial to me. Has Starmer ever even hinted that it's OK to sack someone simply for holding such beliefs ?
No, but that shouldn't stop Urquhart from telling you otherwise, and don't forget it's not Starmer, it's Brittas
She is absolutely opposed to any self identication of trans women as women....that is how she got into hot water. Starmer has popped up and said I am all for it.
I bet the government are regretting ever having her anywhere near a SAGE committee.
Does she want to abolish Strictly etc? I mean I wish that these people would explain the practicalities of what they are suggesting. On the C5 interview she said that it would become like "wearing a seatbelt or picking up after your dog".
Advisory on masks in limited scenarios would be fine.
Legal limits on social distancing forever absolutely not!
These days there are many metropolitan fuck sticks new universities that they could teach at instead....that don't date back more than 20 years, so aren't likely to have such problematic issues.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
A WOMAN who lost her job after tweeting that “male people are not women” has won a landmark employment case.
The victory for Maya Forstater, who was backed by JK Rowling and SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC, means people with ‘gender critical’ beliefs must not be sacked simply for holding them.
However, they cannot express them in a way that discriminates against trans people.
Ms Cherry said the decision should end discrimination against academics, trade unionists and others like herself who had been bullied and threatened because of their beliefs.
“This judgment does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can ‘misgender’ trans persons with impunity.The Claimant, like everyone else, will continue to be subject to the prohibitions on discrimination and harassment that apply to everyone else. Whether or not conduct in a given situation does amount to harassment or discrimination within the meaning of EqA will be for a tribunal to determinein a given case.”
It seems that the judgement is essentially saying that GC beliefs are not grounds for dismissal, as they are philosophical beliefs & thus protected. However, if Forster acts on those beliefs then that action would be grounds for dismissal.
Do I have that right? I think that’s the court’s conclusion.
Since the whole subject of the tweets for which Forster was let go was her insistence on being able to call trans women men to their face, which the court has explictly told her she can’t do, this isn’t quite the victory she thinks it is.
Right decision IMO: uphold the law, but not the idea that mere thoughtcrime is grounds for dismissal.
I expect the GC crowd to crow about this for a few days, until eventually they realise that nothing has actually changed.
It seems like the right judgement to me.
I can critique our legal system like the best of them but I think our judges are generally quite good, and fair.
It doesn't seem very politically savvy to go wading into this. It is such a divisive issue, especially among left leaning traditional feminist types. Let alone traditional red wall flat cap and whippet lot, why doesn't he have anything to say about.levelling up etc.
I suspect that the average Labour voter shares the view of traditional feminists far more than they do the views of the ultra gender acitivist types.
Anyone know why vaccine deliveries don't seem to have been increasing as expected?
Figures for Germany: https://impfdashboard.de/ show 5.7 million doses delivered last week and 5.8 million doses delivered 5 whole weeks earlier. With around 5 million each of the intervening weeks.
Lots of people can't get any kind of appointment for a first dose because there aren't enough doses.
I thought we were supposed to be seeing big supply increases by now?
(also 70% of doses are from Pfizer, if they hadn't come good we'd be really in trouble. alternatively, if the other manufacturers were as good we'd be doing a lot better).
If the cricket is anything to go by, masks for eternity isn't going to fly....
It will be interesting to see if we do move to the Asian societial norm of wearing a mask when one doesn't feel very well...or if we will return to nobody wearing a mask even when hackings their guts up.
In a defence of Starmer, despite his invisibility as LOTO, he is up against Johnson who the voters have perceived has had an inch-perfect, error-free pandemic.
Johnson's genius has been his non-stop campaigning throughout the pandemic (something I was critical of, considering it tasteless during the height of a pandemic where thousands of people were dying each week). The campaigning has paid dividends and has given the impression that vaccine, procurement, programming and delivery were all entirely his gift to the nation, and now we a reaping the benefits- a nation unlocked and Covid vanquished. (Remember, perception, not reality, although the link between Covid and deaths seems over).
I still cannot see past the early stages of a chaotic economy this time next year, which is why I feel Johnson should go very, very, early Spring/ early Autumn 2022. I believe the economic strife will take a year or so to fully make its mark on Johnson, which is why 2024 is too late.
What strife?
Companies are reporting difficulties in filling vacancies. The economy is rebounding strongly. Confidence is pretty much at a record level. That forwards momentum will take us through the end of furlough and allow those whose companies don't reopen post-lockdown to find companies desperate for staff.
At that point the economic strife as well as the health strife will have been dealt with.
Since you're so convinced the economic strife is coming, if I'm right and the economy gets through this fine with the government support laid out then a post-pandemic rebound . . . would that confounding of your expectations make you consider voting for a Boris led Tory Party in 2023/24 or would that never happen?
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
I am sure it is very dispiriting for SKS. SKS can see Johnson is a rogue, as we all can.
But, enough of the UK electorate think Johnson is a loveable old rogue.
It is very obvious SKS is going down to defeat in 2024.
SKS is MORE wooden and accident-prone than Ed Miliband. (Even some of the accidents are the same -- remember when Ed Miliband could not name the SLAB leader).
How come Labour carries on making the same mistakes again and again?
Presumably we are due for Corbyn Mark II, after SKS has resigned at 3.00 am on Friday 3rd May 2024.
Keir’s mission now is simply to make sure that Labour cannot vote for another Corbyn.
That sounds undemocratic
It should be to ensure we never get another SKS as well according to this thread.
Remember when loads of people mocked Boris for his moonshot project of millions of tests a day and you getting tested to attend things like sporting events....
These days there are many metropolitan fuck sticks new universities that they could teach at instead....that don't date back more than 20 years, so aren't likely to have such problematic issues.
It's worth noting these are a minority <10% of academics and a majority of academics that submitted evidence to the Rhodes Commission wanted the statue to stay.
As usual, it's the empty vessels making the most noise.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
Those in favour of the second referendum couldn’t see past that outcome, which led to sub-optimal game playing.
If Corbyn had persuaded a hundred MPs to abstain the meaningful vote in an ambush, he’d have torn the government (and the Conservative party) in half. Instead, by continually voting it down, he gave them enough space to reinvent themselves under a new leader, with the worst possible outcome - a thumping election defeat and Brexit happening anyway.
Anyone know why vaccine deliveries don't seem to have been increasing as expected?
Figures for Germany: https://impfdashboard.de/ show 5.7 million doses delivered last week and 5.8 million doses delivered 5 whole weeks earlier. With around 5 million each of the intervening weeks.
Lots of people can't get any kind of appointment for a first dose because there aren't enough doses.
I thought we were supposed to be seeing big supply increases by now?
(also 70% of doses are from Pfizer, if they hadn't come good we'd be really in trouble. alternatively, if the other manufacturers were as good we'd be doing a lot better).
Competition from the likes of Japan, South Korea, Australia et al who started off later? I see Canada have gone from laggards to close to world leaders in the at least one dose category with their 16 week gap.
Shouldn't you put a trigger warning on that? Some of the flag sensitive types here might have a convulsive fit....
As a member of the metropolitan liberal elite, I fully support the displaying of all those different flags. Reminds me of being on the EU gravy train in Brussels. Happy times
(I had a few trips to the Commission offices for an FP7 project on which I was a contracted consultant - the trips to the Commission were probably the most austere of all the meetings, but they did have a lot of flags)
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
They got a second vote, it just came in the form of a General Election giving Boris a landslide majority.
Whoops.
The Brexity side weren't loons and they got what they wanted. I was assured repeatedly during this period that opposing May's deal was madness - with hindsight I feel 100% vindicated.
Accompanied by a cartoon of a crying white woman, it claims that mainstream feminism supports 'the root causes of sexual violence' and even appears to suggest that reporting rape is 'contemptible'.
----
I wonder who makes who a big chunk of their donations?
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades, with Potemkin referendums.
Apply the same logic to the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
@Malmesbury spot on, but politics isn't always logical.
For example, if one or two young people die in August as a result then the salience of that will be far higher than if hundreds of older people are dying daily, and burying it as a result, and therefore there will be a higher "shock" factor with political consequences.
People get far more upset by a gut-wrenching personal tragedy than a statistic.
The concern is more what will happen when COVID finds it's way to a group of the unvaccinated vulnerable.
Since the modern, racist discourse, of anti-racist politics is to deny moral agency to minorities, this gives us
1) Some unvaccinated people died. 2) Since their decision to take the vaccine was not actually theirs (since they lack moral agency)... 3) The government has killed them 4) Which is racist
Remember when loads of people mocked Boris for his moonshot project of millions of tests a day and you getting tested to attend things like sporting events....
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
They got a second vote, it just came in the form of a General Election giving Boris a landslide majority.
Whoops.
The Brexity side weren't loons and they got what they wanted. I was assured repeatedly during this period that opposing May's deal was madness - with hindsight I feel 100% vindicated.
That is because you are unable to see this subject objectively and you are a supporter of said loons, and are the Brexit Keyboard Warrior Loon Incarnate.
Time for everyone to move on with respect to Brexit. It was pointless IMO, but it can't be reversed. You Philip can carry on jerking yourself off over your keyboard about it, but you haven't been "vindicated" on anything other than rightly or wrongly your side of the disinformation filled argument won its pyric victory.
| NEW: Senior government scientist Susan Michie says we will need masks and social distancing forever
He's right.
I don't see why her wacko views are given any consideration when they can turn around and say Gupta and Heneghan and Tegnell are loons who should be ignored.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades. With Potemkin referendums. Imagine doing the same in the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
How many times do you need to be reminded that hard Brexit was committed to by May in 2016, and indicative votes on a soft Brexit (CU/SM) were voted down as a result of Tory whipping, with Labour overwhelmingly voting for it. It was the Tory obsession with a hard Brexit that prevented a soft Brexit, not Remainer opposition.
Have we learnt nothing about writing off a source just because we don't like it?
No, absolutely not. I will not recognise the Canary, or the Mail, or ZeroHedge as a credible source.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
Those in favour of the second referendum couldn’t see past that outcome, which led to sub-optimal game playing.
If Corbyn had persuaded a hundred MPs to abstain the meaningful vote in an ambush, he’d have torn the government (and the Conservative party) in half. Instead, by continually voting it down, he gave them enough space to reinvent themselves under a new leader, with the worst possible outcome - a thumping election defeat and Brexit happening anyway.
That is a fair assessment. A lot of people give Boris Johnson the "credit" for Brexit, and while I don't like him and think his support for it disingenuous, he did play his part, but the real credit/blame (delete according to view) for Brexit goes to Corbyn.
A WOMAN who lost her job after tweeting that “male people are not women” has won a landmark employment case.
The victory for Maya Forstater, who was backed by JK Rowling and SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC, means people with ‘gender critical’ beliefs must not be sacked simply for holding them.
However, they cannot express them in a way that discriminates against trans people.
Ms Cherry said the decision should end discrimination against academics, trade unionists and others like herself who had been bullied and threatened because of their beliefs.
This was an notable bit. In a poll of 1,000 employers across a variety of industries in June 2018, one in three employers admitted they were less likely to hire a transgender person and 43% were unsure if they would...
Of how many other groups would this be true ? Other than convicted criminals, perhaps.
Accompanied by a cartoon of a crying white woman, it claims that mainstream feminism supports 'the root causes of sexual violence' and even appears to suggest that reporting rape is 'contemptible'.
----
I wonder who makes who a big chunk of their donations?
None of this stuff makes sense anymore.
They'd do well to focus on their staff sexually exploiting those who are in their care, some of whom I suspect hide behind incoherent Wokery like this.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades. With Potemkin referendums. Imagine doing the same in the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
I broadly agree with this. (And it is easier to do so with hindsight).
I actually think the critical moment was the six months after the vote when it was up to May to determine the rules of the game.
Remember, “Brexit means Brexit”?
She ruled out FOM etc and defined red lines which entailed a hard Brexit which she then attempted to soften via negotiation.
No opposition - formally designated as such or otherwise - existed in a coherent enough fashion to shape the terms of the debate in any other direction.
Notice Burnham looking quite popular there... Waiting in the wings to return Labour to power in 2029 or thereabouts...
No data to support this, but my feeling is that Burnham would do quite a bit to shore up areas of traditional Labour support (including the former red wall) but would struggle to get further into Tory territory, especially south of the Humber, ditto SNP territory. I think Labour's need is for someone two steps up from Burnham, and (sadly - he's a good and decent man) three steps up from SKS.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
They got a second vote, it just came in the form of a General Election giving Boris a landslide majority.
By my count it was at least a fourth vote. You had the 2015 election, which authorised a referendum with the government promising to abide by the result, the referendum itself, the 2017 election then the 2019 election.
Have we learnt nothing about writing off a source just because we don't like it?
No, absolutely not. I will not recognise the Canary, or the Mail, or ZeroHedge as a credible source.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
"..the Telegraph is a credible source on the right." LOL! Your gullibility index has just shot off the scale.
Have we learnt nothing about writing off a source just because we don't like it?
No, absolutely not. I will not recognise the Canary, or the Mail, or ZeroHedge as a credible source.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
Part of the problem with credibility is the refusal of traditional media to link to original source information in their online stories.
This is where https://arstechnica.com for example, is so much better. All their stories are filled with links to source information.
Have we learnt nothing about writing off a source just because we don't like it?
No, absolutely not. I will not recognise the Canary, or the Mail, or ZeroHedge as a credible source.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
"..the Telegraph is a credible source on the right." LOL! Your gullibility index has just shot off the scale.
And you pretend to be a Tory. 😂
What would be a credible right wing source in your eyes? The Daily Mirror? 😂
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
Those in favour of the second referendum couldn’t see past that outcome, which led to sub-optimal game playing.
If Corbyn had persuaded a hundred MPs to abstain the meaningful vote in an ambush, he’d have torn the government (and the Conservative party) in half. Instead, by continually voting it down, he gave them enough space to reinvent themselves under a new leader, with the worst possible outcome - a thumping election defeat and Brexit happening anyway.
That is a fair assessment. A lot of people give Boris Johnson the "credit" for Brexit, and while I don't like him and think his support for it disingenuous, he did play his part, but the real credit/blame (delete according to view) for Brexit goes to Corbyn.
No. That is taking agency away from Boris. Who is to blame for Brexit, and indeed “this” Brexit. Who are the “guilty men”?
In a defence of Starmer, despite his invisibility as LOTO, he is up against Johnson who the voters have perceived has had an inch-perfect, error-free pandemic.
Johnson's genius has been his non-stop campaigning throughout the pandemic (something I was critical of, considering it tasteless during the height of a pandemic where thousands of people were dying each week). The campaigning has paid dividends and has given the impression that vaccine, procurement, programming and delivery were all entirely his gift to the nation, and now we a reaping the benefits- a nation unlocked and Covid vanquished. (Remember, perception, not reality, although the link between Covid and deaths seems over).
I still cannot see past the early stages of a chaotic economy this time next year, which is why I feel Johnson should go very, very, early Spring/ early Autumn 2022. I believe the economic strife will take a year or so to fully make its mark on Johnson, which is why 2024 is too late.
What strife?
Companies are reporting difficulties in filling vacancies. The economy is rebounding strongly. Confidence is pretty much at a record level. That forwards momentum will take us through the end of furlough and allow those whose companies don't reopen post-lockdown to find companies desperate for staff.
At that point the economic strife as well as the health strife will have been dealt with.
Since you're so convinced the economic strife is coming, if I'm right and the economy gets through this fine with the government support laid out then a post-pandemic rebound . . . would that confounding of your expectations make you consider voting for a Boris led Tory Party in 2023/24 or would that never happen?
I have been very specific when economic strife will take effect. You are in cloud cuckoo land if you believe there will be no economic consequences from the last 14 months. Try getting out more, the signs are already here, quality businesses not reopening, and not just retail that has gone online.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades. With Potemkin referendums. Imagine doing the same in the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
How many times do you need to be reminded that hard Brexit was committed to by May in 2016, and indicative votes on a soft Brexit (CU/SM) were voted down as a result of Tory whipping, with Labour overwhelmingly voting for it. It was the Tory obsession with a hard Brexit that prevented a soft Brexit, not Remainer opposition.
I've always admitted this. TMay (a Remainer) is as much to blame as the leftwing Remainers. Her insane red lines boxed her in from the start
However the push for a 2nd vote made Brexiteers worry that the whole thing would be overturned, which persuaded many Leavers to go for a Hard, irreversible Brexit. The two sides conspired to get a Brexit very few originally desired.
It will be a poignant passage in Brexit: the History
Have we learnt nothing about writing off a source just because we don't like it?
No, absolutely not. I will not recognise the Canary, or the Mail, or ZeroHedge as a credible source.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
The Guardian exploit many of the same tricks as the Mail, where they conveniently miss out something pertinent.
And the Telegraph these days, their standards aren't what they once were. During the pandemic, they have published loads of articles that has been misleading to say the least, to back up their position of less lockdowns / restrictions.
It doesn't seem very politically savvy to go wading into this. It is such a divisive issue, especially among left leaning traditional feminist types. Let along traditional red wall flat cap and whippet lot.
It's politically inept - nothing wrong with supporting LGBTQ+ rights, but grasping the third rail of self-id, which is far from being an uncontested matter on the left, let alone the general population when it potentially conflicts with natal women's rights - its an odd hill to die on.
Disagree. Taking clear principled positions is what Labour should be doing. Of course there's a risk with it but it's one worth taking.
Imagine if we were to throw minorities under a bus in a chase for the votes of social conservatives and then they don't vote for us anyway because they (correctly) intuit that we are at heart a bunch of liberal progressives.
That'd be just grim. Much better to be bold and authentic. Project a radically different vision to that of the Tories and then sell it with flair and confidence.
I've no way given up on Starmer. But he will have to go (next year) if he can't do this.
Interesting. Not having the tables in front of me are trans people really "one of the most discriminated against" in the UK?
I suppose if the proportion of trans people who are discriminated against is higher that the proportion of other minorities then perhaps. Who has the stats?
I mean of course one trans person discriminated against is one too much but what a strange thing for SKS to say.
Impolitic perhaps, but not strange, since it's quite likely true.
You won't find any 'tables' since for reasons which ought to be obvious, it's not a group easy for statisticians to identify even if it were a priority for them, which it hasn't been.
Even the government's own publications suggest as much. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/721642/GEO-LGBT-factsheet.pdf How many trans people are there? We don’t know. No robust data on the UK trans population exists. We tentatively estimate that there are approximately 200,000-500,000 trans people in the UK. The Office for National Statistics is researching whether and how to develop a population estimate. Facts and Figures 41% of trans men and trans women responding to a Stonewall survey said they had experienced a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months. They also found that 25% of trans people had experienced homelessness at some point in their lives. Our national LGBT survey found similar results, with 67% of trans respondents saying they had avoided being open about their gender identity for fear of a negative reaction from others...
I'd be wary about believing what Stonewall issues these days on this topic since they give out misleading and incorrect advice on what the law on sex-based rights actually is. This ought to be a bigger scandal than it is, especially given that they are paid by a lot of government departments and other big companies to issue advice. Lying about what the law says in order to suit a particular agenda is utterly disgraceful.
This is a constant GC talking point: that Stonewall gave incorrect & misleading advice on the law on sex based rights.
Can you point to the actual text that you believe overstepped the legal stipulation? I’d like to compare it with the recent judgement in the High Court where the attempt to have a judicial review of the EHRC guidance on the Equality Act & it’s implications was refused by the judge on the grounds that the EHRC’s interpretation of the law was the correct one.
“Schools, colleges and settings should ensure that a trans child or young person is supported to use the toilets and changing rooms they feel most comfortable with, including the facilities matching their gender.
Under the Equality Act a trans child or young person can use the toilets and changing rooms that match their gender.
Under the Act, a school can only prevent a trans child or young person from using the facilities matching their gender if they can demonstrate that doing so is a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’, which is a high legal bar to clear. Schools, colleges and settings should also support trans children and young people to use gender-neutral facilities or a private space, if that is what they prefer. The most important thing is to talk to the child or young person rather than making assumptions about the facilities they would like to use.”
Which seems in line with the judgement in AEA vs EHRC - i.e. this is a “should”, not a “must” & exceptions can & do apply - but it’s posible that this is not the original document & that Stonewall has (rightly if so) updated the text since the judgement in that case was published.
Notice Burnham looking quite popular there... Waiting in the wings to return Labour to power in 2029 or thereabouts...
No data to support this, but my feeling is that Burnham would do quite a bit to shore up areas of traditional Labour support (including the former red wall) but would struggle to get further into Tory territory, especially south of the Humber, ditto SNP territory. I think Labour's need is for someone two steps up from Burnham, and (sadly - he's a good and decent man) three steps up from SKS.
On the Ipsos Mori polling only Boris of top Tories could still beat Burnham, Burnham would likely narrowly beat Sunak and would easily beat Gove.
If Burnham reclaimed the red wall we could be back to hung parliament territory, the SNP would support Labour anyway
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades. With Potemkin referendums. Imagine doing the same in the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
How many times do you need to be reminded that hard Brexit was committed to by May in 2016, and indicative votes on a soft Brexit (CU/SM) were voted down as a result of Tory whipping, with Labour overwhelmingly voting for it. It was the Tory obsession with a hard Brexit that prevented a soft Brexit, not Remainer opposition.
I've always admitted this. TMay (a Remainer) is as much to blame as the leftwing Remainers. Her insane red lines boxed her in from the start
However the push for a 2nd vote made Brexiteers worry that the whole thing would be overturned, which persuaded many Leavers to go for a Hard, irreversible Brexit. The two sides conspired to get a Brexit very few originally desired.
It will be a poignant passage in Brexit: the History
May committed to end free movement, the only way to respect the vote of working class Leavers, while keeping the UK close enough aligned to the SM and CU to avoid a border in the Irish Sea
Have we learnt nothing about writing off a source just because we don't like it?
No, absolutely not. I will not recognise the Canary, or the Mail, or ZeroHedge as a credible source.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
"..the Telegraph is a credible source on the right." LOL! Your gullibility index has just shot off the scale.
I would say that the Telegraph has about equal credibility with the Guardian.
Accompanied by a cartoon of a crying white woman, it claims that mainstream feminism supports 'the root causes of sexual violence' and even appears to suggest that reporting rape is 'contemptible'.
----
I wonder who makes who a big chunk of their donations?
None of this stuff makes sense anymore.
They'd do well to focus on their staff sexually exploiting those who are in their care, some of whom I suspect hide behind incoherent Wokery like this.
Oxfam have a brass neck to be commenting on these issues at all, given that their record is so vile.
| NEW: Senior government scientist Susan Michie says we will need masks and social distancing forever
I just watched that expecting to hear nuance, but there was none.
She appears to want the habits to continue to help control flu, colds and any other viruses.
So many medical professionals seem to think their job is to eliminate any and all medical or biological risk.
It's time they were taught there are other important factors, like the quality of life.
I mean, the scientific advisor can be the person to advocate that. We should just be prepared to overrule her when the interests of the country as a whole are considered.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
Those in favour of the second referendum couldn’t see past that outcome, which led to sub-optimal game playing.
If Corbyn had persuaded a hundred MPs to abstain the meaningful vote in an ambush, he’d have torn the government (and the Conservative party) in half. Instead, by continually voting it down, he gave them enough space to reinvent themselves under a new leader, with the worst possible outcome - a thumping election defeat and Brexit happening anyway.
That is a fair assessment. A lot of people give Boris Johnson the "credit" for Brexit, and while I don't like him and think his support for it disingenuous, he did play his part, but the real credit/blame (delete according to view) for Brexit goes to Corbyn.
No. That is taking agency away from Boris. Who is to blame for Brexit, and indeed “this” Brexit. Who are the “guilty men”?
I would say, in order:
1. Boris 2. Farage 3. Corbyn 4. May 5. Gove
Boris doesn't deserve any "blame" he deserves "credit" for getting the Brexit he wanted - and blocking the Brexit he didn't. Same for Farage and Gove, this was far more a Brexit they wanted.
"Blame" needs to be assigned for when things go wrong, as far as Boris etc is concerned its not gone wrong. If you are assigning blame you need to look not at those who achieved victory, but those who grasped defeat from the jaws of victory.
So the blame surely should go:
1. Corbyn. 2. May. 3. Grieve. 4. Jo "Next Prime Minister" Swinson. 5. The Independent Group.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades. With Potemkin referendums. Imagine doing the same in the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
How many times do you need to be reminded that hard Brexit was committed to by May in 2016, and indicative votes on a soft Brexit (CU/SM) were voted down as a result of Tory whipping, with Labour overwhelmingly voting for it. It was the Tory obsession with a hard Brexit that prevented a soft Brexit, not Remainer opposition.
I've always admitted this. TMay (a Remainer) is as much to blame as the leftwing Remainers. Her insane red lines boxed her in from the start
However the push for a 2nd vote made Brexiteers worry that the whole thing would be overturned, which persuaded many Leavers to go for a Hard, irreversible Brexit. The two sides conspired to get a Brexit very few originally desired.
It will be a poignant passage in Brexit: the History
May committed to end free movement, the only way to respect the vote of working class Leavers, while keeping the UK close enough aligned to the SM and CU to avoid a border in the Irish Sea
The second clause in your first sentence was where it went wrong. It was not possible - and it is still not possible - to define what “Leavers” wanted because no coherent Brexit offer was identified.
May could have decided Brexit meant choosing one of a further set of flavours from v soft to v hard.
Accompanied by a cartoon of a crying white woman, it claims that mainstream feminism supports 'the root causes of sexual violence' and even appears to suggest that reporting rape is 'contemptible'.
----
I wonder who makes who a big chunk of their donations?
None of this stuff makes sense anymore.
They'd do well to focus on their staff sexually exploiting those who are in their care, some of whom I suspect hide behind incoherent Wokery like this.
Oxfam have a brass neck to be commenting on these issues at all, given that their record is so vile.
They should lose their charitable status.
At the least be disbarred for five years from receiving a penny from state funds.
Accompanied by a cartoon of a crying white woman, it claims that mainstream feminism supports 'the root causes of sexual violence' and even appears to suggest that reporting rape is 'contemptible'.
----
I wonder who makes who a big chunk of their donations?
None of this stuff makes sense anymore.
They'd do well to focus on their staff sexually exploiting those who are in their care, some of whom I suspect hide behind incoherent Wokery like this.
Oxfam have a brass neck to be commenting on these issues at all, given that their record is so vile.
Other charities have had to close down for far less.
Have we learnt nothing about writing off a source just because we don't like it?
No, absolutely not. I will not recognise the Canary, or the Mail, or ZeroHedge as a credible source.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
The Guardian exploit many of the same tricks as the Mail, where they conveniently miss out something pertinent.
Quite. The idea that the Guardian is reliable on an issue that really engages them - anything to do with race, Trump, gender, Wokeness, Brexit - is laughable. They are just as bad as the Mail. As has often been said, the two papers are eerie mirror images of each other
Here's a good example
"Ignore the conspiracy theories: scientists know Covid-19 wasn't created in a lab
By Peter Daszak
"Instead of following false claims, we should focus our efforts on the regions where the next pandemic is likely to emerge"
A piece that denounces lab leak as a conspiracy theory, when it fact the opposite is true. The real conspirators were trying to SQUASH the lab leak hypothesis, banning it from Facebook etc
And look at the end:
"This article was amended on 11 June 2020 to make clear the writer’s past work with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
The Guardian originally ran this as a think piece by an apparently neutral scientist. They didn't tell their readers the author worked, and is still working, with the Wuhan Lab, so might just have a bit of an agenda
In a defence of Starmer, despite his invisibility as LOTO, he is up against Johnson who the voters have perceived has had an inch-perfect, error-free pandemic.
Johnson's genius has been his non-stop campaigning throughout the pandemic (something I was critical of, considering it tasteless during the height of a pandemic where thousands of people were dying each week). The campaigning has paid dividends and has given the impression that vaccine, procurement, programming and delivery were all entirely his gift to the nation, and now we a reaping the benefits- a nation unlocked and Covid vanquished. (Remember, perception, not reality, although the link between Covid and deaths seems over).
I still cannot see past the early stages of a chaotic economy this time next year, which is why I feel Johnson should go very, very, early Spring/ early Autumn 2022. I believe the economic strife will take a year or so to fully make its mark on Johnson, which is why 2024 is too late.
It's going to be very amusing when the economy's still strong in 12 months' time. What will the mantra be then?
You may be right and the economy can survive on mega house price inflation, price inflation and workers flipping burgers for each other.
Remember when loads of people mocked Boris for his moonshot project of millions of tests a day and you getting tested to attend things like sporting events....
I mocked his 'moonshot', and the projected cost of the program, but I have always been strongly in favour of lateral flow tests. Properly used in the run up to and during the peak of the pandemic, rather than at its tail end, they could have saved a great deal of grief.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
Those in favour of the second referendum couldn’t see past that outcome, which led to sub-optimal game playing.
If Corbyn had persuaded a hundred MPs to abstain the meaningful vote in an ambush, he’d have torn the government (and the Conservative party) in half. Instead, by continually voting it down, he gave them enough space to reinvent themselves under a new leader, with the worst possible outcome - a thumping election defeat and Brexit happening anyway.
That is a fair assessment. A lot of people give Boris Johnson the "credit" for Brexit, and while I don't like him and think his support for it disingenuous, he did play his part, but the real credit/blame (delete according to view) for Brexit goes to Corbyn.
No. That is taking agency away from Boris. Who is to blame for Brexit, and indeed “this” Brexit. Who are the “guilty men”?
I would say, in order:
1. Boris 2. Farage 3. Corbyn 4. May 5. Gove
Boris doesn't deserve any "blame" he deserves "credit" for getting the Brexit he wanted - and blocking the Brexit he didn't. Same for Farage and Gove, this was far more a Brexit they wanted.
"Blame" needs to be assigned for when things go wrong, as far as Boris etc is concerned its not gone wrong. If you are assigning blame you need to look not at those who achieved victory, but those who grasped defeat from the jaws of victory.
So the blame surely should go:
1. Corbyn. 2. May. 3. Grieve. 4. Jo "Next Prime Minister" Swinson. 5. The Independent Group.
Boris did not get the Brexit he wanted. He did however become PM which was his sole objective.
As for blame, I simply write from the perspective of someone who remains clear that Brexit was a historical and potentially fatal mis-turn for the U.K.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades. With Potemkin referendums. Imagine doing the same in the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
How many times do you need to be reminded that hard Brexit was committed to by May in 2016, and indicative votes on a soft Brexit (CU/SM) were voted down as a result of Tory whipping, with Labour overwhelmingly voting for it. It was the Tory obsession with a hard Brexit that prevented a soft Brexit, not Remainer opposition.
I've always admitted this. TMay (a Remainer) is as much to blame as the leftwing Remainers. Her insane red lines boxed her in from the start
However the push for a 2nd vote made Brexiteers worry that the whole thing would be overturned, which persuaded many Leavers to go for a Hard, irreversible Brexit. The two sides conspired to get a Brexit very few originally desired.
It will be a poignant passage in Brexit: the History
May committed to end free movement, the only way to respect the vote of working class Leavers, while keeping the UK close enough aligned to the SM and CU to avoid a border in the Irish Sea
The second clause in your first sentence was where it went wrong. It was not possible - and it is still not possible - to define what “Leavers” wanted because no coherent Brexit offer was identified.
May could have decided Brexit meant choosing one of a further set of flavours from v soft to v hard.
Oh really?
Boris's deal matched what the Leavers campaigned on and was backed by almost every prominent Leaver in Great Britain.
Which Leave campaigners in Britain opposed Boris's deal?
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades. With Potemkin referendums. Imagine doing the same in the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
How many times do you need to be reminded that hard Brexit was committed to by May in 2016, and indicative votes on a soft Brexit (CU/SM) were voted down as a result of Tory whipping, with Labour overwhelmingly voting for it. It was the Tory obsession with a hard Brexit that prevented a soft Brexit, not Remainer opposition.
I've always admitted this. TMay (a Remainer) is as much to blame as the leftwing Remainers. Her insane red lines boxed her in from the start
However the push for a 2nd vote made Brexiteers worry that the whole thing would be overturned, which persuaded many Leavers to go for a Hard, irreversible Brexit. The two sides conspired to get a Brexit very few originally desired.
It will be a poignant passage in Brexit: the History
No, Brexiteers went for a hard Brexit because that was what they wanted. Was May a Remainer? Barely. She gave Cameron the minimal support necessary in the referendum campaign and immediately adopted these crazy red lines under the influence of Nick Timothy. Most Remainers were pragmatic and pushed for a soft Brexit but were met with inplacable hostility from Leavers, who insisted that they had won and would dictate terms. Personally I would have been OK with a 2nd referendum but a soft Brexit was preferable because it honoured the vote, however imperfect a process that was. By the time the referendum was lost there were no good outcomes.
I am sure it is very dispiriting for SKS. SKS can see Johnson is a rogue, as we all can.
But, enough of the UK electorate think Johnson is a loveable old rogue.
It is very obvious SKS is going down to defeat in 2024.
SKS is MORE wooden and accident-prone than Ed Miliband. (Even some of the accidents are the same -- remember when Ed Miliband could not name the SLAB leader).
How come Labour carries on making the same mistakes again and again?
Presumably we are due for Corbyn Mark II, after SKS has resigned at 3.00 am on Friday 3rd May 2024.
Doesn't matter that he's wooden. It matters that he has not opposed the government in any vote in parliament over the past 15 months.
Why would anyone vote for an opposition that has supported the government at every turn during one of the most important periods of post-war history? Even Jezza realised that an opposition should oppose.
And national emergency my arse. Of course it was an extreme time but we weren't at war.
Well said. There never was any rationale for emergency powers for the government. And Conservative backbenchers have done much more to constrain it than the Opposition ever did. As the Labour left were the real constraint on Blair before the Iraq war, rather than the Conservative Pary.
Accompanied by a cartoon of a crying white woman, it claims that mainstream feminism supports 'the root causes of sexual violence' and even appears to suggest that reporting rape is 'contemptible'.
----
I wonder who makes who a big chunk of their donations?
None of this stuff makes sense anymore.
They'd do well to focus on their staff sexually exploiting those who are in their care, some of whom I suspect hide behind incoherent Wokery like this.
Oxfam have a brass neck to be commenting on these issues at all, given that their record is so vile.
On the contrary, they’re consistently in favour of rape, whether as aggressors or victims.
Have we learnt nothing about writing off a source just because we don't like it?
No, absolutely not. I will not recognise the Canary, or the Mail, or ZeroHedge as a credible source.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
The Guardian exploit many of the same tricks as the Mail, where they conveniently miss out something pertinent.
Quite. The idea that the Guardian is reliable on an issue that really engages them - anything to do with race, Trump, gender, Wokeness, Brexit - is laughable. They are just as bad as the Mail. As has often been said, the two papers are eerie mirror images of each other
Here's a good example
"Ignore the conspiracy theories: scientists know Covid-19 wasn't created in a lab
By Peter Daszak
"Instead of following false claims, we should focus our efforts on the regions where the next pandemic is likely to emerge"
A piece that denounces lab leak as a conspiracy theory, when it fact the opposite is true. The real conspirators were trying to SQUASH the lab leak hypothesis, banning it from Facebook etc
And look at the end:
"This article was amended on 11 June 2020 to make clear the writer’s past work with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
The Guardian originally ran this as a think piece by an apparently neutral scientist. They didn't tell their readers the author worked, and is still working, with the Wuhan Lab, so might just have a bit of an agenda
I think the best thing to say about this, and this will be corroborated by lots of people in government, the best thing to say, is that government has operated better in the past six months."
A WOMAN who lost her job after tweeting that “male people are not women” has won a landmark employment case.
The victory for Maya Forstater, who was backed by JK Rowling and SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC, means people with ‘gender critical’ beliefs must not be sacked simply for holding them.
However, they cannot express them in a way that discriminates against trans people.
Ms Cherry said the decision should end discrimination against academics, trade unionists and others like herself who had been bullied and threatened because of their beliefs.
“This judgment does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can ‘misgender’ trans persons with impunity.The Claimant, like everyone else, will continue to be subject to the prohibitions on discrimination and harassment that apply to everyone else. Whether or not conduct in a given situation does amount to harassment or discrimination within the meaning of EqA will be for a tribunal to determinein a given case.”
It seems that the judgement is essentially saying that GC beliefs are not grounds for dismissal, as they are philosophical beliefs & thus protected. However, if Forster acts on those beliefs then that action would be grounds for dismissal.
Do I have that right? I think that’s the court’s conclusion.
Since the whole subject of the tweets for which Forster was let go was her insistence on being able to call trans women men to their face, which the court has explictly told her she can’t do, this isn’t quite the victory she thinks it is.
Right decision IMO: uphold the law, but not the idea that mere thoughtcrime is grounds for dismissal.
I expect the GC crowd to crow about this for a few days, until eventually they realise that nothing has actually changed.
Except that isn't what she said as the judgment makes clear. This is what she said about what to call people in one of the contested tweets -
"Of course in social situations I would treat any trans-woman as an honorary female, and use whatever pronouns etc... I wouldn’t try to hurt anyone’s feelings" (see page 5 of the judgment).
The judgment does make a significant difference because it establishes the principle that:- - someone stating what is biological fact is a belief worthy of protection under the relevant legislation - it is irrelevant what others may think of that belief or indeed how dogmatically or firmly it is held - it is not for the court to determine the legitimacy of the belief (one of the errors which the Employment Tribunal made) - such protection is not dependant on whether others may be offended by such a belief (another error of the tribunal) - the tribunal was wrong to impose a requirement that she must refer to a trans woman as a woman to avoid harassment as this was a blanket restriction and it could not be said that failing to do so would in all circumstances and without knowing the context amount to harassment - see paras.103 and 104. This is a very important wider principle because it effectively states that limits on the expressions of one's belief should be the bare minimum ie that merely avoiding offence is not a sufficient reason for limiting what people can say. " the accepted evidence before the Tribunal was that she believed that it is not “incompatible to recognise that human beings cannot change sex whilst also protecting the human rights of people who identify as transgender”: see para 39.2 of the Judgment. That is not, on any view, a statement of a belief that seeks to destroy the rights of trans persons. It is a belief that might in some circumstances cause offence to trans persons, but the potential for offence cannot be a reason to exclude a belief from protection altogether."
The court went on to say that her belief that sex is immutable and binary is in fact in accordance with the law - "Where a belief or a major tenet of it appears to be in accordance with the law of the land, then it is all the more jarring that it should be declared as one not worthy of respect in a democratic society."
In America, white women are often believed and protected at all costs, even at the expense of black lives. In 1955, it was a white woman who falsely accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of whistling at her in Mississippi, which led to him being brutally beaten and killed. Fast-forward to recent years and we still learn about black people being arrested or assaulted because a white woman called the police unnecessarily. Becky and Karen memes and jokes should be understood in this context, part of a long tradition to use humor to try to cope with the realities of white privilege and anti-blackness.
Or read 'White Privilege' (a New York Times number 1 bestseller), in which Doctor Robin DiAngelo 'sets aside a whole chapter for the self-indulgent tears of white women, so distraught at the country’s legacy of racist terrorism that they force people of color to drink from the firehose of their feelings about it.' At heart, anybody who is surprised that this kind of material is out there just hasn't been paying attention.
Mr. Walker, she thrice put it to the Commons and a combination of Conservative MPs rebelling and the Labour Party (and other opposition MPs) en masse voted it down.
I said at the time that when you've got MPs who really like the EU and MPs who really dislike the EU voting the same way, someone's screwing it up.
The dumb soft pro-EU MPs of the Commons rejected everything and guaranteed that we'd leave on harder terms. It was epitomised by the lauded Grieve shrieking it was 'too late' when he was given the exact concession he'd asked for, but still didn't vote for it.
I know this is going over old ground, but people generally should try to at least learn something from it. To tie it into the football story, pointing at people and telling them they're wicked for disliking the EU, or a gesture associated with iconoclast barbarians, isn't going to persuade them. The Little Englander nonsense from Cameron was dumb as hell, yet there were plenty of pro-EU types here tittering about it.
Absolutely the "too late" remark was peak hubris.
The pro-EU MPs swallowed their own spin hook, line and sinker and thought they would win and overturn Brexit entirely rather than compromise on a BRINO Backstop that effectively kept us trapped in the Single Market and Customs Union with the EU having a veto on us ever leaving it.
Seeing Grieve kicked out of the party after his behaviour, then comprehensively thrashed at Beaconsfield and an hard rather than soft Brexit follow was really enjoyable.
I actually can’t remember those tumultuous moments.
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
We'll never know how a second vote would have gone but, if Remain had narrowly won it, the country and our political system would have gone apeshit.
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
Cummings predicted civil strife if we'd had a second vote without enacting the first, and I believe he was right
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades. With Potemkin referendums. Imagine doing the same in the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
How many times do you need to be reminded that hard Brexit was committed to by May in 2016, and indicative votes on a soft Brexit (CU/SM) were voted down as a result of Tory whipping, with Labour overwhelmingly voting for it. It was the Tory obsession with a hard Brexit that prevented a soft Brexit, not Remainer opposition.
I've always admitted this. TMay (a Remainer) is as much to blame as the leftwing Remainers. Her insane red lines boxed her in from the start
However the push for a 2nd vote made Brexiteers worry that the whole thing would be overturned, which persuaded many Leavers to go for a Hard, irreversible Brexit. The two sides conspired to get a Brexit very few originally desired.
It will be a poignant passage in Brexit: the History
No, Brexiteers went for a hard Brexit because that was what they wanted. Was May a Remainer? Barely. She gave Cameron the minimal support necessary in the referendum campaign and immediately adopted these crazy red lines under the influence of Nick Timothy. Most Remainers were pragmatic and pushed for a soft Brexit but were met with inplacable hostility from Leavers, who insisted that they had won and would dictate terms. Personally I would have been OK with a 2nd referendum but a soft Brexit was preferable because it honoured the vote, however imperfect a process that was. By the time the referendum was lost there were no good outcomes.
Yes. The vote sparked a bizarre kulturkamp almost from the beginning, with Remainers and the EU accused of treachery with increasing fervour.
It made me realise I am not British, which I had previously assumed I was.
Comments
“This judgment does not mean that those with gender-critical beliefs can ‘misgender’ trans persons with impunity.The Claimant, like everyone else, will continue to be subject to the prohibitions on discrimination and harassment that apply to everyone else. Whether or not conduct in a given situation does amount to harassment or discrimination within the meaning of EqA will be for a tribunal to determinein a given case.”
It seems that the judgement is essentially saying that GC beliefs are not grounds for dismissal, as they are philosophical beliefs & thus protected. However, if Forster acts on those beliefs then that action would be grounds for dismissal.
Do I have that right? I think that’s the court’s conclusion.
Since the whole subject of the tweets for which Forster was let go was her insistence on being able to call trans women men to their face, which the court has explictly told her she can’t do, this isn’t quite the victory she thinks it is.
Right decision IMO: uphold the law, but not the idea that mere thoughtcrime is grounds for dismissal.
I expect the GC crowd to crow about this for a few days, until eventually they realise that nothing has actually changed.
Also Tony Blair.
https://twitter.com/MrTCHarris/status/1402930692795817988?s=20
Legal limits on social distancing forever absolutely not!
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1402922551928557572?s=20
The key prize for Remainers (rather than pro-EU which probably describes very few) was a second vote.
May refused to concede that.
There was a clear majority for a softish Brexit, but the various parties could not coalesce and let the loons (mostly on the Brexity side) win.
This is Mark Francois’s Brexit: petty, painful, and underpinned by inchoate fantasies about “de Jarmins”.
I can critique our legal system like the best of them but I think our judges are generally quite good, and fair.
Figures for Germany:
https://impfdashboard.de/
show 5.7 million doses delivered last week
and 5.8 million doses delivered 5 whole weeks earlier. With around 5 million each of the intervening weeks.
Lots of people can't get any kind of appointment for a first dose because there aren't enough doses.
I thought we were supposed to be seeing big supply increases by now?
(also 70% of doses are from Pfizer, if they hadn't come good we'd be really in trouble. alternatively, if the other manufacturers were as good we'd be doing a lot better).
'This hearing is not the roasting for Matt Hancock that Cummings tried to set up'
It will be interesting to see if we do move to the Asian societial norm of wearing a mask when one doesn't feel very well...or if we will return to nobody wearing a mask even when hackings their guts up.
Companies are reporting difficulties in filling vacancies. The economy is rebounding strongly. Confidence is pretty much at a record level. That forwards momentum will take us through the end of furlough and allow those whose companies don't reopen post-lockdown to find companies desperate for staff.
At that point the economic strife as well as the health strife will have been dealt with.
Since you're so convinced the economic strife is coming, if I'm right and the economy gets through this fine with the government support laid out then a post-pandemic rebound . . . would that confounding of your expectations make you consider voting for a Boris led Tory Party in 2023/24 or would that never happen?
The fall out would have totally dominated our politics for years. With lots of anger and disorder as well.
There was no putting it back into Pandora's Box. The die was cast when we voted Leave, IMHO, and at that point we had to Leave - the best thing Remainers could have done was to influence its form and play the long game.
It should be to ensure we never get another SKS as well according to this thread.
Cricket lateral flow test...football lateral flow test...
Good luck trying to tell young children there can be no toys or books for 6 to 9 months as they're not essential. 😱
As usual, it's the empty vessels making the most noise.
If Corbyn had persuaded a hundred MPs to abstain the meaningful vote in an ambush, he’d have torn the government (and the Conservative party) in half. Instead, by continually voting it down, he gave them enough space to reinvent themselves under a new leader, with the worst possible outcome - a thumping election defeat and Brexit happening anyway.
Oxfam ..... FFS
(I had a few trips to the Commission offices for an FP7 project on which I was a contracted consultant - the trips to the Commission were probably the most austere of all the meetings, but they did have a lot of flags)
Whoops.
The Brexity side weren't loons and they got what they wanted. I was assured repeatedly during this period that opposing May's deal was madness - with hindsight I feel 100% vindicated.
----
I wonder who makes who a big chunk of their donations?
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1402935333902245892
| NEW: Senior government scientist Susan Michie says we will need masks and social distancing forever
Imagine the anger. The biggest mandate in British democratic history - 17.4 million voters - simply ignored? Overruled? Cancelled?
The stupidity of those that avowed a "people's vote" is quite something. They would also have trashed democracy for generations. Why bother voting for anything if the elite can just ignore it. So we become North Korea. Where elections are charades, with Potemkin referendums.
Apply the same logic to the Scottish indyref. Imagine if that had produced a YES vote (taking it out of the EU at the time), would ANYONE have suggested overruling it?
No. So why was it deemed permissible to overturn Brexit?
The campaign for a 2nd vote was also self-defeating, as you say. If the Remainers had accepted the first vote, then got behind ultra-soft Brexit, we would have got exactly that; they might even have kept Freedom of Movement inside EFTA
Since the modern, racist discourse, of anti-racist politics is to deny moral agency to minorities, this gives us
1) Some unvaccinated people died.
2) Since their decision to take the vaccine was not actually theirs (since they lack moral agency)...
3) The government has killed them
4) Which is racist
"An end to normal human life forever"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/oxfam-training-guide-blames-privileged-white-women-root-causes/
Will they do?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/09/oxfam-training-guide-blames-privileged-white-women-root-causes/
Time for everyone to move on with respect to Brexit. It was pointless IMO, but it can't be reversed. You Philip can carry on jerking yourself off over your keyboard about it, but you haven't been "vindicated" on anything other than rightly or wrongly your side of the disinformation filled argument won its pyric victory.
I don't see why her wacko views are given any consideration when they can turn around and say Gupta and Heneghan and Tegnell are loons who should be ignored.
If there's a genuine story then it will be reported from credible sources.
This has nothing to do with what we like. I dislike the politics of the Guardian and the i but I recognise both of them as credible sources on the left, just as the Telegraph is a credible source on the right.
In a poll of 1,000 employers across a variety of industries in June 2018, one in three employers admitted they were less likely to hire a transgender person and 43% were unsure if they would...
Of how many other groups would this be true ?
Other than convicted criminals, perhaps.
They'd do well to focus on their staff sexually exploiting those who are in their care, some of whom I suspect hide behind incoherent Wokery like this.
(And it is easier to do so with hindsight).
I actually think the critical moment was the six months after the vote when it was up to May to determine the rules of the game.
Remember, “Brexit means Brexit”?
She ruled out FOM etc and defined red lines which entailed a hard Brexit which she then attempted to soften via negotiation.
No opposition - formally designated as such or otherwise - existed in a coherent enough fashion to shape the terms of the debate in any other direction.
May made a historic and fatal error.
This is where https://arstechnica.com for example, is so much better. All their stories are filled with links to source information.
What would be a credible right wing source in your eyes? The Daily Mirror? 😂
Neil Oliver
@thecoastguy
Is it fair to collect tax from people who have to go to work, and then give that money to other people paid to stay at home?
Who is to blame for Brexit, and indeed “this” Brexit. Who are the “guilty men”?
I would say, in order:
1. Boris
2. Farage
3. Corbyn
4. May
5. Gove
Boom first, then bust!
However the push for a 2nd vote made Brexiteers worry that the whole thing would be overturned, which persuaded many Leavers to go for a Hard, irreversible Brexit. The two sides conspired to get a Brexit very few originally desired.
It will be a poignant passage in Brexit: the History
She appears to want the habits to continue to help control flu, colds and any other viruses.
So many medical professionals seem to think their job is to eliminate any and all medical or biological risk.
It's time they were taught there are other important factors, like the quality of life.
And the Telegraph these days, their standards aren't what they once were. During the pandemic, they have published loads of articles that has been misleading to say the least, to back up their position of less lockdowns / restrictions.
Imagine if we were to throw minorities under a bus in a chase for the votes of social conservatives and then they don't vote for us anyway because they (correctly) intuit that we are at heart a bunch of liberal progressives.
That'd be just grim. Much better to be bold and authentic. Project a radically different vision to that of the Tories and then sell it with flair and confidence.
I've no way given up on Starmer. But he will have to go (next year) if he can't do this.
Can you point to the actual text that you believe overstepped the legal stipulation? I’d like to compare it with the recent judgement in the High Court where the attempt to have a judicial review of the EHRC guidance on the Equality Act & it’s implications was refused by the judge on the grounds that the EHRC’s interpretation of the law was the correct one.
I’ve had a quick scan through the current document: https://www.stonewall.org.uk/system/files/an_intro_to_supporting_lgbt_young_people-final4.pdf which contains the statement:
“Schools, colleges and settings should ensure that a trans child or young person is supported to use the toilets and changing rooms they feel most comfortable with, including the facilities matching their gender.
Under the Equality Act a trans child or young person can use the toilets and changing rooms that match their gender.
Under the Act, a school can only prevent a trans child or young person from using the facilities matching their gender if they can demonstrate that doing so is a ‘proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’, which is a high legal bar to clear. Schools, colleges and settings should also support trans children and young people to use gender-neutral facilities or a private space, if that is what they prefer. The most important thing is to talk to the child or young person rather than making assumptions about the facilities they would like to use.”
Which seems in line with the judgement in AEA vs EHRC - i.e. this is a “should”, not a “must” & exceptions can & do apply - but it’s posible that this is not the original document & that Stonewall has (rightly if so) updated the text since the judgement in that case was published.
If Burnham reclaimed the red wall we could be back to hung parliament territory, the SNP would support Labour anyway
Which is not saying much.
"Blame" needs to be assigned for when things go wrong, as far as Boris etc is concerned its not gone wrong. If you are assigning blame you need to look not at those who achieved victory, but those who grasped defeat from the jaws of victory.
So the blame surely should go:
1. Corbyn.
2. May.
3. Grieve.
4. Jo "Next Prime Minister" Swinson.
5. The Independent Group.
May could have decided Brexit meant choosing one of a further set of flavours from v soft to v hard.
At the least be disbarred for five years from receiving a penny from state funds.
Here's a good example
"Ignore the conspiracy theories: scientists know Covid-19 wasn't created in a lab
By Peter Daszak
"Instead of following false claims, we should focus our efforts on the regions where the next pandemic is likely to emerge"
A piece that denounces lab leak as a conspiracy theory, when it fact the opposite is true. The real conspirators were trying to SQUASH the lab leak hypothesis, banning it from Facebook etc
And look at the end:
"This article was amended on 11 June 2020 to make clear the writer’s past work with researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."
The Guardian originally ran this as a think piece by an apparently neutral scientist. They didn't tell their readers the author worked, and is still working, with the Wuhan Lab, so might just have a bit of an agenda
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/09/conspiracies-covid-19-lab-false-pandemic
I hope you are correct.
Properly used in the run up to and during the peak of the pandemic, rather than at its tail end, they could have saved a great deal of grief.
He did however become PM which was his sole objective.
As for blame, I simply write from the perspective of someone who remains clear that Brexit was a historical and potentially fatal mis-turn for the U.K.
Boris's deal matched what the Leavers campaigned on and was backed by almost every prominent Leaver in Great Britain.
Which Leave campaigners in Britain opposed Boris's deal?
Most Remainers were pragmatic and pushed for a soft Brexit but were met with inplacable hostility from Leavers, who insisted that they had won and would dictate terms. Personally I would have been OK with a 2nd referendum but a soft Brexit was preferable because it honoured the vote, however imperfect a process that was. By the time the referendum was lost there were no good outcomes.
BBC News - Matt Hancock: I knew Dominic Cummings wanted PM to sack me
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57425830
"Of course in social situations I would treat any trans-woman as an honorary female, and use whatever pronouns etc... I wouldn’t try to hurt anyone’s feelings" (see page 5 of the judgment).
The judgment does make a significant difference because it establishes the principle that:-
- someone stating what is biological fact is a belief worthy of protection under the relevant legislation
- it is irrelevant what others may think of that belief or indeed how dogmatically or firmly it is held
- it is not for the court to determine the legitimacy of the belief (one of the errors which the Employment Tribunal made)
- such protection is not dependant on whether others may be offended by such a belief (another error of the tribunal)
- the tribunal was wrong to impose a requirement that she must refer to a trans woman as a woman to avoid harassment as this was a blanket restriction and it could not be said that failing to do so would in all circumstances and without knowing the context amount to harassment - see paras.103 and 104. This is a very important wider principle because it effectively states that limits on the expressions of one's belief should be the bare minimum ie that merely avoiding offence is not a sufficient reason for limiting what people can say.
" the accepted evidence before the Tribunal was that she believed that it is not “incompatible to recognise that human beings cannot change sex whilst also protecting the human rights of people who identify as transgender”: see para 39.2 of the Judgment. That is not, on any view, a statement of a belief that seeks to destroy the rights of trans persons. It is a belief that might in some circumstances cause offence to trans persons, but the potential for offence cannot be a reason to exclude a belief from protection altogether."
The court went on to say that her belief that sex is immutable and binary is in fact in accordance with the law -
"Where a belief or a major tenet of it appears to be in accordance with the law of the land, then it is all the more jarring that it should be declared as one not worthy of respect in a democratic society."
The whole lengthy judgment is worth reading.
In America, white women are often believed and protected at all costs, even at the expense of black lives. In 1955, it was a white woman who falsely accused 14-year-old Emmett Till of whistling at her in Mississippi, which led to him being brutally beaten and killed. Fast-forward to recent years and we still learn about black people being arrested or assaulted because a white woman called the police unnecessarily. Becky and Karen memes and jokes should be understood in this context, part of a long tradition to use humor to try to cope with the realities of white privilege and anti-blackness.
Or read 'White Privilege' (a New York Times number 1 bestseller), in which Doctor Robin DiAngelo 'sets aside a whole chapter for the self-indulgent tears of white women, so distraught at the country’s legacy of racist terrorism that they force people of color to drink from the firehose of their feelings about it.' At heart, anybody who is surprised that this kind of material is out there just hasn't been paying attention.
It made me realise I am not British, which I had previously assumed I was.