That says nothing about abandonment. You explicitly said he abandoned his children. I'd have thought you would actually have evidence before making such a claim.
He has walked out on 2 previous families, as well as this affair. That is abandonment in my view. The children were not adults.
Obviously we don't know the specifics of the case you quoted, but isn't it likely he's paying child support (hence the constant complaints about not having enough money)? We also don't know what discussions went on between the two (or three) regarding the arrangements. I don't think there is evidence to claim he abandoned the child.
Typical Tory, you think him handing over some cash is all that matters.
Seems appropriate in this situation, given the child was raised by its mother and her husband?
Still means he has abandoned bringing up his children from several families etc. Not a great thing he should be proud of at all. Fact you think it is all hunky dory as long as he just splashes the cash is odd.
Like I said earlier, who knows what went on behind closed doors. Everyone is jumping to conclusions based on their own prejudice.
That says nothing about abandonment. You explicitly said he abandoned his children. I'd have thought you would actually have evidence before making such a claim.
He has walked out on 2 previous families, as well as this affair. That is abandonment in my view. The children were not adults.
Perhaps you have greater knowledge of his private life than the rest of us. But as I understand it he was kicked out of one family - by Marina Walker, his then wife. The other I don’t know
‘Abandoning two families’ is a pretty strong statement. Unless you can back it up, you should retract
It’s true that some of his children no longer speak to him. While that is their decision, it hardly reflects well on him.
In my extended family, right now, there is one child resolutely not talking to one of his parents. And I can say that, for sure, the problem is with the child
Families are complex, intricate things, very hard to entirely understand from outside. Unless he has incredible insider info, Foxy’s remark was glib and unjustified
Sure, there are many reasons families breakdown.
In Johnsons case it was serial, unrepentant adultery, and yes I do have a degree of insider knowledge.
We’ll have to take your word for it, but fair enough. If you know, you know
I accept that Boris is an unrepentant womanizer, I’ve met enough to recognise that. I’ve also seen the damage it can do, quite often, and I’ve seen it up-close. But philanderers can also be excellent at their job: journalist, grave-digger, politician, sculptor, footballer
I don’t especially care if Boris sleeps around, for me it is irrelevant to the task. I’d say the same of an eerily celibate prime minister like Ted Heath. Tho my guess is more of the former make it to the top - the excess testosterone that makes them libidinous also makes them super-ambitious and competitive
As a church-going Christian I imagine you see it differently
Feels like it could be the moment the F1 season turns - if Hamilton sticks a win/second and Verstappen is well down, I don't see him making it back. Hamilton has the skill, obviously, but he also has the luck.
Apols all, missed PT with this: Marr's "cervix = transphobia" question to Starmer.
It's a stupid question because it depends on how and why and where it is said. Eg stating when asked, or in a debate about gender identity, your opinion that only women have a cervix, as colour to your overall view that 'biology is destiny' on these matters, is not per se transphobic, whereas ramming that view at transmen on a personal level could well be, since it's telling them that despite everything they've gone through, and whatever the law says, they are still women, they're always a woman to you; it's denying their identity, an identity they and the law are probably more qualified to opine on than you are.
But either way it depends on tone and context. In this respect transphobia is no different to racism, misogyny, or any other prejudice. Hard to define, in fact rather a pointless distraction to define, because it's more a case of you know it when you see it. That said, I will have a bash at defining it, why not.
So, it describes those who mock the idea that “born the wrong sex” is for some people a distressing identity crisis for which changing gender is the best remedy, who scaremonger that transwomen are likely to be perverts, who insist on misgendering to denigrate, to hurt, or to prove, relentlessly, each and every day just in case anybody had forgotten, some sort of muscular purity of thought or language. The word is bandied around very loosely and counter-productively, nevertheless there are plenty of genuine transphobes active on the anti side of the trans debate, no question, and that includes some of the great posters on this great site.
And now THAT said, a confession: I do if I'm honest find it a bit bizarre, and possibly not the healthiest thing, how an aging ex-City bloke who knows no transpeople, whose politics apart from on private schools are mushy soft left, whose most exotic identity strand is Yorkshireman, has found himself with clear views on this topic, but there you go. Perils of the internet. I find it interesting, not at all trivial, and I hope Labour retain their commitment to the reform of the GRA.
This debate is so detached from reality most people don’t even understand the terms. Which is why it is such a dangerous rabbit-hole for the Left. At least in your last paragraph you show some self-awareness of this
For instance, me. I’m an educated Londoner with an unusual interest in politics. I chat endlessly on PB and I read a lot of sociology and the like. I’m also fascinated by language and its usage. But even I don’t know what the hell you’re on about
Take just one word you use. ‘Transmen’. Who are they? What are they? Are they people born male who have transitioned to female via surgery? Are they people born male who are about to transition, or considering it, or halfway through? Or are they women who’ve transitioned to being men? Or want to? Or what?
I have absolutely no clue. I’m not being facetious. I’ve no idea.
So if I’m reading all of this with total bewilderment, and a sense of frustration and weariness, god knows what the average punter is thinking. But it won’t be good for the Left. It’s definitely not engaging
The terminology can get even more abstruse than that. Blending two of today's themes, trans people who don't agree with self-id get called 'truscum' and accused of being transphobic.
Crivvens. It gets worse. Such a poisonous debate
Tho I guess dissenting working class northern transsexuals called ‘truscum’ see it as amicable banter
Oh please, what a bunch of twaddle. That's just a lazy rehash of the standard political trope of 'They are attacking X, therefore they must fear X'.
Labour supporters on here did not believe that the laughter of PB Tories was genuine when Miliband and Corbyn were elected. "You really fear them." No, PB Tories really did find it amusing that Labour had elected two poor candidates, or more like one poor and one terrible.
I think the only plausible Labour leader the PB Tories would really worry about is Burnham, because he might out-Boris Boris.
Trouble is that Burnham is crap.
On what grounds? Genuinely interested in this. Several adjectives spring to mind when I see the King in the North. Crap isn't one.
I wouldn’t say “crap” but he is a lightweight
Sank without trace as a cabinet minister an as a leadership candidate. Reinvented himself as mayor of Manchester… very ho hum until he got into a scrap over COVID compensation - IIRC Manchester didn’t end up getting anything more than anyone else but Burnham got a few good headlines
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Oh please, what a bunch of twaddle. That's just a lazy rehash of the standard political trope of 'They are attacking X, therefore they must fear X'.
Labour supporters on here did not believe that the laughter of PB Tories was genuine when Miliband and Corbyn were elected. "You really fear them." No, PB Tories really did find it amusing that Labour had elected two poor candidates, or more like one poor and one terrible.
I think the only plausible Labour leader the PB Tories would really worry about is Burnham, because he might out-Boris Boris.
Trouble is that Burnham is crap.
On what grounds? Genuinely interested in this. Several adjectives spring to mind when I see the King in the North. Crap isn't one.
I wouldn’t say “crap” but he is a lightweight
Sank without trace as a cabinet minister an as a leadership candidate. Reinvented himself as mayor of Manchester… very ho hum until he got into a scrap over COVID compensation - IIRC Manchester didn’t end up getting anything more than anyone else but Burnham got a few good headlines
Correct @Charles. Most of the good work in GM has been done by the councils who have had a good pattern of working together due to their historic ownership of Manchester Airport. Richard Leese in particular is / was excellent (and I say that as a Conservative).
‘You’ll never guess which country is featured in the top 20 issues that will be part of Labour conference debate.’
‘What do Local Government Cuts, Mental Health, Right to Food, Crime, Armed Forces, Digital Divide, HGV Rules, Sure Start, Tax, Business Recovery, Disability Rights, Drug Reform, Women’s Health, have in common? They are all less important to Labour CLPs than Israel/Palestine.’
‘Despite having locked up over a million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, state-sanctioned rape and sterilisation, torture, mosque destruction, organ harvesting, threats to Taiwan, HK and Tibetan democracy activists disappeared, Wuhan cover up, China only got 14,000 votes.’
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
If you believe that more expensive is better, it is the obvious move. Plus Ivy League allows you to buy in - "legacies" etc.
Back when Gordon Brown was PM they just managed to head off an attempt by Oxford to launch "Private College" - a huge expansion of private places, at full international fees rates. The reckoned they could easily keep the quality by buying in the best talent - offer £500K plus tenure to the top academics in each subject around the world - and set the entrance qualifications as high as they wanted. Plenty of tiger-mom'd children of millionaires....
No more mentions of Rayner please. One person has already been banned
Why can’t we discuss the deputy leader of the Labour Party and her latest faux pas?
It’s your site, your rules, ultimately but so long as we stay within the law and common decency I don’t see why discussion should be prevented.
Not only that people on this site have said far worse about other people and communities than the person banned said about Rayner. But that passes without a murmur.
Apols all, missed PT with this: Marr's "cervix = transphobia" question to Starmer.
It's a stupid question because it depends on how and why and where it is said. Eg stating when asked, or in a debate about gender identity, your opinion that only women have a cervix, as colour to your overall view that 'biology is destiny' on these matters, is not per se transphobic, whereas ramming that view at transmen on a personal level could well be, since it's telling them that despite everything they've gone through, and whatever the law says, they are still women, they're always a woman to you; it's denying their identity, an identity they and the law are probably more qualified to opine on than you are.
But either way it depends on tone and context. In this respect transphobia is no different to racism, misogyny, or any other prejudice. Hard to define, in fact rather a pointless distraction to define, because it's more a case of you know it when you see it. That said, I will have a bash at defining it, why not.
So, it describes those who mock the idea that “born the wrong sex” is for some people a distressing identity crisis for which changing gender is the best remedy, who scaremonger that transwomen are likely to be perverts, who insist on misgendering to denigrate, to hurt, or to prove, relentlessly, each and every day just in case anybody had forgotten, some sort of muscular purity of thought or language. The word is bandied around very loosely and counter-productively, nevertheless there are plenty of genuine transphobes active on the anti side of the trans debate, no question, and that includes some of the great posters on this great site.
And now THAT said, a confession: I do if I'm honest find it a bit bizarre, and possibly not the healthiest thing, how an aging ex-City bloke who knows no transpeople, whose politics apart from on private schools are mushy soft left, whose most exotic identity strand is Yorkshireman, has found himself with clear views on this topic, but there you go. Perils of the internet. I find it interesting, not at all trivial, and I hope Labour retain their commitment to the reform of the GRA.
This debate is so detached from reality most people don’t even understand the terms. Which is why it is such a dangerous rabbit-hole for the Left. At least in your last paragraph you show some self-awareness of this
For instance, me. I’m an educated Londoner with an unusual interest in politics. I chat endlessly on PB and I read a lot of sociology and the like. I’m also fascinated by language and its usage. But even I don’t know what the hell you’re on about
Take just one word you use. ‘Transmen’. Who are they? What are they? Are they people born male who have transitioned to female via surgery? Are they people born male who are about to transition, or considering it, or halfway through? Or are they women who’ve transitioned to being men? Or want to? Or what?
I have absolutely no clue. I’m not being facetious. I’ve no idea.
So if I’m reading all of this with total bewilderment, and a sense of frustration and weariness, god knows what the average punter is thinking. But it won’t be good for the Left. It’s definitely not engaging
The topic pulls people in for prurient reasons and more respectable reasons - there's a genuine issue of prejudice and an intriguing mix of ideas and agendas and beliefs. I agree it's an issue with potential to hurt the left and help the right. Same goes for lots of issues. Brexit? Immigration? It's electorally dangerous for Labour to talk about these things. But we have to, otherwise we risk becoming vote grubbers and little else.
I could answer your questions on transmen but I won't because I sense you're only asking for effect, trying to make out you're floating above the detail on an issue that isn't worth your time, whereas I'm lost down the rabbit hole. Fact is, you know transpeople, which I don't, and you've done lots of reading on it, more than I have. You know the ins and outs of this, what transition means, legally and medically, how it's done, what the potential treatments are, you're all over it, and you ARE interested, it's one of the hottest culture war battlegrounds therefore you're VERY interested in it, same as me, and quite right we are too. Because it's interesting.
Eg one thing I find striking is how it's all blown up quite quickly. Mrs May's proposed reforms had broad support cross-party and from the medical profession. Something similar has been implemented in several countries without mishap or clamour for reversal. There was plenty of debate, since it's a nuanced and complex area, but it wasn't a massive deal. Yet a similar (to Mrs May's) position now is painted as a new cultural revolution that will cancel biological science and lead to hordes of men becoming women purely in order to get into toilets, changing rooms, spas, prisons, refuges etc and commit sexual crimes there. Quite bizarre. The whole debate is a fascinating phenomenon for anyone who is interested in modern politics as amped by the internet, it just is.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again.
I DO find the actual argument boring, overly complex, and off-puttingly aggressive, despite having an actual transitioned female old friend (once male).
And my question was sincere: what are ‘transmen’? I suspect you don’t have a clear answer. Nor do I. Hence the question
My only REAL sustained interest in this (shared by you it seems) is as a culture war issue, and the way it can be used to annihilate the Left, depriving them of millions of female votes. That’s fascinating. Partly because it’s always fun when the Left implodes but also because this issue may signal the first backwards swing of the pendulum, away from ID politics and ultra-Wokeness and back to sanity
You post here on 'trans' quite a lot so I assumed you had a genuine interest. But, ok, if you're telling me it's not true, that you're ignorant on the issue and happy to stay that way, your interest being purely in using it as a wind-up of the left, then I must accept that.
Does the same apply to most of the stuff you comment on then? I suppose it does.
And someone decided to write a newspaper article about this phenomenon? One thing wrong about this country: its cultural cringe towards posh twits in fee-paying schools. Nauseating stuff. I'm with George Bernard Shaw: burn down the lot and sow salt in the ashes.
Someone told me that the British Communist Party is wracked by legal arguments over the money - they have a fair bit of property which generates.... rental income. Dividing the spoils is problematic or something.
"The most striking part of the interview was Starmer’s comments with respect to his deputy Angela Rayner. Overnight, Rayner has caused controversy after using a speech at a conference reception to refer to the Tories as ‘a bunch of scum’ and ‘homophobic, racist, misogynistic’. Asked whether Rayner ought to apologise, Starmer repeatedly refused to say. Instead, he said: ‘Angela and I take different approaches. That is not language that I would use.’ As for whether she ought to apologise, he said: ‘That's a matter for Angela but I would not have used those words.’"
Surely a magazine so concerned about freedom of speech and the rights of the working class would not expect or encourage the middle class lawyer boss to order an apology on her behalf?
They are stupid comments tactically and politically but the reaction to them is typically hypocritical.
The problem with Raynor is one of the most deep rooted and incurable ills that afflict Labour. They genuinely believe that their party is morally superior.
As a lifelong Conservative and Unionist voter I also thought Labours' moral superiority was unjustified.
Until BoZo.
Labour are unquestionably morally superior to him and his cohort.
The Bench of Bishops is (probably) morally superior to the Labour Party, but there are good reasons why we don't let them run the country.
Eh? They seemingly have a moral right to, and help to, run the country; blame Henry VIII and HYUFD. (But not Moderators of the Kirk, for some unaccountable reason.)
That says nothing about abandonment. You explicitly said he abandoned his children. I'd have thought you would actually have evidence before making such a claim.
He has walked out on 2 previous families, as well as this affair. That is abandonment in my view. The children were not adults.
Didn’t Marina/Boris wait until the youngest was 18 before separating? So technically an adult.
Someone told me that the British Communist Party is wracked by legal arguments over the money - they have a fair bit of property which generates.... rental income. Dividing the spoils is problematic or something.
‘You’ll never guess which country is featured in the top 20 issues that will be part of Labour conference debate.’
‘What do Local Government Cuts, Mental Health, Right to Food, Crime, Armed Forces, Digital Divide, HGV Rules, Sure Start, Tax, Business Recovery, Disability Rights, Drug Reform, Women’s Health, have in common? They are all less important to Labour CLPs than Israel/Palestine.’
‘Despite having locked up over a million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, state-sanctioned rape and sterilisation, torture, mosque destruction, organ harvesting, threats to Taiwan, HK and Tibetan democracy activists disappeared, Wuhan cover up, China only got 14,000 votes.’
Labour is a disparate group of various single issue causes under one umbrella. It has subcontracted eco policy to the Green Party and XR, policy on gay rights to Stonewall etc etc. Until labour has. Cohesive vision and offers people something constructive that will make their lives better it is doomed. How does stopping Russian oligarchs buying over 50% of a housing development improve the lives of people in Stoke ?
Apols all, missed PT with this: Marr's "cervix = transphobia" question to Starmer.
It's a stupid question because it depends on how and why and where it is said. Eg stating when asked, or in a debate about gender identity, your opinion that only women have a cervix, as colour to your overall view that 'biology is destiny' on these matters, is not per se transphobic, whereas ramming that view at transmen on a personal level could well be, since it's telling them that despite everything they've gone through, and whatever the law says, they are still women, they're always a woman to you; it's denying their identity, an identity they and the law are probably more qualified to opine on than you are.
But either way it depends on tone and context. In this respect transphobia is no different to racism, misogyny, or any other prejudice. Hard to define, in fact rather a pointless distraction to define, because it's more a case of you know it when you see it. That said, I will have a bash at defining it, why not.
So, it describes those who mock the idea that “born the wrong sex” is for some people a distressing identity crisis for which changing gender is the best remedy, who scaremonger that transwomen are likely to be perverts, who insist on misgendering to denigrate, to hurt, or to prove, relentlessly, each and every day just in case anybody had forgotten, some sort of muscular purity of thought or language. The word is bandied around very loosely and counter-productively, nevertheless there are plenty of genuine transphobes active on the anti side of the trans debate, no question, and that includes some of the great posters on this great site.
And now THAT said, a confession: I do if I'm honest find it a bit bizarre, and possibly not the healthiest thing, how an aging ex-City bloke who knows no transpeople, whose politics apart from on private schools are mushy soft left, whose most exotic identity strand is Yorkshireman, has found himself with clear views on this topic, but there you go. Perils of the internet. I find it interesting, not at all trivial, and I hope Labour retain their commitment to the reform of the GRA.
Excellent comment.
It's a very depressing topic. For most people, including well educated people of left and right, it begins and ends with "of course biological sex matters, what idiots trying to stop us talking that way". Such idiots do exist, of course, but you really don't need to go deep into the issue to understand that:
(a) Even biological sex is non-binary.
(b) Transgender women are much more likely to be victims of violence and other abuse than cisgender ("biological") women. Much more likely even than cisgender men. This is largely due to the prejudice they face. We can respect the fear that some cisgender women have of trans-women, certainly their right to voice those fears, but it *is* transphobic to allow such fears to dominate the discussion as they currently do.
(c) Being "gender-sceptic" is an intellectually valid position, of course. Some would say it's common sense. Unfortunately, whenever I've read any article of any length by an actual self-proclaimed gender-sceptic, it has become clear that they despise the trans community, and deserve to be labelled as a transphobe.
(d) A small minority of members of the trans-community show the same disgusting aggressiveness towards people they disagree with that we see on a variety of other issues (sexuality, race and cultural appropriation, sexism). On the other issues, people get away with their aggressiveness become they've already won the argument in the court of public opinion. Obviously, such aggressiveness should be condemned, but it should not be used against the trans community as a whole.
On (a) I don't think that is correct. In mammals, certainly human mammals, females produce eggs and males produce sperm. That's it.
On (b), this is not correct as far as murder is concerned. For transwomen, the number killed per year is 1. And there have been some years where none have been killed. An average of 188 women are killed every year. According to ONS statistics, transwomen are at less risk of being killed than women.
I do not know what the figure is for transmen. Nor is it clear from the ONS statistics how this is broken down between those who have a gender recognition certificate (and have fully transitioned) and those who do not have such a certificate and merely say they are trans. I also do not have to hand the figures for crimes of violence which are not murder.
It goes without saying that transpeople, whatever their transitioning status, should not be attacked at all for being trans. But accuracy in facts is also important.
The problem with Angela Rayner’s “scum” comment is not the rudeness (driven by passion, she’d argue) but what does it say about those who vote for scum? Or those who feel their values are now represented by scum? 48% of working class voters backed the Tories in 2019.
That is indeed the fundamental issue. Lots of people do think Tory ministers are scum and are voting accodringly already, and there are people who may have voted Tory last time and are regretting it, and might well be open to hearing such a blunt assessment as well.
But there will also be people who might be on the fence about having voted Tory last time, who will hear it as 'She says they are scum, I voted for them, so she thinks I am scum? Well screw that'. It's why making a distinction between Tory voters and the leadership won't always work, especially if people suspect the former is beleived even if only the latter is said (Dura Ace is admirably up front about the former).
It's a similar problem to trying to convince people they made a mistake last time. Some will come to that view on their own. Some will think it was right then but is not now. And there's nothing wrong in thinking the public made a mistake at an election - non Tory parties are bound to think the public made the wrong choice.
The difficulty is how to make people realise that without seeming to tell people they were tricked (that is, they were idiots) or that they were bad people for voting in scum. Because get that wrong and you can reenforce their vote.
If you analyse the clever ones like Blair in his pomp, they invariably appear to comprehend why in a free liberal society with a range of liberal centrist parties people may vote, or have voted, for different ones, but:
they never criticise the voters
and
the make a credible better offer at the retail level, while having abstract uplifting principles as well.
The difference was that Blair was positive. Despite spending every day bashing the government, he had ideas, and a positive vision.
Cameron was also positive, as was Johnson.
Starmer and his Labour Party are still being negative, offering brickbats rather than solutions, or even a hint of vision beyond empty platitudes - and the first day of their conference is now being dominated by sloppy use of language from the deputy leader.
Most of Blair's message in 1997 was bland and vacuous - effectively Thatcherism with a more human face.
Thatcherism is very unpopular now in both parties:
Single Market bad Working class payrises good State intervention in industry good Money printing good Inflation good
She must be spinning in her grave.
I like the idea of Thatcher spinning in her grave - that's basically a revolving dancefloor.
Or a rotisserie depending on where's she's currently based..
Apols all, missed PT with this: Marr's "cervix = transphobia" question to Starmer.
It's a stupid question because it depends on how and why and where it is said. Eg stating when asked, or in a debate about gender identity, your opinion that only women have a cervix, as colour to your overall view that 'biology is destiny' on these matters, is not per se transphobic, whereas ramming that view at transmen on a personal level could well be, since it's telling them that despite everything they've gone through, and whatever the law says, they are still women, they're always a woman to you; it's denying their identity, an identity they and the law are probably more qualified to opine on than you are.
But either way it depends on tone and context. In this respect transphobia is no different to racism, misogyny, or any other prejudice. Hard to define, in fact rather a pointless distraction to define, because it's more a case of you know it when you see it. That said, I will have a bash at defining it, why not.
So, it describes those who mock the idea that “born the wrong sex” is for some people a distressing identity crisis for which changing gender is the best remedy, who scaremonger that transwomen are likely to be perverts, who insist on misgendering to denigrate, to hurt, or to prove, relentlessly, each and every day just in case anybody had forgotten, some sort of muscular purity of thought or language. The word is bandied around very loosely and counter-productively, nevertheless there are plenty of genuine transphobes active on the anti side of the trans debate, no question, and that includes some of the great posters on this great site.
And now THAT said, a confession: I do if I'm honest find it a bit bizarre, and possibly not the healthiest thing, how an aging ex-City bloke who knows no transpeople, whose politics apart from on private schools are mushy soft left, whose most exotic identity strand is Yorkshireman, has found himself with clear views on this topic, but there you go. Perils of the internet. I find it interesting, not at all trivial, and I hope Labour retain their commitment to the reform of the GRA.
This debate is so detached from reality most people don’t even understand the terms. Which is why it is such a dangerous rabbit-hole for the Left. At least in your last paragraph you show some self-awareness of this
For instance, me. I’m an educated Londoner with an unusual interest in politics. I chat endlessly on PB and I read a lot of sociology and the like. I’m also fascinated by language and its usage. But even I don’t know what the hell you’re on about
Take just one word you use. ‘Transmen’. Who are they? What are they? Are they people born male who have transitioned to female via surgery? Are they people born male who are about to transition, or considering it, or halfway through? Or are they women who’ve transitioned to being men? Or want to? Or what?
I have absolutely no clue. I’m not being facetious. I’ve no idea.
So if I’m reading all of this with total bewilderment, and a sense of frustration and weariness, god knows what the average punter is thinking. But it won’t be good for the Left. It’s definitely not engaging
The topic pulls people in for prurient reasons and more respectable reasons - there's a genuine issue of prejudice and an intriguing mix of ideas and agendas and beliefs. I agree it's an issue with potential to hurt the left and help the right. Same goes for lots of issues. Brexit? Immigration? It's electorally dangerous for Labour to talk about these things. But we have to, otherwise we risk becoming vote grubbers and little else.
I could answer your questions on transmen but I won't because I sense you're only asking for effect, trying to make out you're floating above the detail on an issue that isn't worth your time, whereas I'm lost down the rabbit hole. Fact is, you know transpeople, which I don't, and you've done lots of reading on it, more than I have. You know the ins and outs of this, what transition means, legally and medically, how it's done, what the potential treatments are, you're all over it, and you ARE interested, it's one of the hottest culture war battlegrounds therefore you're VERY interested in it, same as me, and quite right we are too. Because it's interesting.
Eg one thing I find striking is how it's all blown up quite quickly. Mrs May's proposed reforms had broad support cross-party and from the medical profession. Something similar has been implemented in several countries without mishap or clamour for reversal. There was plenty of debate, since it's a nuanced and complex area, but it wasn't a massive deal. Yet a similar (to Mrs May's) position now is painted as a new cultural revolution that will cancel biological science and lead to hordes of men becoming women purely in order to get into toilets, changing rooms, spas, prisons, refuges etc and commit sexual crimes there. Quite bizarre. The whole debate is a fascinating phenomenon for anyone who is interested in modern politics as amped by the internet, it just is.
Wrong, wrong and wrong again.
I DO find the actual argument boring, overly complex, and off-puttingly aggressive, despite having an actual transitioned female old friend (once male).
And my question was sincere: what are ‘transmen’? I suspect you don’t have a clear answer. Nor do I. Hence the question
My only REAL sustained interest in this (shared by you it seems) is as a culture war issue, and the way it can be used to annihilate the Left, depriving them of millions of female votes. That’s fascinating. Partly because it’s always fun when the Left implodes but also because this issue may signal the first backwards swing of the pendulum, away from ID politics and ultra-Wokeness and back to sanity
You post here on 'trans' quite a lot so I assumed you had a genuine interest. But, ok, if you're telling me it's not true, that you're ignorant on the issue and happy to stay that way, your interest being purely in using it as a wind-up of the left, then I must accept that.
Does the same apply to most of the stuff you comment on then? I suppose it does.
Or, you could just answer the bloody question. You used the word ‘transmen’. What does it mean, for you? I’m not trying to trip you up, an answer would be useful
If you can answer it, I’ve learned something, either about you or this whole argument, or both
If you can’t or refuse to answer, then that is similarly educational
Apols all, missed PT with this: Marr's "cervix = transphobia" question to Starmer.
It's a stupid question because it depends on how and why and where it is said. Eg stating when asked, or in a debate about gender identity, your opinion that only women have a cervix, as colour to your overall view that 'biology is destiny' on these matters, is not per se transphobic, whereas ramming that view at transmen on a personal level could well be, since it's telling them that despite everything they've gone through, and whatever the law says, they are still women, they're always a woman to you; it's denying their identity, an identity they and the law are probably more qualified to opine on than you are.
But either way it depends on tone and context. In this respect transphobia is no different to racism, misogyny, or any other prejudice. Hard to define, in fact rather a pointless distraction to define, because it's more a case of you know it when you see it. That said, I will have a bash at defining it, why not.
So, it describes those who mock the idea that “born the wrong sex” is for some people a distressing identity crisis for which changing gender is the best remedy, who scaremonger that transwomen are likely to be perverts, who insist on misgendering to denigrate, to hurt, or to prove, relentlessly, each and every day just in case anybody had forgotten, some sort of muscular purity of thought or language. The word is bandied around very loosely and counter-productively, nevertheless there are plenty of genuine transphobes active on the anti side of the trans debate, no question, and that includes some of the great posters on this great site.
And now THAT said, a confession: I do if I'm honest find it a bit bizarre, and possibly not the healthiest thing, how an aging ex-City bloke who knows no transpeople, whose politics apart from on private schools are mushy soft left, whose most exotic identity strand is Yorkshireman, has found himself with clear views on this topic, but there you go. Perils of the internet. I find it interesting, not at all trivial, and I hope Labour retain their commitment to the reform of the GRA.
This debate is so detached from reality most people don’t even understand the terms. Which is why it is such a dangerous rabbit-hole for the Left. At least in your last paragraph you show some self-awareness of this
For instance, me. I’m an educated Londoner with an unusual interest in politics. I chat endlessly on PB and I read a lot of sociology and the like. I’m also fascinated by language and its usage. But even I don’t know what the hell you’re on about
Take just one word you use. ‘Transmen’. Who are they? What are they? Are they people born male who have transitioned to female via surgery? Are they people born male who are about to transition, or considering it, or halfway through? Or are they women who’ve transitioned to being men? Or want to? Or what?
I have absolutely no clue. I’m not being facetious. I’ve no idea.
So if I’m reading all of this with total bewilderment, and a sense of frustration and weariness, god knows what the average punter is thinking. But it won’t be good for the Left. It’s definitely not engaging
The terminology can get even more abstruse than that. Blending two of today's themes, trans people who don't agree with self-id get called 'truscum' and accused of being transphobic.
When I helped run the student union, I was astonished by the horrible attacks by members of the Gay Soc. on people they claimed were Bi. There was a whole witch hunting thing going on to "out" the heretics.....
I'd been raised in the whole "live and let live, leave other people's private lives alone" tradition and naively thought that , surely, given the horrible abuse heaped on the gay community, that they would be tolerant of others.
But no. The strangest bit was the much of the abuse sounded like Ian Paisley on the subject of gay people...
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Bit surprised at that because I saw at least 5 in Leicester out of fuel when going to the footy yesterday.
Oh please, what a bunch of twaddle. That's just a lazy rehash of the standard political trope of 'They are attacking X, therefore they must fear X'.
Labour supporters on here did not believe that the laughter of PB Tories was genuine when Miliband and Corbyn were elected. "You really fear them." No, PB Tories really did find it amusing that Labour had elected two poor candidates, or more like one poor and one terrible.
I think the only plausible Labour leader the PB Tories would really worry about is Burnham, because he might out-Boris Boris.
Trouble is that Burnham is crap.
On what grounds? Genuinely interested in this. Several adjectives spring to mind when I see the King in the North. Crap isn't one.
I wouldn’t say “crap” but he is a lightweight
Sank without trace as a cabinet minister an as a leadership candidate. Reinvented himself as mayor of Manchester… very ho hum until he got into a scrap over COVID compensation - IIRC Manchester didn’t end up getting anything more than anyone else but Burnham got a few good headlines
All he needs to be is less crap than the rest in labour and on that score he’s pretty high.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Bit surprised at that because I saw at least 5 in Leicester out of unless when going to the footy yesterday.
+1 - we drove past 6 (out of 7) empty petrol stations between Leeds and the Tadcaster A1M junction last night.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Bit surprised at that because I saw at least 5 in Leicester out of fuel when going to the footy yesterday.
Makes sense when you think about it. Word of mouth that one petrol station is closed will cause people in that area to panic buy.
NEW: Anneliese Dodds responds to James Gray MP saying a bomb should be planted in her office:
‘I think it’s important that he apologises.
‘I would say that the broader issue of safety for everyone in politics is very important.
Dodds contd: “I think all parliamentarians should be committed to ensuring that everyone can be involved in public life without any fear of intimidation or violence.”
Did she comment on McDonnell’s support for a threat to hang Esther McVey?
Perhaps you could post that to demonstrate she really believes what she is saying rather than just seeking political advantage from a stupid comment by a non-entity?
"The most striking part of the interview was Starmer’s comments with respect to his deputy Angela Rayner. Overnight, Rayner has caused controversy after using a speech at a conference reception to refer to the Tories as ‘a bunch of scum’ and ‘homophobic, racist, misogynistic’. Asked whether Rayner ought to apologise, Starmer repeatedly refused to say. Instead, he said: ‘Angela and I take different approaches. That is not language that I would use.’ As for whether she ought to apologise, he said: ‘That's a matter for Angela but I would not have used those words.’"
Surely a magazine so concerned about freedom of speech and the rights of the working class would not expect or encourage the middle class lawyer boss to order an apology on her behalf?
They are stupid comments tactically and politically but the reaction to them is typically hypocritical.
The Speccie is all about freedom of speech when it's racial abuse from its own columnists; when it's a Labour woman being beastly about Boris they call for the cancellation hammer.
I can't be the only one who's thoroughly bored by "Trans".
Of course you are. But it is not your sex-based rights which are at risk. Nor how you describe yourself and are described.
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
Apols all, missed PT with this: Marr's "cervix = transphobia" question to Starmer.
It's a stupid question because it depends on how and why and where it is said. Eg stating when asked, or in a debate about gender identity, your opinion that only women have a cervix, as colour to your overall view that 'biology is destiny' on these matters, is not per se transphobic, whereas ramming that view at transmen on a personal level could well be, since it's telling them that despite everything they've gone through, and whatever the law says, they are still women, they're always a woman to you; it's denying their identity, an identity they and the law are probably more qualified to opine on than you are.
But either way it depends on tone and context. In this respect transphobia is no different to racism, misogyny, or any other prejudice. Hard to define, in fact rather a pointless distraction to define, because it's more a case of you know it when you see it. That said, I will have a bash at defining it, why not.
So, it describes those who mock the idea that “born the wrong sex” is for some people a distressing identity crisis for which changing gender is the best remedy, who scaremonger that transwomen are likely to be perverts, who insist on misgendering to denigrate, to hurt, or to prove, relentlessly, each and every day just in case anybody had forgotten, some sort of muscular purity of thought or language. The word is bandied around very loosely and counter-productively, nevertheless there are plenty of genuine transphobes active on the anti side of the debate, no question, and that includes some of the great posters on this great site.
And now THAT said, a confession: I do if I'm honest find it a bit bizarre, and possibly not the healthiest thing, how an aging ex-City bloke who knows no transpeople, whose politics apart from on private schools are mushy soft left, whose most exotic identity strand is Yorkshireman, has found himself with clear views on this topic, but there you go. Perils of the internet. I find it interesting, not at all trivial, and I hope Labour retain their commitment to the reform of the GRA.
The question was asked because it's what the Labour MP, who is too scared to attend the conference, said to attract the hate she now gets
For someone who is meant to be forensic, his answers to the three questions put to him were remarkably incoherent. It should be perfectly possible for an intelligent politician, let alone a political leader aspiring to become PM, to say that:-
1.Biological facts are not a matter of opinion or belief. And everyone is free to say them. (If he wanted to go further, he could have said that a belief in biological facts was a protected belief under the Equality Act, though personally I'd have thought it unnecessary to say this on a Sunday morning programme given the time available.) 2. People - let alone MPs - should not be threatened with physical attack or put in fear for stating facts or opinions. This is wrong. Anyone within the Labour Party doing this had no place in the party and would face disciplinary measures, if found to be doing so. 3. People with gender dysphoria should not be attacked on account of their condition. Anyone doing this had no place in the Labour Party etc. Labour would see what further measures were needed to ensure that such people had the help they needed. 4. Labour would do nothing to remove or curtail the sex-based rights rights which women have. Anyone attacking those arguing for or defending such rights had no place in the Labour Party etc. Women with all sorts of opinions were welcome within Labour and he wanted to hear from as many of them as possible, including women's groups who had previously been banned. All such groups should be able to have meetings at Labour conference without being put in fear. 5. Disagreeing with someone or having a different opinion is not a phobia or phobic and such language shut down necessary debate rather than enable it. He would play no part in this and nor should the Labour Party. 6. No one group, charity or campaigning organisation would get to decide Labour Party policy or have a veto on it. Policy in this area needed to appeal to the widest possible coalition of voters, the vast majority of whom were not Labour Party members.
How hard would it have been for an allegedly intelligent, decent lawyer with fantastic forensic skills to have come up with such a message in a week?
This is turning into an absolute mare for Labour. Look at this exchange between Duffield and a Labour councilor
‘That’s what we want to hear, Dodds confirming support for self id and that trans rights are human rights - now we need the action to back it up, Starmer must remove the whip from transphobes like Duffield.’
‘So sorry to disappoint you Michael - you're clearly not a fan of women's rights. But I am not about to have the whip removed for defending them.’
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Bit surprised at that because I saw at least 5 in Leicester out of fuel when going to the footy yesterday.
They probably got deliveries overnight though, Shell said earlier in the week that they would bring deliveries forwards and we know that there's no shortage of refinery capacity. What we've got is a panic over nothing.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Well my 24 year old autistic son didn't panic buy and now needs petrol. I'll tell him 7800 stations have fuel, so not to worry.
I was at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday.
Asda filling station at the stadium was closed, as was Tesco Culverhouse Cross and the Esso station on the A48 at Cowbridge, so had I needed fuel ( I filled up last Sunday before I went to NI for the week) I would have been incredibly unlucky in that all three I passed were closed.
Ok, fruity Leon, on the off chance you were truly asking and not seeking to make yourself grounded and me look obsessed: Transmen were born female and have transitioned to male. The law considers such people to be men. They might have had surgery and they might not.
The phrase "only women have a cervix" infers that men can't have a cervix - since only women can. Thus no man has a cervix. Thus if you have a cervix you're not a man. So if you meet a transman (as defined above) and say to him "only women have a crevix" you're saying he is NOT a man, when the law says he is and he says he is. Not that you'd do this - I know you're a 'live and let live' modern metro type like me - but just to illustrate the point that people keep saying they're confused by.
I can't be the only one who's thoroughly bored by "Trans".
Of course you are. But it is not your sex-based rights which are at risk. Nor how you describe yourself and are described.
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
That’s a good point. The trans issue does not especially interest me now (except as a satisfied spectator of lefty civil wars) - but I have two daughters. Hmm
One thing that does bug me is Starmer’s insistence (restated again today) that trans people are ‘the most marginalized of communities’ Is there anything to back this up? If there is, does it explain the modern Left’s obsession with trans rights - ie in their pursuit of intersectional privilege, or lack of, are trans people the intersect which meets maximum bigotry and hatred?
I have my doubts there are enough trans people to make the data reliable, but who knows
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Depends what you define as 'run out of fuel'. Every petrol station in South Northumberland ran out of fuel yesterday, at least for a period. Big queues everywhere.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Bit surprised at that because I saw at least 5 in Leicester out of unless when going to the footy yesterday.
+1 - we drove past 6 (out of 7) empty petrol stations between Leeds and the Tadcaster A1M junction last night.
All of us not of the Conservative faith are desperately unlucky that every station we pass is empty of fuel, yet the Conservative faithful have 7800 open stations to choose from.
I can't be the only one who's thoroughly bored by "Trans".
Of course you are. But it is not your sex-based rights which are at risk. Nor how you describe yourself and are described.
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
No teachers are allowed to use the pupil toilets nowadays.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Well my 24 year old autistic son didn't panic buy and now needs petrol. I'll tell him 7800 stations have fuel, so not to worry.
I was at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday.
Asda filling station at the stadium was closed, as was Tesco Culverhouse Cross and the Esso station on the A48 at Cowbridge, so had I needed fuel ( I filled up last Sunday before I went to NI for the week) I would have been incredibly unlucky in that all three I passed were closed.
Hope he’s not in London. I think pretty much no petrol anywhere now.
I can't be the only one who's thoroughly bored by "Trans".
Of course you are. But it is not your sex-based rights which are at risk. Nor how you describe yourself and are described.
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
I respect your position @Cyclefree but you have to also recognise that plenty of women do not feel their sex-based rights are under threat in the same way you do.
Ok, fruity Leon, on the off chance you were truly asking and not seeking to make yourself grounded and me look me look obsessed: Transmen were born female and have transitioned to male. The law considers such people to be men. They might have had surgery and they might not.
The phrase "only women have a cervix" infers that men can't have a cervix - since only women can. Thus no man has a cervix. Thus if you have a cervix you're not a man. So if you meet a transman (as defined above) and say to him "only women have a crevix" you're saying he is NOT a man, when the law says he is and he says he is. Not that you'd do this - I know you're a 'live and let live' modern metro type like me - but just to illustrate the point that people keep saying they're confused by.
The NHS about which the Saj is so concerned agrees with you.
I can't be the only one who's thoroughly bored by "Trans".
Of course you are. But it is not your sex-based rights which are at risk. Nor how you describe yourself and are described.
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
That’s a good point. The trans issue does not especially interest me now (except as a satisfied spectator of lefty civil wars) - but I have two daughters. Hmm
One thing that does bug me is Starmer’s insistence (restated again today) that trans people are ‘the most marginalized of communities’ Is there anything to back this up? If there is, does it explain the modern Left’s obsession with trans rights - ie in their pursuit of intersectional privilege, or lack of, are trans people the intersect which meets maximum bigotry and hatred?
I have my doubts there are enough trans people to make the data reliable, but who knows
If one was measuring these things in some manner I would expect Travellers/Romany to be the most marginalised and subject to most bigotry.
And someone decided to write a newspaper article about this phenomenon? One thing wrong about this country: its cultural cringe towards posh twits in fee-paying schools. Nauseating stuff. I'm with George Bernard Shaw: burn down the lot and sow salt in the ashes.
Hate to break it to you, but twits no longer get into the fee-paying schools you've heard of, nor into the Ivy League.
Are you also with Shaw in insisting Hitler and Mussolini should be judged by results, in thinking that freedom was a worthless political value, and in wanting to sterilise or exxterminate the socially unfit?
Relatedly, I watched American Psycho for the first time last night. Brilliant. How long ago all that seems now, and what an aching irony that when he leaves the restaurant after breaking up with his fiancee there's a gorgeous shot of the twin towers. The film came out in 2000.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Well my 24 year old autistic son didn't panic buy and now needs petrol. I'll tell him 7800 stations have fuel, so not to worry.
I was at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday.
Asda filling station at the stadium was closed, as was Tesco Culverhouse Cross and the Esso station on the A48 at Cowbridge, so had I needed fuel ( I filled up last Sunday before I went to NI for the week) I would have been incredibly unlucky in that all three I passed were closed.
Hope he’s not in London. I think pretty much no petrol anywhere now.
None in Pontypridd where he is, so he is panicking, just not buying.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Well my 24 year old autistic son didn't panic buy and now needs petrol. I'll tell him 7800 stations have fuel, so not to worry.
I was at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday.
Asda filling station at the stadium was closed, as was Tesco Culverhouse Cross and the Esso station on the A48 at Cowbridge, so had I needed fuel ( I filled up last Sunday before I went to NI for the week) I would have been incredibly unlucky in that all three I passed were closed.
Hope he’s not in London. I think pretty much no petrol anywhere now.
None in Pontypridd where he is, so he is panicking, just not buying.
I’m old enough to remember when it was regarded as a fundamental duty of government to do whatever they could to avoid this kind of thing.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Well my 24 year old autistic son didn't panic buy and now needs petrol. I'll tell him 7800 stations have fuel, so not to worry.
I was at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday.
Asda filling station at the stadium was closed, as was Tesco Culverhouse Cross and the Esso station on the A48 at Cowbridge, so had I needed fuel ( I filled up last Sunday before I went to NI for the week) I would have been incredibly unlucky in that all three I passed were closed.
Hope he’s not in London. I think pretty much no petrol anywhere now.
None in Pontypridd where he is, so he is panicking, just not buying.
I’m old enough to remember when it was regarded as a fundamental duty of government to do whatever they could to avoid this kind of thing.
Yes, they should have put a D-notice on the media, to stop them talking up panic buying of petrol as if it were some game.
Apols all, missed PT with this: Marr's "cervix = transphobia" question to Starmer.
It's a stupid question because it depends on how and why and where it is said. Eg stating when asked, or in a debate about gender identity, your opinion that only women have a cervix, as colour to your overall view that 'biology is destiny' on these matters, is not per se transphobic, whereas ramming that view at transmen on a personal level could well be, since it's telling them that despite everything they've gone through, and whatever the law says, they are still women, they're always a woman to you; it's denying their identity, an identity they and the law are probably more qualified to opine on than you are.
But either way it depends on tone and context. In this respect transphobia is no different to racism, misogyny, or any other prejudice. Hard to define, in fact rather a pointless distraction to define, because it's more a case of you know it when you see it. That said, I will have a bash at defining it, why not.
So, it describes those who mock the idea that “born the wrong sex” is for some people a distressing identity crisis for which changing gender is the best remedy, who scaremonger that transwomen are likely to be perverts, who insist on misgendering to denigrate, to hurt, or to prove, relentlessly, each and every day just in case anybody had forgotten, some sort of muscular purity of thought or language. The word is bandied around very loosely and counter-productively, nevertheless there are plenty of genuine transphobes active on the anti side of the debate, no question, and that includes some of the great posters on this great site.
And now THAT said, a confession: I do if I'm honest find it a bit bizarre, and possibly not the healthiest thing, how an aging ex-City bloke who knows no transpeople, whose politics apart from on private schools are mushy soft left, whose most exotic identity strand is Yorkshireman, has found himself with clear views on this topic, but there you go. Perils of the internet. I find it interesting, not at all trivial, and I hope Labour retain their commitment to the reform of the GRA.
The question was asked because it's what the Labour MP, who is too scared to attend the conference, said to attract the hate she now gets
For someone who is meant to be forensic, his answers to the three questions put to him were remarkably incoherent. It should be perfectly possible for an intelligent politician, let alone a political leader aspiring to become PM, to say that:-
1.Biological facts are not a matter of opinion or belief. And everyone is free to say them. (If he wanted to go further, he could have said that a belief in biological facts was a protected belief under the Equality Act, though personally I'd have thought it unnecessary to say this on a Sunday morning programme given the time available.) 2. People - let alone MPs - should not be threatened with physical attack or put in fear for stating facts or opinions. This is wrong. Anyone within the Labour Party doing this had no place in the party and would face disciplinary measures, if found to be doing so. 3. People with gender dysphoria should not be attacked on account of their condition. Anyone doing this had no place in the Labour Party etc. Labour would see what further measures were needed to ensure that such people had the help they needed. 4. Labour would do nothing to remove or curtail the sex-based rights rights which women have. Anyone attacking those arguing for or defending such rights had no place in the Labour Party etc. Women with all sorts of opinions were welcome within Labour and he wanted to hear from as many of them as possible, including women's groups who had previously been banned. All such groups should be able to have meetings at Labour conference without being put in fear. 5. Disagreeing with someone or having a different opinion is not a phobia or phobic and such language shut down necessary debate rather than enable it. He would play no part in this and nor should the Labour Party. 6. No one group, charity or campaigning organisation would get to decide Labour Party policy or have a veto on it. Policy in this area needed to appeal to the widest possible coalition of voters, the vast majority of whom were not Labour Party members.
How hard would it have been for an allegedly intelligent, decent lawyer with fantastic forensic skills to have come up with such a message in a week?
This is turning into an absolute mare for Labour. Look at this exchange between Duffield and a Labour councilor
‘That’s what we want to hear, Dodds confirming support for self id and that trans rights are human rights - now we need the action to back it up, Starmer must remove the whip from transphobes like Duffield.’
‘So sorry to disappoint you Michael - you're clearly not a fan of women's rights. But I am not about to have the whip removed for defending them.’
Labour - Labour! - have got themselves into the extraordinary position of appearing anti-women, and anti-feminist
Which provides a political opportunity for the Tories.
Time once again for my occasional reminder that all Labour activists should be forced to read Mark Lilla's 'Once and Future Liberal'; a book that explains why the identity wars will continually lose them power.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Bit surprised at that because I saw at least 5 in Leicester out of fuel when going to the footy yesterday.
They probably got deliveries overnight though, Shell said earlier in the week that they would bring deliveries forwards and we know that there's no shortage of refinery capacity. What we've got is a panic over nothing.
You need to brush up on your transport logistics. For the millionth time, trucks and drivers are finite, not to mention driver's available hours.
P S. Wasn't the original panic over...wait for it...reports on a shortage of tanker drivers.
Ok, fruity Leon, on the off chance you were truly asking and not seeking to make yourself grounded and me look obsessed: Transmen were born female and have transitioned to male. The law considers such people to be men. They might have had surgery and they might not.
The phrase "only women have a cervix" infers that men can't have a cervix - since only women can. Thus no man has a cervix. Thus if you have a cervix you're not a man. So if you meet a transman (as defined above) and say to him "only women have a crevix" you're saying he is NOT a man, when the law says he is and he says he is. Not that you'd do this - I know you're a 'live and let live' modern metro type like me - but just to illustrate the point that people keep saying they're confused by.
Lol. See? I actually learned something. Thankyou, sincerely
If forced to guess, I’d genuinely have said ‘transmen’ are men in the process of transitioning to being female - ie pre-op, unsure biological males, considering the move
Presuming you are up-to-speed and correct, it turns out I’m entirely wrong. Transmen are born-biological women who have transitioned, either physically or in their heads, to being male
It is still a crazy argument and inflated out of proportion and it definitely has the potential to self destruct the Left. Good. It’s just a shame a lot of ‘progressive’ women will be made politically homeless as a result, and some might get actually hurt
Delegates just voted to nationalise energy companies
Starmer says no
The party needs to split away from its Corbynistas
Where is todays Kinnock ?
Labour is overrun by extremists - it's beyond saving
Nationalising energy companies isn't extreme! Lots of european countries with public utilities.
It might not be a sensible think to do now in UK with the debt burden we have already but that's a different argument.
I was talking more generally.
The Labour Party is full of weirdos who don't live in the real world. The Lib Dems are the same.
As are the Conservatives. The rest of us left the job of defining the menu for the electorate to choose from to a fairly small number of deeply strange people.
It's largely our fault that the options come back so unappealing.
I can't be the only one who's thoroughly bored by "Trans".
Of course you are. But it is not your sex-based rights which are at risk. Nor how you describe yourself and are described.
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
That’s a good point. The trans issue does not especially interest me now (except as a satisfied spectator of lefty civil wars) - but I have two daughters. Hmm
One thing that does bug me is Starmer’s insistence (restated again today) that trans people are ‘the most marginalized of communities’ Is there anything to back this up? If there is, does it explain the modern Left’s obsession with trans rights - ie in their pursuit of intersectional privilege, or lack of, are trans people the intersect which meets maximum bigotry and hatred?
I have my doubts there are enough trans people to make the data reliable, but who knows
If one was measuring these things in some manner I would expect Travellers/Romany to be the most marginalised and subject to most bigotry.
Yes, Roma would be my guess too. Hugely lower life expectancy, much lower educational attainment, etc
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Well my 24 year old autistic son didn't panic buy and now needs petrol. I'll tell him 7800 stations have fuel, so not to worry.
I was at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday.
Asda filling station at the stadium was closed, as was Tesco Culverhouse Cross and the Esso station on the A48 at Cowbridge, so had I needed fuel ( I filled up last Sunday before I went to NI for the week) I would have been incredibly unlucky in that all three I passed were closed.
Hope he’s not in London. I think pretty much no petrol anywhere now.
None in Pontypridd where he is, so he is panicking, just not buying.
I’m old enough to remember when it was regarded as a fundamental duty of government to do whatever they could to avoid this kind of thing.
Me too. I recall queueing in 2000, but I am assured by the PB Brains Trust that this is different.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Delegates just voted to nationalise energy companies
Starmer says no
The party needs to split away from its Corbynistas
Where is todays Kinnock ?
Labour is overrun by extremists - it's beyond saving
Nationalising energy companies isn't extreme! Lots of european countries with public utilities.
It might not be a sensible think to do now in UK with the debt burden we have already but that's a different argument.
I was talking more generally.
The Labour Party is full of weirdos who don't live in the real world. The Lib Dems are the same.
Thanks for that. So I'm an alien weirdo, am I?
I don't mean to offend you personally but it's true anyway - people who are obsessed with party politics are very much not the norm.
That's completely different, as you know. Obviously they're not the norm, because most people aren't involved. But the same could be said of loads of people who have interests or hobbies that are 'not the norm'. Doesn't make them weirdos.
PS - you'd have to do a lot better than that to offend me personally. No offence taken.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Bit surprised at that because I saw at least 5 in Leicester out of fuel when going to the footy yesterday.
They probably got deliveries overnight though, Shell said earlier in the week that they would bring deliveries forwards and we know that there's no shortage of refinery capacity. What we've got is a panic over nothing.
Yes, but the stated figure was for yesterday, not overnight resupply.
And someone decided to write a newspaper article about this phenomenon? One thing wrong about this country: its cultural cringe towards posh twits in fee-paying schools. Nauseating stuff. I'm with George Bernard Shaw: burn down the lot and sow salt in the ashes.
Hate to break it to you, but twits no longer get into the fee-paying schools you've heard of, nor into the Ivy League.
Are you also with Shaw in insisting Hitler and Mussolini should be judged by results, in thinking that freedom was a worthless political value, and in wanting to sterilise or exxterminate the socially unfit?
Relatedly, I watched American Psycho for the first time last night. Brilliant. How long ago all that seems now, and what an aching irony that when he leaves the restaurant after breaking up with his fiancee there's a gorgeous shot of the twin towers. The film came out in 2000.
I suppose you think you've made some sort of killer point in all that, but I'm struggling to identify what it could be.
Rowena Mason @rowenamason · 57m Big disruption at Jeremy Corbyn event from his own brother Piers Corbyn who is shouting at the stage after a man took exception the chair asking for questions from women and people of colour
Delegates just voted to nationalise energy companies
Starmer says no
The party needs to split away from its Corbynistas
Where is todays Kinnock ?
Labour is overrun by extremists - it's beyond saving
Nationalising energy companies isn't extreme! Lots of european countries with public utilities.
It might not be a sensible think to do now in UK with the debt burden we have already but that's a different argument.
I was talking more generally.
The Labour Party is full of weirdos who don't live in the real world. The Lib Dems are the same.
Thanks for that. So I'm an alien weirdo, am I?
I don't mean to offend you personally but it's true anyway - people who are obsessed with party politics are very much not the norm.
That's completely different, as you know. Obviously they're not the norm, because most people aren't involved. But the same could be said of loads of people who have interests or hobbies that are 'not the norm'. Doesn't make them weirdos.
PS - you'd have to do a lot better than that to offend me personally. No offence taken.
While you're right - people closely involved in party politics try to influence the public - they try to be elected as representatives. To do that you have to understand what it's like to not be involved in politics and I think often the problem is that they don't.
And someone decided to write a newspaper article about this phenomenon? One thing wrong about this country: its cultural cringe towards posh twits in fee-paying schools. Nauseating stuff. I'm with George Bernard Shaw: burn down the lot and sow salt in the ashes.
Hate to break it to you, but twits no longer get into the fee-paying schools you've heard of, nor into the Ivy League.
Are you also with Shaw in insisting Hitler and Mussolini should be judged by results, in thinking that freedom was a worthless political value, and in wanting to sterilise or exxterminate the socially unfit?
Relatedly, I watched American Psycho for the first time last night. Brilliant. How long ago all that seems now, and what an aching irony that when he leaves the restaurant after breaking up with his fiancee there's a gorgeous shot of the twin towers. The film came out in 2000.
I suppose you think you've made some sort of killer point in all that, but I'm struggling to identify what it could be.
American Psycho coming out in 2000 does feel like an inflection point. In 2001 the Twin Towers came down, then America literally went psycho, the Forever Wars began, and now China is near-hegemonic and we are only just beginning the fightback by the west
Delegates just voted to nationalise energy companies
Starmer says no
The party needs to split away from its Corbynistas
Where is todays Kinnock ?
Labour is overrun by extremists - it's beyond saving
Nationalising energy companies isn't extreme! Lots of european countries with public utilities.
It might not be a sensible think to do now in UK with the debt burden we have already but that's a different argument.
I was talking more generally.
The Labour Party is full of weirdos who don't live in the real world. The Lib Dems are the same.
The irony is that Keir Starmer is not a weirdo - he's a person who's had a proper job and worked hard outside of politics.
As indeed has Rayner.
Rayner should be leading the charge in fixing social care. She's more qualified to talk about it than most. Better that than calling Tories scum or whatever she did.
I can't be the only one who's thoroughly bored by "Trans".
Of course you are. But it is not your sex-based rights which are at risk. Nor how you describe yourself and are described.
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
That’s a good point. The trans issue does not especially interest me now (except as a satisfied spectator of lefty civil wars) - but I have two daughters. Hmm
One thing that does bug me is Starmer’s insistence (restated again today) that trans people are ‘the most marginalized of communities’ Is there anything to back this up? If there is, does it explain the modern Left’s obsession with trans rights - ie in their pursuit of intersectional privilege, or lack of, are trans people the intersect which meets maximum bigotry and hatred?
I have my doubts there are enough trans people to make the data reliable, but who knows
Trans people are protected under the Equality Act. I have posted above the figures for murder in the U.K. Claims that they are the most marginalised group in Britain need to be treated with some scepticism, unless the evidence is there. That said I can well imagine that being trans and coming out about it cannot be easy and that there will be some prejudice and unkind comments etc which are not caught by statistics. Such behaviour is of course wrong.
I can't be the only one who's thoroughly bored by "Trans".
Of course you are. But it is not your sex-based rights which are at risk. Nor how you describe yourself and are described.
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
I respect your position @Cyclefree but you have to also recognise that plenty of women do not feel their sex-based rights are under threat in the same way you do.
That may be so. But that is no reason to remove them. And the proposals which Sturgeon is putting forward and which some of Labour's trans activists want to copy will remove those rights, as has been made clear by those who have analysed the provisions of the GRA, the proposed reforms in Scotland and the Equality Act. So the fact that some may not be bothered by this is irrelevant. Those sex-based rights exist for a reason and there is no good reason that I have seen for removing them or curtailing them.
You also ignore the concerns which some gay people have over this issue. If gender rather than sex becomes the only relevant category, what does that mean for sex-based attraction? Sexuality is based on sex not on gender. I may declare myself a man this afternoon. But a gay man is not thereby going to become physically attracted to me what with me having a body with breasts and a vagina. And it would be absurd for me to accuse him of being transphobic because he says so. And yet precisely this accusation is being levelled at lesbians who say that they do not want to have sex with men with penises, whatever they call themselves.
Should we not be a bit concerned about Public Health England now collecting data on gender only rather than sex (apparently) in relation to AIDS and HIV in gay men? Does this not risk adversely affecting medical treatment and statistics and knowledge? Biological sex matters in medicine. Refusing to collect data about it is both daft and potentially dangerous.
And someone decided to write a newspaper article about this phenomenon? One thing wrong about this country: its cultural cringe towards posh twits in fee-paying schools. Nauseating stuff. I'm with George Bernard Shaw: burn down the lot and sow salt in the ashes.
Hate to break it to you, but twits no longer get into the fee-paying schools you've heard of, nor into the Ivy League.
Are you also with Shaw in insisting Hitler and Mussolini should be judged by results, in thinking that freedom was a worthless political value, and in wanting to sterilise or exxterminate the socially unfit?
Relatedly, I watched American Psycho for the first time last night. Brilliant. How long ago all that seems now, and what an aching irony that when he leaves the restaurant after breaking up with his fiancee there's a gorgeous shot of the twin towers. The film came out in 2000.
I suppose you think you've made some sort of killer point in all that, but I'm struggling to identify what it could be.
American psycho is irrelevant. But I'm thinking that someone who wants people killed in the gas chambers for having Down's syndrome would not be my go-to guy on other social issues, either. You must make your own mind up, though. I'm sure there is much to be said on both sides of the argument.
And someone decided to write a newspaper article about this phenomenon? One thing wrong about this country: its cultural cringe towards posh twits in fee-paying schools. Nauseating stuff. I'm with George Bernard Shaw: burn down the lot and sow salt in the ashes.
Hate to break it to you, but twits no longer get into the fee-paying schools you've heard of, nor into the Ivy League.
Are you also with Shaw in insisting Hitler and Mussolini should be judged by results, in thinking that freedom was a worthless political value, and in wanting to sterilise or exxterminate the socially unfit?
Relatedly, I watched American Psycho for the first time last night. Brilliant. How long ago all that seems now, and what an aching irony that when he leaves the restaurant after breaking up with his fiancee there's a gorgeous shot of the twin towers. The film came out in 2000.
I suppose you think you've made some sort of killer point in all that, but I'm struggling to identify what it could be.
American Psycho coming out in 2000 does feel like an inflection point. In 2001 the Twin Towers came down, then America literally went psycho, the Forever Wars began, and now China is near-hegemonic and we are only just beginning the fightback by the west
No fightback, fighting internally. Just look at the state of America, a country capable only of fighting itself. Not sure that France or UK are in a stronger place.
Not that I would support a new Cold War anyway. The response to China needs to be economic and diplomatic, not military.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Bit surprised at that because I saw at least 5 in Leicester out of unless when going to the footy yesterday.
+1 - we drove past 6 (out of 7) empty petrol stations between Leeds and the Tadcaster A1M junction last night.
All of us not of the Conservative faith are desperately unlucky that every station we pass is empty of fuel, yet the Conservative faithful have 7800 open stations to choose from.
Delegates just voted to nationalise energy companies
Starmer says no
The party needs to split away from its Corbynistas
Where is todays Kinnock ?
Labour is overrun by extremists - it's beyond saving
Nationalising energy companies isn't extreme! Lots of european countries with public utilities.
It might not be a sensible think to do now in UK with the debt burden we have already but that's a different argument.
I was talking more generally.
The Labour Party is full of weirdos who don't live in the real world. The Lib Dems are the same.
Thanks for that. So I'm an alien weirdo, am I?
I don't mean to offend you personally but it's true anyway - people who are obsessed with party politics are very much not the norm.
That's completely different, as you know. Obviously they're not the norm, because most people aren't involved. But the same could be said of loads of people who have interests or hobbies that are 'not the norm'. Doesn't make them weirdos.
PS - you'd have to do a lot better than that to offend me personally. No offence taken.
I attended a wedding in which the father of the bride described the bride as 'weird'. We were all looking at each other to check whether we'd misheard, but she didn't seem at all bothered. We thought 'quirky' might have been a nicer way of putting it.
Being a weirdo has, I guess, more negative connotations than being weird.
(I've never found her particularly weird or quirky, to be fair. And she's not in politics)
These official fuel station numbers must be rubbish. I can give anecdotes about only 3 parliamentary constituencies but they have all either been stripped bare or have a single stocked station with tailbacks onto the road.
Still, not many people outside the countryside have jerry cans. So once people’s cars are full that will be that. I suspect discretionary journeys will be down too.
That says nothing about abandonment. You explicitly said he abandoned his children. I'd have thought you would actually have evidence before making such a claim.
He has walked out on 2 previous families, as well as this affair. That is abandonment in my view. The children were not adults.
Didn’t Marina/Boris wait until the youngest was 18 before separating? So technically an adult.
Whatever works for a particular family I suppose, but I've always found the idea of a couple who have made the decision to separate waiting until the kids are out of the house to be an odd one. Kids aren't stupid, and if it is a pretty bitter separation that is incoming I'm not convinced it helps them to have the parents keep up an unconvincing masquerade for potentially years.
Breaking on topic: Isle of Wight petrol stations close amid panic buying crisis
Don't worry I read on here, post after post from fanbois, last night that filling stations would all be restocked in next to no time. A finite number of vehicles, drivers and driver's hours are not a problem it would seem.
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
Reports suggest only 200 of the 8,000 stations in the UK ran out of petrol yesterday, despite the biggest run on it in decades.
Well my 24 year old autistic son didn't panic buy and now needs petrol. I'll tell him 7800 stations have fuel, so not to worry.
I was at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday.
Asda filling station at the stadium was closed, as was Tesco Culverhouse Cross and the Esso station on the A48 at Cowbridge, so had I needed fuel ( I filled up last Sunday before I went to NI for the week) I would have been incredibly unlucky in that all three I passed were closed.
Hope he’s not in London. I think pretty much no petrol anywhere now.
None in Pontypridd where he is, so he is panicking, just not buying.
I’m old enough to remember when it was regarded as a fundamental duty of government to do whatever they could to avoid this kind of thing.
Yes, they should have put a D-notice on the media, to stop them talking up panic buying of petrol as if it were some game.
I seem to recall that during the refinery blockade of 2000, the government made special arrangements to ensure that doctors and ambulances had access to fuel. This government don’t appear to have bothered.
Miss Cyclefree, reminds me of a House episode in which a black patient wants the 'white people' drugs rather than the medication specifically designed for those with ancestry in sub-Saharan Africa (I think it was an anaemia situation, but can't be sure).
Delegates just voted to nationalise energy companies
Starmer says no
The party needs to split away from its Corbynistas
Where is todays Kinnock ?
Labour is overrun by extremists - it's beyond saving
Whats extreme about a policy the public back every time they are polled.
Natural Monopolies should be in public ownership
Yes indeed. There may be good reasons not to nationalise, but it's not generally unpopular so as far as extremism goes its not that much of a deal breaker I'd have thought.
Comments
I accept that Boris is an unrepentant womanizer, I’ve met enough to recognise that. I’ve also seen the damage it can do, quite often, and I’ve seen it up-close. But philanderers can also be excellent at their job: journalist, grave-digger, politician, sculptor, footballer
I don’t especially care if Boris sleeps around, for me it is irrelevant to the task. I’d say the same of an eerily celibate prime minister like Ted Heath. Tho my guess is more of the former make it to the top - the excess testosterone that makes them libidinous also makes them super-ambitious and competitive
As a church-going Christian I imagine you see it differently
It’s your site, your rules, ultimately but so long as we stay within the law and common decency I don’t see why discussion should be prevented.
Tho I guess dissenting working class northern transsexuals called ‘truscum’ see it as amicable banter
‘Interesting feature 👇
Forget Oxbridge. For today’s gilded youth, Ivy League is the goal — and parents will spend a fortune to get them there’
https://twitter.com/matthewsyed/status/1442114498651955200?s=21
Sank without trace as a cabinet minister an as a leadership candidate. Reinvented himself as mayor of Manchester… very ho hum until he got into a scrap over COVID compensation - IIRC Manchester didn’t end up getting anything more than anyone else but Burnham got a few good headlines
There is plenty of fuel in the depots and anyway you can see Fawley across the Solent from the Isle of Wight, so no worries there! Osmosis should do the trick.
‘You’ll never guess which country is featured in the top 20 issues that will be part of Labour conference debate.’
‘What do Local Government Cuts, Mental Health, Right to Food, Crime, Armed Forces, Digital Divide, HGV Rules, Sure Start, Tax, Business Recovery, Disability Rights, Drug Reform, Women’s Health, have in common? They are all less important to Labour CLPs than Israel/Palestine.’
‘Despite having locked up over a million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, state-sanctioned rape and sterilisation, torture, mosque destruction, organ harvesting, threats to Taiwan, HK and Tibetan democracy activists disappeared, Wuhan cover up, China only got 14,000 votes.’
https://twitter.com/matzoballing/status/1441823127902855173?s=21
Back when Gordon Brown was PM they just managed to head off an attempt by Oxford to launch "Private College" - a huge expansion of private places, at full international fees rates. The reckoned they could easily keep the quality by buying in the best talent - offer £500K plus tenure to the top academics in each subject around the world - and set the entrance qualifications as high as they wanted. Plenty of tiger-mom'd children of millionaires....
Does the same apply to most of the stuff you comment on then? I suppose it does.
Hilarious if true.
They are stupid comments tactically and politically but the reaction to them is typically hypocritical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Wallace,_Baron_Wallace_of_Tankerness
Who .. er .. sits in the House of Lords.
Perhaps Scotlandshire is catching up, after all.
I have never inquired into just how it runs.
But there are loadsa freeloaders.
On (b), this is not correct as far as murder is concerned. For transwomen, the number killed per year is 1. And there have been some years where none have been killed. An average of 188 women are killed every year. According to ONS statistics, transwomen are at less risk of being killed than women.
I do not know what the figure is for transmen. Nor is it clear from the ONS statistics how this is broken down between those who have a gender recognition certificate (and have fully transitioned) and those who do not have such a certificate and merely say they are trans. I also do not have to hand the figures for crimes of violence which are not murder.
It goes without saying that transpeople, whatever their transitioning status, should not be attacked at all for being trans. But accuracy in facts is also important.
If you can answer it, I’ve learned something, either about you or this whole argument, or both
If you can’t or refuse to answer, then that is similarly educational
I'd been raised in the whole "live and let live, leave other people's private lives alone" tradition and naively thought that , surely, given the horrible abuse heaped on the gay community, that they would be tolerant of others.
But no. The strangest bit was the much of the abuse sounded like Ian Paisley on the subject of gay people...
All he needs to be is less crap than the rest in labour and on that score he’s pretty high.
Perhaps you could post that to demonstrate she really believes what she is saying rather than just seeking political advantage from a stupid comment by a non-entity?
You might become slightly less bored by the topic when a teacher turns up at the school your daughter goes to and it turns out that they are a man who has legally become a woman in Scotland (if Sturgeon's GRA changes go through) after three months without any medical diagnosis of dysphoria and without having transitioned in any way and that such a teacher can access the loos and changing rooms your daughter uses.
I can't complain. Bad pit stop caused it to fail, but two of them last time got me a flukey decent odds win...
I was at Cardiff City Stadium yesterday.
Asda filling station at the stadium was closed, as was Tesco Culverhouse Cross and the Esso station on the A48 at Cowbridge, so had I needed fuel ( I filled up last Sunday before I went to NI for the week) I would have been incredibly unlucky in that all three I passed were closed.
The phrase "only women have a cervix" infers that men can't have a cervix - since only women can. Thus no man has a cervix. Thus if you have a cervix you're not a man. So if you meet a transman (as defined above) and say to him "only women have a crevix" you're saying he is NOT a man, when the law says he is and he says he is. Not that you'd do this - I know you're a 'live and let live' modern metro type like me - but just to illustrate the point that people keep saying they're confused by.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2021/09/russia-post-race-analysis-2021.html
One thing that does bug me is Starmer’s insistence (restated again today) that trans people are ‘the most marginalized of communities’ Is there anything to back this up? If there is, does it explain the modern Left’s obsession with trans rights - ie in their pursuit of intersectional privilege, or lack of, are trans people the intersect which meets maximum bigotry and hatred?
I have my doubts there are enough trans people to make the data reliable, but who knows
https://twitter.com/youngvulgarian/status/1442088250139725825?s=20
Are you also with Shaw in insisting Hitler and Mussolini should be judged by results, in thinking that freedom was a worthless political value, and in wanting to sterilise or exxterminate the socially unfit?
Relatedly, I watched American Psycho for the first time last night. Brilliant. How long ago all that seems now, and what an aching irony that when he leaves the restaurant after breaking up with his fiancee there's a gorgeous shot of the twin towers. The film came out in 2000.
It might not be a sensible think to do now in UK with the debt burden we have already but that's a different argument.
The Labour Party is full of weirdos who don't live in the real world. The Lib Dems are the same.
All parties are full of weirdos who don't live in the real world!
We're weirdos for being as engaged in politics as we are and many (most?) of us are not even party members.
P S. Wasn't the original panic over...wait for it...reports on a shortage of tanker drivers.
If forced to guess, I’d genuinely have said ‘transmen’ are men in the process of transitioning to being female - ie pre-op, unsure biological males, considering the move
Presuming you are up-to-speed and correct, it turns out I’m entirely wrong. Transmen are born-biological women who have transitioned, either physically or in their heads, to being male
It is still a crazy argument and inflated out of proportion and it definitely has the potential to self destruct the Left. Good. It’s just a shame a lot of ‘progressive’ women will be made politically homeless as a result, and some might get actually hurt
It's largely our fault that the options come back so unappealing.
PS - you'd have to do a lot better than that to offend me personally. No offence taken.
Rowena Mason
@rowenamason
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57m
Big disruption at Jeremy Corbyn event from his own brother Piers Corbyn who is shouting at the stage after a man took exception the chair asking for questions from women and people of colour
You also ignore the concerns which some gay people have over this issue. If gender rather than sex becomes the only relevant category, what does that mean for sex-based attraction? Sexuality is based on sex not on gender. I may declare myself a man this afternoon. But a gay man is not thereby going to become physically attracted to me what with me having a body with breasts and a vagina. And it would be absurd for me to accuse him of being transphobic because he says so. And yet precisely this accusation is being levelled at lesbians who say that they do not want to have sex with men with penises, whatever they call themselves.
Should we not be a bit concerned about Public Health England now collecting data on gender only rather than sex (apparently) in relation to AIDS and HIV in gay men? Does this not risk adversely affecting medical treatment and statistics and knowledge? Biological sex matters in medicine. Refusing to collect data about it is both daft and potentially dangerous.
Natural Monopolies should be in public ownership
Not that I would support a new Cold War anyway. The response to China needs to be economic and diplomatic, not military.
In any event nationalising energy companies isn't going to solve any of the current pressing issues facing the public.
Being a weirdo has, I guess, more negative connotations than being weird.
(I've never found her particularly weird or quirky, to be fair. And she's not in politics)
Still, not many people outside the countryside have jerry cans. So once people’s cars are full that will be that. I suspect discretionary journeys will be down too.