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One Current Leader. And One Future One? – politicalbetting.com

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  • isam said:

    Given how it is dominating every thread on here, is it feasible that Sir Keir is going to ignore the trans issue at Labour's conference and it will go away?

    It will be a trans-itional arrangement.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    Labour for a Green New Deal
    @LabGND
    Police cars revolving light BREAKING NEWS Police cars revolving light

    Decision overturned by CAC after an appeal White heavy check mark

    Our Green Jobs Revolution motion is going to Labour Conference Rose
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited September 2021
    Was it Mahatma Gandhi who said, referring to language, that "Nobody can hurt me without my permission"? That's what we should be teaching people IMO.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    theProle said:

    theProle said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Just in: Supreme Court will hear direct challenge to Roe v. Wade in Mississippi case on December 1.
    https://twitter.com/Arianedevogue/status/1439983473473855496

    Wow Biden needs to flood SC if that goes the wrong way
    He'd be mad if he does that over this.
    That would be starting an arms race which might well write their (already messy) democracy off.

    Whichever side of the debate you are on, RvW was a terrible mistake - it was a clear act of setting policy by judicial activism, against the democratic will of significant chunk of the electorate. The subsequent result is it's so politicised the court that we are in the position today where lots of people vote for terrible presidential candidates purely based on who they can get on the SC.

    What should have happened is that abortion should have been left to legislators in the states to sort out, based on their promises to electors. It would mean that the rules varied from state to state (in California, it would probably be allowed up to 3 weeks after birth, whilst in Texas, merely saying the word might get you a month in jail). That would have been democratic, and taken the heat out of the situation.

    The best thing that could happen now is that RvW gets struck down by the SC, and the Democrats prove wise enough to leave the situation alone, other than legislating as they see fit in Democrat held states. If they did that, it might actually take some of the heat out of the situation, instead of adding more in.
    It won't be the start of the arms race. The arms race already started and the GOP shenanigans over SCOTUS Justices has opened the door to this.

    Why should control over a woman's own body be democratically decided? As opposed to being a private matter for the woman whose body it is?
    Because in a democracy ultimately either everything is democratic or nothing is. Trying to set the fashionable morals of the day in stone always ends in tears eventually (this is currently playing out in the USA with the destruction of the SC, because it tried to do just this with RvW 50 years ago).
    The importance of RvW has tended to grow over time. Back when it was passed (7-2, I believe), it was not considered particularly controversial. It was only really in the 1980s, when Reagan used it to mobilise the Southern Baptists that it came to the fore.

    And, by the way, the Republican leadership are not idiots. We've had a number of Republican Senators stating that they expect (hope) the Texas law will be struck down by the Supreme Court.

    (Which, by the way, it should be. Not because it overturns RvW, but because it would allow any State to ban the right to bear arms. Bear in mind the SC refused to strike it down, not because of abortion or RvW, but because they said that it's formulation was such that it had no ability to do so.)
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Farooq said:

    I've carefully read the header (which is articulate and persuasive) and the response by Glom (which is articulate and persuasive) and now I'm really fucking depressed.

    I'm going to drink some wine, which I never do on a Monday.

    Monday is whisky day, right?
  • GlomGlom Posts: 13
    Farooq said:

    I've carefully read the header (which is articulate and persuasive) and the response by Glom (which is articulate and persuasive) and now I'm really fucking depressed.

    I'm going to drink some wine, which I never do on a Monday.

    It's not even that I'm in opposition to the article completely. Starmer is weak if he isn't calling out harassment and intimidation. I'm questioning why that point needed to be loaded with insensitivity.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    rcs1000 said:

    Farooq said:

    I've carefully read the header (which is articulate and persuasive) and the response by Glom (which is articulate and persuasive) and now I'm really fucking depressed.

    I'm going to drink some wine, which I never do on a Monday.

    Monday is whisky day, right?
    fuck it, yes
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Yes, but that's not the same as "banning ordinary Labour members from voting", is it?
  • GlomGlom Posts: 13
    Andy_JS said:

    Glom said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    That ignores the fact that these slurs are levied at fully transitioned trans-women as well. Repeating them without clarification shows an insensitivity for the struggle even those who completed the transition, let alone those in the middle (transition is not done on an out-patient basis). That insensitivity to a marginalised group can only be interpreted as hostility.

    The entire basis of PC is that words and phrases have accrued connotations, and we all need to be careful that we don't imply things we don't mean through careless use of them.
    That's why I don't believe in PC.
    But they have 3 MPs.

    Or I could have gone with: Mac guy, eh?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited September 2021
    I must say this piece is unusually punchy for a BBC article, reminds me of when they had an article referring to 'Gaffe prone Joe Biden'.

    The French must see there is no point in wailing about having been shoddily treated. They were.

    But who ever heard of a nation short-changing its defence priorities out of not wanting to give offence? The fact is that the Australians calculated they had underestimated the Chinese threat and so needed to boost their level of deterrence.

    They acted with steely disregard for French concerns but, when it comes to the crunch, that is what nations do. It is almost the definition of a nation: a group of people who have come together to defend their own interests

    But the second painful truth exposed by the Aukus affair is that the US no longer has any great interest in the outdated behemoth that is Nato. Nor does it harbour any particular loyalty to those who have stood by its side...

    But the UK's is Europe's only other serious army. The two countries have similar histories and world experiences. Their soldiers respect each other. In the long term, Franco-British defence co-operation is too logical to ignore. That may be the last of Macron's painful truths.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58614229
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    ·
    59m
    Under the Electoral College, the power of ordinary members to choose the leader would be crushed.

    Members would be banned from voting as individuals, with local CLPs as a whole contributing around 30% of the vote - whilst MPs and Unions held the vast bulk of democratic power.

  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    Why would that be true? Why can't they have made an appalling mistake? That's what Bell in Bell vs Tavistock says happened to them. So do you think they WERE a woman for a bit and then stopped being, or what?
    Yes. Gender can be fluid.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    I disagree, there's a process to follow for transitioning.

    Simply saying "I have transitioned" and then expecting an immediate violation of safeguarding etc on the basis of that doesn't make it so.
    Doesn't your strong liberalism commit you to allowing that someone can be the gender they want to be as long as they are not causing harm to others?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Stocky said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    Why would that be true? Why can't they have made an appalling mistake? That's what Bell in Bell vs Tavistock says happened to them. So do you think they WERE a woman for a bit and then stopped being, or what?
    Yes. Gender can be fluid.
    But that's not what Bell is saying, that s/he flowed one way one year and the other way the next, but that s/he made a catastrophic error. You do seem to know people better than they know themselves.

    Academic studies of people who thought they were trans and realised they weren't, are about as easy to get funding/approval for as studies into how quickly the earth is cooling. That probably tells us something about something.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    edited September 2021
    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Sean_F said:

    On the header, I think Starmer is determined not to get publicly involved in the sensitivities of the 'trans' debate(s). He knows that as soon as he comments, media coverage will focus for days, if not longer, on what he's said, and will open toxic wounds. He wants the focus to be on the 'big' issues, not peripheral (even if important) concerns. So he's avoiding the debate, just as he's avoiding re-opening Brexit wounds. It's probably good politics. I would hope that he reaches out to Rosie Duffield privately. I suspect he's broadly in support of those advocating pro-Trans + safe spaces for women, as is the current situation.

    MPs who receive threats deserve very public support, not private words of support.
    Mmm. Like whenever I mention the truly shocking level of sustained abuse that (say) Diane Abbot received for years and everyone says well, you know, public eye, and anyway it's cos she's a bit thick and can't do numbers, so what can you expect.

    But Rosie Duffield gets a bit of online stick and - ooo - it's front page of the Sunday Times, and all over the Murdoch press, and it's the most TERRIBLE thing ever, and it just shows how HORRIBLE and IRRATIONAL all these weirdo lefty trans people are, how they
    Cyclefree said:

    In response to @kinabalu - "I'd start with this question: What should the balance be between self-ID and medical certification in the process for changing gender?

    Then based on the answer to this proceed to 2 more:

    - What medical and other resource is required to make the process humane and efficient?
    - On what grounds should female only activities and spaces be able to exclude transwomen?"

    I think this structure can generate a good debate and a good policy for any political party."

    This is a not bad approach. And my answer to the first question is this.

    - There is nothing to stop any man calling himself a female name or dressing in women's clothes. There is absolutely no reason for the law to get involved at all.
    - If gender dysphoria is a medical condition, then before someone can claim to suffer from it, there must be a medical diagnosis. We do not permit people to declare themselves suffering any other sort of medical condition without diagnosis. Why should this be an exception?
    - If transition is the answer to for an individual with this condition - and note that it is often not the answer, especially for children - then once transition has happened, a gender recognition certificate can be given.
    - The medical and other resources available to those suffering from this condition are very poor. The waiting times are very long indeed. This does cause suffering to people needing help. THIS is where the focus should be - on increasing the resources and reducing waiting times and providing support and help in the interim. It is notable that this is not what the trans activists are campaigning about.
    - It is not for women to justify why they need female-only spaces. This should be the default assumption. The burden should be the other way around. Are there any circumstances when people born male should be given access to female-only spaces and female-only sports. And my answer is only for those who have fully transitioned (and not even for those in the case of sport, because of the irreversible effects of puberty in a male).
    - So women have to right to loos, refuges, changing rooms, sport, single sex wards, intimate care being provided by a woman, rape counselling by a woman, female only prisons etc. If they wish to allow a man in, that is their choice not that of the man. In no circumstances should a man or transwoman guilty of offences against women, girls and children be allowed into a female-only space.

    Cheers thanks. I'd argue for the default the other way. Inclusion unless there's a good reason otherwise. I'm not sure about self-ID but whatever you do, self-ID is at the heart of it since only the person truly knows how they feel. It's in place in several countries without serious problems, I believe. We aren't cutting edge radical on this, not at all.

    Great header anyway. I might try and see if I can write one putting the alternative (and less popular on here!) view.

    Couple of things I'd like to ask you now if you have the time and inclination:

    Do you know any transpeople?

    Harking back to Mrs May's proposed GRA reforms, can you remember if you were passionately opposed to them at the time, or is this an issue you've plunged a lot more into in the last year or so?

    Re the real practical harm to women if transwomen can self-ID and share their facilities/spaces. If - IF - you could be convinced that it'd be immeasurably less than the harm caused to transwomen if they can't, would this influence your view at all?

    I ask this because I detect a strong theological strand to some of the GC feminist argument inc yours, ie that maybe it's not, deep down and fundamentally, about being massively scared about perverts pretending to be women in order to access and harm them, but more a profound objection to womanhood being divorced from biology, a feeling that the whole notion of being a woman is being in some way dissed if those born male can legally become one without going through a heavy mental and physical medical process - Would that, if you're honest, be what actually fires you up about this matter?
    "Weirdo lefty trans people" ffs, you can't steal a whole demographic like that. Or perhaps you can: there are genuinely trans people whose situation in no way maps on to their political leanings - why on earth should it? - and lefties on their usual quest for something to be wankers about, who have arbitrarily settled on gender dysphoria because antisemitism is sooo last decade.

    And why does this subject so reliably throw up outrageous whataboutery from people who should know better? The reason we are talking about Rosie Duffield, is that Rosie Duffield is what we are talking about. You go on about Diane Abbot, but I note you haven't uttered a squeak about Alfred Dreyfus all evening. What about him, hey?
    My post went off half cock, hadn't finished it, computer issues, but I was caricaturing what I'm seeing in places, how transpeople are being demonized as far left fanatics and morally dangerous and perverted. You're right that they aren't. Also right that Duffield abuse isn't mitigated by Abbott abuse. Whataboutery? I don't think so because what I'm suggesting is that Duffield is getting amped by media outlets and people with a strong and specific agenda.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Yes, but that's not the same as "banning ordinary Labour members from voting", is it?
    They can vote at a CLP meeting but then that only counts for 1/650 th of the CLP one third vote.

    So could end up with 250k members voting for candidate A and150K voting for Candidate B but if a maj of CLPs have a Candidate B victory Candidate B gets more than half of the CLP third

    I think
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Glom said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Glom said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    That ignores the fact that these slurs are levied at fully transitioned trans-women as well. Repeating them without clarification shows an insensitivity for the struggle even those who completed the transition, let alone those in the middle (transition is not done on an out-patient basis). That insensitivity to a marginalised group can only be interpreted as hostility.

    The entire basis of PC is that words and phrases have accrued connotations, and we all need to be careful that we don't imply things we don't mean through careless use of them.
    That's why I don't believe in PC.
    But they have 3 MPs.

    Or I could have gone with: Mac guy, eh?
    I was thinking of parish councils myself. A bit of a mess ever since creation, but still harsh.
  • Stocky said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    Why would that be true? Why can't they have made an appalling mistake? That's what Bell in Bell vs Tavistock says happened to them. So do you think they WERE a woman for a bit and then stopped being, or what?
    Yes. Gender can be fluid.
    Decorum, please!
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Yes, but that's not the same as "banning ordinary Labour members from voting", is it?
    They can vote at a CLP meeting but then that only counts for 1/650 th of the CLP one third vote.

    So could end up with 250k members voting for candidate A and150K voting for Candidate B but if a maj of CLPs have a Candidate B victory Candidate B gets more than half of the CLP third

    I think
    Like I said, not banning.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    BigRich said:

    On topic:

    As somebody who was cheerleading in my own small way for Lis Truss, on FB and here 2 years ago in the tory leadership election that Boris would eventually win, I'm pleased to see she is progressing and is now that is being recognised by a wider audience, :smile: but I don't think its enough to entice me back in to the party. perhaps if Boris announces his departure date in advances so i could re-join and vote, but that's not how things have normally worked.

    She has long been most popular in the freedom loving wing of the party, and perhaps that's the same people who like me have left of the lockdowns and authoritarian policy's of the government. I suspect there are not enough people like me to make a defiance in any leaderships election.

    A few years ago Truss was the flag bearer of the comical neoliberal wing of the conservative party - more deregulation, less taxes, etc. Boris has completely buried this way of thinking and reinvented the Conservative party and in doing so shifted its political base to the north of England where Thatcherism is still largely detested. Truss has worked hard and kept her head down, and had what seems like some good luck in the department for international trade. But she needs a new set of ideas if she wants the top job.
  • Andy_JS said:

    Was it Mahatma Gandhi who said, referring to language, that "Nobody can hurt me without my permission"? That's what we should be teaching people IMO.

    It was indeed.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    Why would that be true? Why can't they have made an appalling mistake? That's what Bell in Bell vs Tavistock says happened to them. So do you think they WERE a woman for a bit and then stopped being, or what?
    Yes. Gender can be fluid.
    But that's not what Bell is saying, that s/he flowed one way one year and the other way the next, but that s/he made a catastrophic error. You do seem to know people better than they know themselves.

    Academic studies of people who thought they were trans and realised they weren't, are about as easy to get funding/approval for as studies into how quickly the earth is cooling. That probably tells us something about something.
    There is a fair bit of evidence that youngsters who think they are in the wrong body in their teenage years have a much higher proportion to then be gay (or rather, come out as gay) as they get older.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    isam said:

    MattW said:

    malcolmg said:

    isam said:

    Our gas bill on leaving our old house is £1250! When I told the girl at eon, she said if no one from eon read the meter for a year we can complain and maybe not pay. They didn’t, so we could be in luck. Is this right?

    My gf swears she sent them the readings but every bill is an estimate, though the electrics a reading in June

    Think you will find you are on to plums. Keep the money handy , they are likely to get you and by that time will have added all the debt collector / bailliff charges if they do not have your new address.
    @isam

    It usually revolves around estimated readings and actual readings.

    If you have an actual reading on a date, ideally but not necessarily with a dated photo, they will cave.

    Just had £250 removed from my bill when they had overestimated consumption.

    Looking at our bill from Aug-Oct 2020, they estimated our use of Gas at £9.09, and £139.34 for the next 12 months, so something was up, I guess we underpaid
    If it is a rental you left which is still empty, then a reading taken now would still be far less than a massive overestimate, so you could potentially go back for you reading.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    darkage said:

    BigRich said:

    On topic:

    As somebody who was cheerleading in my own small way for Lis Truss, on FB and here 2 years ago in the tory leadership election that Boris would eventually win, I'm pleased to see she is progressing and is now that is being recognised by a wider audience, :smile: but I don't think its enough to entice me back in to the party. perhaps if Boris announces his departure date in advances so i could re-join and vote, but that's not how things have normally worked.

    She has long been most popular in the freedom loving wing of the party, and perhaps that's the same people who like me have left of the lockdowns and authoritarian policy's of the government. I suspect there are not enough people like me to make a defiance in any leaderships election.

    A few years ago Truss was the flag bearer of the comical neoliberal wing of the conservative party - more deregulation, less taxes, etc. Boris has completely buried this way of thinking and reinvented the Conservative party and in doing so shifted its political base to the north of England where Thatcherism is still largely detested. Truss has worked hard and kept her head down, and had what seems like some good luck in the department for international trade. But she needs a new set of ideas if she wants the top job.
    Not according to the ConHome surveys. The question is whether she can garner enough support on the MP side. I suspect that quite a few Tory MPs are not too keen on the PR-savvy Sunak. Who will they turn to when the time comes?

    I agree with @HYUFD - hard to see past Sunak and Truss at the moment. Top outsider if Johnson goes on long term: Kemi Badenoch.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    kle4 said:

    I must say this piece is unusually punchy for a BBC article, reminds me of when they had an article referring to 'Gaffe prone Joe Biden'.

    The French must see there is no point in wailing about having been shoddily treated. They were.

    But who ever heard of a nation short-changing its defence priorities out of not wanting to give offence? The fact is that the Australians calculated they had underestimated the Chinese threat and so needed to boost their level of deterrence.

    They acted with steely disregard for French concerns but, when it comes to the crunch, that is what nations do. It is almost the definition of a nation: a group of people who have come together to defend their own interests

    But the second painful truth exposed by the Aukus affair is that the US no longer has any great interest in the outdated behemoth that is Nato. Nor does it harbour any particular loyalty to those who have stood by its side...

    But the UK's is Europe's only other serious army. The two countries have similar histories and world experiences. Their soldiers respect each other. In the long term, Franco-British defence co-operation is too logical to ignore. That may be the last of Macron's painful truths.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58614229

    Even harsher:

    “When it came to the crunch, the Australians preferred to be closer to a superpower, not a mini power”
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Yes, but that's not the same as "banning ordinary Labour members from voting", is it?
    They can vote at a CLP meeting but then that only counts for 1/650 th of the CLP one third vote.

    So could end up with 250k members voting for candidate A and150K voting for Candidate B but if a maj of CLPs have a Candidate B victory Candidate B gets more than half of the CLP third

    I think
    Like I said, not banning.
    But not Democratic either

    CLP 1 - A gets 51 MEMBER VOTES B 49 MEMBER VOTES
    CLP 2 - 51/49
    CLP3 - 5/ 552
    Total 107 members voted for A 600 for B

    New system allocates two thiirds of votes to A

    Any system that decide Candidate A wins the CLP vote in a Scenario like that is undemocratic
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Yes, but that's not the same as "banning ordinary Labour members from voting", is it?
    They can vote at a CLP meeting but then that only counts for 1/650 th of the CLP one third vote.

    So could end up with 250k members voting for candidate A and150K voting for Candidate B but if a maj of CLPs have a Candidate B victory Candidate B gets more than half of the CLP third

    I think
    Like I said, not banning.
    But not Democratic either

    CLP 1 - A gets 51 MEMBER VOTES B 49 MEMBER VOTES
    CLP 2 - 51/49
    CLP3 - 5/ 552
    Total 107 members voted for A 600 for B

    New system allocates two thiirds of votes to A

    Any system that decide Candidate A wins the CLP vote in a Scenario like that is undemocratic
    No, but that wasn't the claim, which was that members would be banned from voting.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    Stocky said:

    darkage said:

    BigRich said:

    On topic:

    As somebody who was cheerleading in my own small way for Lis Truss, on FB and here 2 years ago in the tory leadership election that Boris would eventually win, I'm pleased to see she is progressing and is now that is being recognised by a wider audience, :smile: but I don't think its enough to entice me back in to the party. perhaps if Boris announces his departure date in advances so i could re-join and vote, but that's not how things have normally worked.

    She has long been most popular in the freedom loving wing of the party, and perhaps that's the same people who like me have left of the lockdowns and authoritarian policy's of the government. I suspect there are not enough people like me to make a defiance in any leaderships election.

    A few years ago Truss was the flag bearer of the comical neoliberal wing of the conservative party - more deregulation, less taxes, etc. Boris has completely buried this way of thinking and reinvented the Conservative party and in doing so shifted its political base to the north of England where Thatcherism is still largely detested. Truss has worked hard and kept her head down, and had what seems like some good luck in the department for international trade. But she needs a new set of ideas if she wants the top job.
    Not according to the ConHome surveys. The question is whether she can garner enough support on the MP side. I suspect that quite a few Tory MPs are not too keen on the PR-savvy Sunak. Who will they turn to when the time comes?

    I agree with @HYUFD - hard to see past Sunak and Truss at the moment. Top outsider if Johnson goes on long term: Kemi Badenoch.
    I don’t see any of those. Again, there are a large block of Tory MPs in Red Wall seats who realise Johnson got them their seats and looking for someone to carry them through. The problem is there no one in the Cabinet right now who has the same appeal to those voters. Truss is not that person.

    In fact, if she didn’t have historical baggage to fill a Jumbo Jet and was regarded as bonkers by many, Nadine Dorries would be. Good outside bet as she ticks a lot of boxes (pro-Brexit, right-wing, working class, ‘straight talking’)
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    MrEd said:

    Stocky said:

    darkage said:

    BigRich said:

    On topic:

    As somebody who was cheerleading in my own small way for Lis Truss, on FB and here 2 years ago in the tory leadership election that Boris would eventually win, I'm pleased to see she is progressing and is now that is being recognised by a wider audience, :smile: but I don't think its enough to entice me back in to the party. perhaps if Boris announces his departure date in advances so i could re-join and vote, but that's not how things have normally worked.

    She has long been most popular in the freedom loving wing of the party, and perhaps that's the same people who like me have left of the lockdowns and authoritarian policy's of the government. I suspect there are not enough people like me to make a defiance in any leaderships election.

    A few years ago Truss was the flag bearer of the comical neoliberal wing of the conservative party - more deregulation, less taxes, etc. Boris has completely buried this way of thinking and reinvented the Conservative party and in doing so shifted its political base to the north of England where Thatcherism is still largely detested. Truss has worked hard and kept her head down, and had what seems like some good luck in the department for international trade. But she needs a new set of ideas if she wants the top job.
    Not according to the ConHome surveys. The question is whether she can garner enough support on the MP side. I suspect that quite a few Tory MPs are not too keen on the PR-savvy Sunak. Who will they turn to when the time comes?

    I agree with @HYUFD - hard to see past Sunak and Truss at the moment. Top outsider if Johnson goes on long term: Kemi Badenoch.
    I don’t see any of those. Again, there are a large block of Tory MPs in Red Wall seats who realise Johnson got them their seats and looking for someone to carry them through. The problem is there no one in the Cabinet right now who has the same appeal to those voters. Truss is not that person.

    In fact, if she didn’t have historical baggage to fill a Jumbo Jet and was regarded as bonkers by many, Nadine Dorries would be. Good outside bet as she ticks a lot of boxes (pro-Brexit, right-wing, working class, ‘straight talking’)
    Jesus, my editing is piss poor. Anyway, you get the drift
  • GlomGlom Posts: 13
    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    Why would that be true? Why can't they have made an appalling mistake? That's what Bell in Bell vs Tavistock says happened to them. So do you think they WERE a woman for a bit and then stopped being, or what?
    Yes. Gender can be fluid.
    But that's not what Bell is saying, that s/he flowed one way one year and the other way the next, but that s/he made a catastrophic error. You do seem to know people better than they know themselves.

    Academic studies of people who thought they were trans and realised they weren't, are about as easy to get funding/approval for as studies into how quickly the earth is cooling. That probably tells us something about something.
    YouTuber Jammidodger cited studies showing it was about 11% of people who transitioned would then go on to detransition. That's not dissimilar to overall proportion of LGBT within the population. So not insignificant, but certainly doesn't invalidate those who go on to live much happier lives in their new identity.
  • MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    theProle said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Just in: Supreme Court will hear direct challenge to Roe v. Wade in Mississippi case on December 1.
    https://twitter.com/Arianedevogue/status/1439983473473855496

    Wow Biden needs to flood SC if that goes the wrong way
    He'd be mad if he does that over this.
    That would be starting an arms race which might well write their (already messy) democracy off.

    Whichever side of the debate you are on, RvW was a terrible mistake - it was a clear act of setting policy by judicial activism, against the democratic will of significant chunk of the electorate. The subsequent result is it's so politicised the court that we are in the position today where lots of people vote for terrible presidential candidates purely based on who they can get on the SC.

    What should have happened is that abortion should have been left to legislators in the states to sort out, based on their promises to electors. It would mean that the rules varied from state to state (in California, it would probably be allowed up to 3 weeks after birth, whilst in Texas, merely saying the word might get you a month in jail). That would have been democratic, and taken the heat out of the situation.

    The best thing that could happen now is that RvW gets struck down by the SC, and the Democrats prove wise enough to leave the situation alone, other than legislating as they see fit in Democrat held states. If they did that, it might actually take some of the heat out of the situation, instead of adding more in.
    It won't be the start of the arms race. The arms race already started and the GOP shenanigans over SCOTUS Justices has opened the door to this.

    Why should control over a woman's own body be democratically decided? As opposed to being a private matter for the woman whose body it is?
    The arms race was started at the end of the 18th century. There is nothing new in these arguments about nominations and political balance of the SCOTUS.
    Agreed.

    So the Democrats should continue to fight the arms race while they have the chance.

    The GOP haven't and won't give up their chances to do so. Which is why they currently have a 6-3 majority.
    And the GOP will do the same when they get in. Which they will. Unless you want to change the system to ensure they ever don’t get in at all.

    If the Democrats had had the same opportunity and ability as the GOP, they would have done exactly the same and pushed their own candidates onto the court. So don’t try making out this is “one side good, one side bad”. Both parties operate in exactly the same way.

    And if you want to blame someone, blame Ginsburg for not stepping down when she could have done.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    So, when you say One Man, One Vote, do you have to biologically be a man, or is self identification ok?
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited September 2021
    Glom said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    Why would that be true? Why can't they have made an appalling mistake? That's what Bell in Bell vs Tavistock says happened to them. So do you think they WERE a woman for a bit and then stopped being, or what?
    Yes. Gender can be fluid.
    But that's not what Bell is saying, that s/he flowed one way one year and the other way the next, but that s/he made a catastrophic error. You do seem to know people better than they know themselves.

    Academic studies of people who thought they were trans and realised they weren't, are about as easy to get funding/approval for as studies into how quickly the earth is cooling. That probably tells us something about something.
    YouTuber Jammidodger cited studies showing it was about 11% of people who transitioned would then go on to detransition. That's not dissimilar to overall proportion of LGBT within the population. So not insignificant, but certainly doesn't invalidate those who go on to live much happier lives in their new identity.
    Welcome, Glom.

    Thanks for the detransition stat. I haven't seen estimates of that, beyond "a lot". On the other...

    The numbers from the ONS were 2% identifying as LGB in 2017, not 10% or 11%, with the highest percentage of 4.2% amongst the 16-24 age group.

    As we know, T is a rounding error statistically.

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/sexuality/bulletins/sexualidentityuk/2017

    .Main points

    The proportion of the UK population aged 16 years and over identifying as heterosexual or straight has decreased from 94.4% in 2012 to 93.2% in 2017.

    Over the last five years, the proportion of the UK population identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual (LGB) has increased from 1.5% in 2012 to 2.0% in 2017, although the latest figure is unchanged from 2016.

    In 2017, there were an estimated 1.1 million people aged 16 years and over identifying as LGB out of a UK population aged 16 years and over of 52.8 million.

    Males (2.3%) were more likely to identify as LGB than females (1.8%) in 2017.

    People aged 16 to 24 years were most likely to identify as LGB in 2017 (4.2%).

    Regionally, people in London were most likely to identify as LGB (2.6%), with people in the North East and East of England the least likely (both 1.5%).

    69.4% of people who identified themselves as LGB had a marital status of single (never married or in a civil partnership).
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    So, when you say One Man, One Vote, do you have to biologically be a man, or is self identification ok?
    Ask Duffield!!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    Why would that be true? Why can't they have made an appalling mistake? That's what Bell in Bell vs Tavistock says happened to them. So do you think they WERE a woman for a bit and then stopped being, or what?
    Yes. Gender can be fluid.
    But that's not what Bell is saying, that s/he flowed one way one year and the other way the next, but that s/he made a catastrophic error. You do seem to know people better than they know themselves.

    Academic studies of people who thought they were trans and realised they weren't, are about as easy to get funding/approval for as studies into how quickly the earth is cooling. That probably tells us something about something.
    I suspect it tells us more than one thing.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Yes, but that's not the same as "banning ordinary Labour members from voting", is it?
    They can vote at a CLP meeting but then that only counts for 1/650 th of the CLP one third vote.

    So could end up with 250k members voting for candidate A and150K voting for Candidate B but if a maj of CLPs have a Candidate B victory Candidate B gets more than half of the CLP third

    I think
    Like I said, not banning.
    But not Democratic either

    CLP 1 - A gets 51 MEMBER VOTES B 49 MEMBER VOTES
    CLP 2 - 51/49
    CLP3 - 5/ 552
    Total 107 members voted for A 600 for B

    New system allocates two thiirds of votes to A

    Any system that decide Candidate A wins the CLP vote in a Scenario like that is undemocratic
    No, but that wasn't the claim, which was that members would be banned from voting.
    Lazy wording from Evolve I agree
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Eric Grenier's final seats prediction has Trudeau going down from 157 to 155. He called the election in order to reach 170 seats and a majority.

    https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/
  • Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    I disagree, there's a process to follow for transitioning.

    Simply saying "I have transitioned" and then expecting an immediate violation of safeguarding etc on the basis of that doesn't make it so.
    Doesn't your strong liberalism commit you to allowing that someone can be the gender they want to be as long as they are not causing harm to others?
    Absolutely 100% yes.

    But violating safeguarding is causing harm to others.

    If someone wants to identify as a man, as a woman or as a frog then I couldn't care less. Do as you please.

    If someone who is of the male sex wishes to get into women's only spaces without the women's consent that is invasive and not ok.
  • rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    So, when you say One Man, One Vote, do you have to biologically be a man, or is self identification ok?
    OMOV = One Member, One Vote.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,704
    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    So, when you say One Man, One Vote, do you have to biologically be a man, or is self identification ok?
    Its One MEMBER One Vote BTW
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    MrEd said:

    theProle said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Just in: Supreme Court will hear direct challenge to Roe v. Wade in Mississippi case on December 1.
    https://twitter.com/Arianedevogue/status/1439983473473855496

    Wow Biden needs to flood SC if that goes the wrong way
    He'd be mad if he does that over this.
    That would be starting an arms race which might well write their (already messy) democracy off.

    Whichever side of the debate you are on, RvW was a terrible mistake - it was a clear act of setting policy by judicial activism, against the democratic will of significant chunk of the electorate. The subsequent result is it's so politicised the court that we are in the position today where lots of people vote for terrible presidential candidates purely based on who they can get on the SC.

    What should have happened is that abortion should have been left to legislators in the states to sort out, based on their promises to electors. It would mean that the rules varied from state to state (in California, it would probably be allowed up to 3 weeks after birth, whilst in Texas, merely saying the word might get you a month in jail). That would have been democratic, and taken the heat out of the situation.

    The best thing that could happen now is that RvW gets struck down by the SC, and the Democrats prove wise enough to leave the situation alone, other than legislating as they see fit in Democrat held states. If they did that, it might actually take some of the heat out of the situation, instead of adding more in.
    It won't be the start of the arms race. The arms race already started and the GOP shenanigans over SCOTUS Justices has opened the door to this.

    Why should control over a woman's own body be democratically decided? As opposed to being a private matter for the woman whose body it is?
    The arms race was started at the end of the 18th century. There is nothing new in these arguments about nominations and political balance of the SCOTUS.
    Agreed.

    So the Democrats should continue to fight the arms race while they have the chance.

    The GOP haven't and won't give up their chances to do so. Which is why they currently have a 6-3 majority.
    And the GOP will do the same when they get in. Which they will. Unless you want to change the system to ensure they ever don’t get in at all.

    If the Democrats had had the same opportunity and ability as the GOP, they would have done exactly the same and pushed their own candidates onto the court. So don’t try making out this is “one side good, one side bad”. Both parties operate in exactly the same way.

    And if you want to blame someone, blame Ginsburg for not stepping down when she could have done.
    Actually, I think McConnell should have allowed a vote on Merrick Garland. It was pretty cheap to not even allow hearings.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    I think the popular anger has happened. It's just that the movers and shakers, though smaller in number are vocally larger, particularly now they are tooled-up with social media.
  • darkage said:

    BigRich said:

    On topic:

    As somebody who was cheerleading in my own small way for Lis Truss, on FB and here 2 years ago in the tory leadership election that Boris would eventually win, I'm pleased to see she is progressing and is now that is being recognised by a wider audience, :smile: but I don't think its enough to entice me back in to the party. perhaps if Boris announces his departure date in advances so i could re-join and vote, but that's not how things have normally worked.

    She has long been most popular in the freedom loving wing of the party, and perhaps that's the same people who like me have left of the lockdowns and authoritarian policy's of the government. I suspect there are not enough people like me to make a defiance in any leaderships election.

    A few years ago Truss was the flag bearer of the comical neoliberal wing of the conservative party - more deregulation, less taxes, etc. Boris has completely buried this way of thinking and reinvented the Conservative party and in doing so shifted its political base to the north of England where Thatcherism is still largely detested. Truss has worked hard and kept her head down, and had what seems like some good luck in the department for international trade. But she needs a new set of ideas if she wants the top job.
    I think there is a fundamental error in your claims. It assumes that what applies in times of major crises like wars or pandemics and their aftermath is what should apply in more normal times. No one in their right minds would claim that the rules and priorities that existed during WW2 should apply to times of peace. Nor should the politics of the pandemic inform the post pandemic world any further than is necessary to get things back on to a more stable footing. Truss does not need new ideas. What she needs is the backlash. Unfortunately for her that won't come for probably a decade by which time she will be yesterday's news. But those ideas of smaller Government and deregulation won't go away in the long term any more than the ideas of freedom were permanently crushed by the necessities of wartime controls.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    So, when you say One Man, One Vote, do you have to biologically be a man, or is self identification ok?
    Its One MEMBER One Vote BTW
    Ah, biological then.

    Thanks for clearing that up.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    darkage said:

    effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere;

    The anglosphere?

    Transgenders are far more historically, socially and culturally recognised in many other parts of the world especially the Indian sub-continent, southeast Asia and parts of the Pacific.

    The way that thug culture has weaponised this debate and lost sight of the nuances of both gender and sex is terribly terribly sad and backward. But it's of a piece with the kind of thuggery that is aimed at many others who don't fit the current anti-woke hegemony.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    After what many tories perceive as the disaster of their last female leader I don't think they will be electing another one anytime soon. That's just my view but they will keep quiet about it whilst other parties flounder.
  • On topic, excellent article by @Cyclefree

    I have been laying Rishi and Starmer as next PM for some time. I have been backing Truss.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Yes it is. Not going away though.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182
    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    I disagree, there's a process to follow for transitioning.

    Simply saying "I have transitioned" and then expecting an immediate violation of safeguarding etc on the basis of that doesn't make it so.
    Doesn't your strong liberalism commit you to allowing that someone can be the gender they want to be as long as they are not causing harm to others?
    Well up to a point. But 'woman' is a biological term, not a term of identity.
    I could, if I wanted - I don't - identify as a Manchester United fan. I could literally declare myself to BE a Manchester United fan. And it would make it so, because that is a matter of chosen identity. But I could not declare myself to be a horse. Because that is a matter of biology.
    I could declare myself to be a woman - but no amount of wishful thinking would make it so. Only complicated surgery can make it so.
    It might hurt people's feelings that this is the case, but the truth doesn't depend on how it makes people feel.
  • HeathenerHeathener Posts: 5,096
    Both gender and sex are highly nuanced, much more fluid that some try to make us believe with a myriad of complex angles and interpretations.

    But I'll leave it there. It needs a gentle, thoughtful, discussion.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    edited September 2021
    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Fear not, I am sure that the 73,768th circular shouting match about Scotland will be along shortly to drown it out.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    edited September 2021
    Heathener said:

    After what many tories perceive as the disaster of their last female leader I don't think they will be electing another one anytime soon. That's just my view but they will keep quiet about it whilst other parties flounder.

    To confuse the issue, the Tories should elect, as the next leader, a biological man who identifies as female. On Wednesdays and Fridays.

    HAH! Then he/she should demand the right to publicly chest-feed next to Jacob Rees Mogg
  • Andy_JS said:

    Eric Grenier's final seats prediction has Trudeau going down from 157 to 155. He called the election in order to reach 170 seats and a majority.

    https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

    A lot of error in that though.

    It's possible the Tories come out ahead and still clock 140 seats if they do better in the key marginals.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,727
    Precisely the point.

    Leaving the EU is not responsible for high gas prices. But not being part of the EU is responsible for taking the full brunt of high prices.

    And what must be understood is that leaving the internal energy market was a political choice. We rolled the dice.
    https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1440009150050848771
  • Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Well, quite.

    It should be about 27th on the list of our most important issues. And yet, it seems to be in the top 5 and talked about more than educating our kids or affordable housing.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    MattW said:

    isam said:

    MattW said:

    malcolmg said:

    isam said:

    Our gas bill on leaving our old house is £1250! When I told the girl at eon, she said if no one from eon read the meter for a year we can complain and maybe not pay. They didn’t, so we could be in luck. Is this right?

    My gf swears she sent them the readings but every bill is an estimate, though the electrics a reading in June

    Think you will find you are on to plums. Keep the money handy , they are likely to get you and by that time will have added all the debt collector / bailliff charges if they do not have your new address.
    @isam

    It usually revolves around estimated readings and actual readings.

    If you have an actual reading on a date, ideally but not necessarily with a dated photo, they will cave.

    Just had £250 removed from my bill when they had overestimated consumption.

    Looking at our bill from Aug-Oct 2020, they estimated our use of Gas at £9.09, and £139.34 for the next 12 months, so something was up, I guess we underpaid
    If it is a rental you left which is still empty, then a reading taken now would still be far less than a massive overestimate, so you could potentially go back for you reading.
    FWIW I had a similar problem with estimated readings resulting in massively miscalculated bills, I ran up a similar debt to my electricity company. I think there must have been admin problems at the electricity company as I can recall giving readings but they never processed them and relied instead on flawed estimates (it was a small supplier that went bankrupt a few years ago). I never thought twice about paying it, but in my case I could check the actual reading and knew the company had got it wrong.
  • justin124justin124 Posts: 11,527
    Sean_F said:

    Yeh. She’s definitely next.
    She’s awful though. Like a smugger, more articulate Boris.

    Same sort of dodgy romantic history, too, according to that leaked Whip’s document.

    I think she has an interesting romantic history. But, nothing that would be considered unethical in this day and age.
    Johnson to be succeeded by Tory trollop!
  • darkage said:

    BigRich said:

    On topic:

    As somebody who was cheerleading in my own small way for Lis Truss, on FB and here 2 years ago in the tory leadership election that Boris would eventually win, I'm pleased to see she is progressing and is now that is being recognised by a wider audience, :smile: but I don't think its enough to entice me back in to the party. perhaps if Boris announces his departure date in advances so i could re-join and vote, but that's not how things have normally worked.

    She has long been most popular in the freedom loving wing of the party, and perhaps that's the same people who like me have left of the lockdowns and authoritarian policy's of the government. I suspect there are not enough people like me to make a defiance in any leaderships election.

    A few years ago Truss was the flag bearer of the comical neoliberal wing of the conservative party - more deregulation, less taxes, etc. Boris has completely buried this way of thinking and reinvented the Conservative party and in doing so shifted its political base to the north of England where Thatcherism is still largely detested. Truss has worked hard and kept her head down, and had what seems like some good luck in the department for international trade. But she needs a new set of ideas if she wants the top job.
    I think there is a fundamental error in your claims. It assumes that what applies in times of major crises like wars or pandemics and their aftermath is what should apply in more normal times. No one in their right minds would claim that the rules and priorities that existed during WW2 should apply to times of peace. Nor should the politics of the pandemic inform the post pandemic world any further than is necessary to get things back on to a more stable footing. Truss does not need new ideas. What she needs is the backlash. Unfortunately for her that won't come for probably a decade by which time she will be yesterday's news. But those ideas of smaller Government and deregulation won't go away in the long term any more than the ideas of freedom were permanently crushed by the necessities of wartime controls.
    I'd love a Truss Government.

    She'd be more effective than either May or Boris, and possibly even eclipse Cameron too.

    She's sorely needed.
  • Going back to the subjects of gas supply and also practical climate issues, a question based on a lack of knowledge. (So hoping to be enlightened).

    Two bits of factual news today

    1. We are now looking at a shortage of CO2 for important processes including food supply, fertilisers, refrigeration and all manner of industrial processes.
    2. Drax are spending 20 million quid on updating their carbon capture systems to capture more of the CO2 from biomass burning and pump it under the North Sea.

    So...

    Is there some fundamental difference between CO2 (from carbon capture at power stations) and CO2 (used in all manner of industrial and manufacturing processes?

    Or

    Are our political and business leaders so utterly inept that they can't arrange for some of the CO2 being captured as a biproduct from power stations to be rediverted to the industries where it is in terribly short supply?

    My acceptance of gaps in my knowledge tends to make me think the former whilst my natural cynicism about the abilities of our leaders makes me strongly suspect the latter.

    As yet there are no commercial scale carbon capture plants on power stations in the UK. When there are, some of the captured CO2 could be used for a range of industrial purposes. If it needs to be food grade, then additional purification and quality monitoring will be required.

    If we ever have a future PB meet up in West Yorkshire I'll be more than happy to bore everyone rigid by talking about CCS. I'll even say a few things that I won't say on line!
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    justin124 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Yeh. She’s definitely next.
    She’s awful though. Like a smugger, more articulate Boris.

    Same sort of dodgy romantic history, too, according to that leaked Whip’s document.

    I think she has an interesting romantic history. But, nothing that would be considered unethical in this day and age.
    Johnson to be succeeded by Tory trollop!
    Is Johnson also a "Tory trollop"? Just asking.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Heathener said:

    Both gender and sex are highly nuanced, much more fluid that some try to make us believe with a myriad of complex angles and interpretations.

    But I'll leave it there. It needs a gentle, thoughtful, discussion.

    Nuanced are they? Well bugger me. I've been knocking about the place for sixty years under the impression that it was strictly binary. A feller's got bumps on his chest, dammit, or he hasn't. Like they say, you never stop learning.

    Thanks for putting me right about that, but could you word any future posts a bit more patronisingly?
  • Andy_JS said:

    Eric Grenier's final seats prediction has Trudeau going down from 157 to 155. He called the election in order to reach 170 seats and a majority.

    https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/poll-tracker/canada/

    A lot of error in that though.

    It's possible the Tories come out ahead and still clock 140 seats if they do better in the key marginals.
    Its all about Ontario! Can CON get the swing in the ridings there? I think overall the result will look very similar to last time.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Scott_xP said:

    Precisely the point.

    Leaving the EU is not responsible for high gas prices. But not being part of the EU is responsible for taking the full brunt of high prices.

    And what must be understood is that leaving the internal energy market was a political choice. We rolled the dice.
    https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1440009150050848771

    But the prices are very similar to several other EU countries, so I am not sure how Brexit comes into it at all.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729
    Stocky said:

    justin124 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Yeh. She’s definitely next.
    She’s awful though. Like a smugger, more articulate Boris.

    Same sort of dodgy romantic history, too, according to that leaked Whip’s document.

    I think she has an interesting romantic history. But, nothing that would be considered unethical in this day and age.
    Johnson to be succeeded by Tory trollop!
    Is Johnson also a "Tory trollop"? Just asking.
    He’s always had rather a whore’s voice.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    justin124 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Yeh. She’s definitely next.
    She’s awful though. Like a smugger, more articulate Boris.

    Same sort of dodgy romantic history, too, according to that leaked Whip’s document.

    I think she has an interesting romantic history. But, nothing that would be considered unethical in this day and age.
    Johnson to be succeeded by Tory trollop!
    Bad evening on grindr?
  • darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    I actually disagree with that a bit.

    My university friends WhatsApp (generally Remainery, LD'ey and softly internationalist) has started to speak out against Woke in the last few months in a way that's surprised me. It was even an aggravating factor for one of my friends quitting Morgan Stanley, as he'd got a bit fed up with it amongst other things

    However, they are all professional white men in their late 30s. I detect far less sign of this amongst professional white women who are still rather achingly Right-On.

    Here there is a clear gender divide, but that could change and change quickly too.
  • RobD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Precisely the point.

    Leaving the EU is not responsible for high gas prices. But not being part of the EU is responsible for taking the full brunt of high prices.

    And what must be understood is that leaving the internal energy market was a political choice. We rolled the dice.
    https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1440009150050848771

    But the prices are very similar to several other EU countries, so I am not sure how Brexit comes into it at all.
    It doesn't, but Scott's got a one-tracked mind.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    It starts from the position that race is socially constructed. Racism = unjustified prejudice based on skin colour.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262
    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Fear not, I am sure that the 73,768th circular shouting match about Scotland will be along shortly to drown it out.
    Also, have we done Brexit yet?
  • isamisam Posts: 40,721
    darkage said:

    MattW said:

    isam said:

    MattW said:

    malcolmg said:

    isam said:

    Our gas bill on leaving our old house is £1250! When I told the girl at eon, she said if no one from eon read the meter for a year we can complain and maybe not pay. They didn’t, so we could be in luck. Is this right?

    My gf swears she sent them the readings but every bill is an estimate, though the electrics a reading in June

    Think you will find you are on to plums. Keep the money handy , they are likely to get you and by that time will have added all the debt collector / bailliff charges if they do not have your new address.
    @isam

    It usually revolves around estimated readings and actual readings.

    If you have an actual reading on a date, ideally but not necessarily with a dated photo, they will cave.

    Just had £250 removed from my bill when they had overestimated consumption.

    Looking at our bill from Aug-Oct 2020, they estimated our use of Gas at £9.09, and £139.34 for the next 12 months, so something was up, I guess we underpaid
    If it is a rental you left which is still empty, then a reading taken now would still be far less than a massive overestimate, so you could potentially go back for you reading.
    FWIW I had a similar problem with estimated readings resulting in massively miscalculated bills, I ran up a similar debt to my electricity company. I think there must have been admin problems at the electricity company as I can recall giving readings but they never processed them and relied instead on flawed estimates (it was a small supplier that went bankrupt a few years ago). I never thought twice about paying it, but in my case I could check the actual reading and knew the company had got it wrong.
    It seems to me in our case that they were underestimating our consumption to a ludicrous degree - we never checked the bill and now what’s likely to be the true amount has emerged. My girlfriend says she gave meter readings each time though, but they’ve used estimates for over a year.
  • RobD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Going back to the subjects of gas supply and also practical climate issues, a question based on a lack of knowledge. (So hoping to be enlightened).

    Two bits of factual news today

    1. We are now looking at a shortage of CO2 for important processes including food supply, fertilisers, refrigeration and all manner of industrial processes.
    2. Drax are spending 20 million quid on updating their carbon capture systems to capture more of the CO2 from biomass burning and pump it under the North Sea.

    So...

    Is there some fundamental difference between CO2 (from carbon capture at power stations) and CO2 (used in all manner of industrial and manufacturing processes?

    Or

    Are our political and business leaders so utterly inept that they can't arrange for some of the CO2 being captured as a biproduct from power stations to be rediverted to the industries where it is in terribly short supply?

    My acceptance of gaps in my knowledge tends to make me think the former whilst my natural cynicism about the abilities of our leaders makes me strongly suspect the latter.

    CO2 is CO2.
    Isn't CO2 that is manufactured classified as 'food safe CO2'? May not be the technical term but it does require to be food grade certified doesn't it? Again maybe not the technical term.

    Is the CO2 that is a by product considered food grade?

    Sort of like the difference between using the meat of a pig that you slaughter and the meat of a pig that you find already dead. The latter to the best of my knowledge wouldn't be food safe.
    I guess that's just how pure the CO2 is. If you had some way to extract only CO2 from the emissions of a power plant it would be more than acceptable for foodstuffs.
    There are a number of Coca Cola plants around Europe where CO2 is captured from the exhaust of the on-site CHP plant and used for carbonation. I've visited one of them. The quality control on the CO2 is a serious business. They test for a very long list of potential contaminants.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:

    Alistair said:
    Legal abortion is extremely popular in Nevada - IIRC, it's more popular there than in California.
    Yes, a whole bunch of GOP Govenor Primary candidates are now going to have to pledge to ban abortion during the nomination process because the base will demand it but now they no longer have the shield of the public knowing they have no way of following through if they actually get elected come the General.

    The dog has caught the car.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    Stocky said:

    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Yes it is. Not going away though.
    One reason this argument is uniquely boring is that both sides, in the main, are arguing from bogus premises and with false intentions.

    That is to say: for those on the Left who have seized this issue, it's not because they really care - they don't, apart from a few genuinely passionate, sometimes aggressive trans activists. For most of them they only shout about it because they have literally run out of other social causes to feel aggrieved about. Because they won on every other issue. We have gay marriage, hate speech laws, Pride marches, abortion on demand, women only shortlists.

    So the Left, which only lives to feel "good" about itself and to fight for causes, has taken up this issue, even if it only affects about 73 people in the country, and they act as if it is a burning injustice for many millions, akin to Civil Rights in the '60s in the USA. Ludicrous and embarrassing

    However, the Right is no better. Instead of politely ignoring the Left as it spirals into internecine lunacy (which would probably be for the best) they see a way to exploit it, by making it part of the Culture Wars. The Right can point and laugh at the Left than turn to the voters and say: look, they are insane, they don't care about poverty or peace or wages or climate change, really, they care about enforcing mixed gender changing rooms in public swimming pools, and, by the way, they hate women

    So this insane debate pleases both sides, and it gets blown so far out of proportion, careers are ruined and people get death threats
  • GlomGlom Posts: 13
    I see it is possible to flag posts as off-topic. Given this is pb, is this to congratulate the poster on leading the conversation?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    RobD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Going back to the subjects of gas supply and also practical climate issues, a question based on a lack of knowledge. (So hoping to be enlightened).

    Two bits of factual news today

    1. We are now looking at a shortage of CO2 for important processes including food supply, fertilisers, refrigeration and all manner of industrial processes.
    2. Drax are spending 20 million quid on updating their carbon capture systems to capture more of the CO2 from biomass burning and pump it under the North Sea.

    So...

    Is there some fundamental difference between CO2 (from carbon capture at power stations) and CO2 (used in all manner of industrial and manufacturing processes?

    Or

    Are our political and business leaders so utterly inept that they can't arrange for some of the CO2 being captured as a biproduct from power stations to be rediverted to the industries where it is in terribly short supply?

    My acceptance of gaps in my knowledge tends to make me think the former whilst my natural cynicism about the abilities of our leaders makes me strongly suspect the latter.

    CO2 is CO2.
    Isn't CO2 that is manufactured classified as 'food safe CO2'? May not be the technical term but it does require to be food grade certified doesn't it? Again maybe not the technical term.

    Is the CO2 that is a by product considered food grade?

    Sort of like the difference between using the meat of a pig that you slaughter and the meat of a pig that you find already dead. The latter to the best of my knowledge wouldn't be food safe.
    I guess that's just how pure the CO2 is. If you had some way to extract only CO2 from the emissions of a power plant it would be more than acceptable for foodstuffs.
    There are a number of Coca Cola plants around Europe where CO2 is captured from the exhaust of the on-site CHP plant and used for carbonation. I've visited one of them. The quality control on the CO2 is a serious business. They test for a very long list of potential contaminants.
    Shame that after such a laborious and rigorous process they then contaminate it anyway by pumping it into cokes. :smile:
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited September 2021
    Stocky said:

    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Yes it is. Not going away though.
    I confess much of it is way beyond me and I do not like to be involved, other than to say from what I have heard from my wife, daughter, and daughter in law they are very unhappy and feel uncomfortable

    The one thing that surprised me this weekend was that the lib dems seem to have issues which I only heard for the first time when Davey was interviewed on Marr yesteday, and I was concerned they also have a problem with it, with actual pending litigation
  • RobD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Going back to the subjects of gas supply and also practical climate issues, a question based on a lack of knowledge. (So hoping to be enlightened).

    Two bits of factual news today

    1. We are now looking at a shortage of CO2 for important processes including food supply, fertilisers, refrigeration and all manner of industrial processes.
    2. Drax are spending 20 million quid on updating their carbon capture systems to capture more of the CO2 from biomass burning and pump it under the North Sea.

    So...

    Is there some fundamental difference between CO2 (from carbon capture at power stations) and CO2 (used in all manner of industrial and manufacturing processes?

    Or

    Are our political and business leaders so utterly inept that they can't arrange for some of the CO2 being captured as a biproduct from power stations to be rediverted to the industries where it is in terribly short supply?

    My acceptance of gaps in my knowledge tends to make me think the former whilst my natural cynicism about the abilities of our leaders makes me strongly suspect the latter.

    CO2 is CO2.
    Isn't CO2 that is manufactured classified as 'food safe CO2'? May not be the technical term but it does require to be food grade certified doesn't it? Again maybe not the technical term.

    Is the CO2 that is a by product considered food grade?

    Sort of like the difference between using the meat of a pig that you slaughter and the meat of a pig that you find already dead. The latter to the best of my knowledge wouldn't be food safe.
    I guess that's just how pure the CO2 is. If you had some way to extract only CO2 from the emissions of a power plant it would be more than acceptable for foodstuffs.
    There are a number of Coca Cola plants around Europe where CO2 is captured from the exhaust of the on-site CHP plant and used for carbonation. I've visited one of them. The quality control on the CO2 is a serious business. They test for a very long list of potential contaminants.
    Indeed. That was my point, the CO2 that is carbon captured will have contaminants etc so not pass those tests.

    It might theoretically be possible to 'clean up' the CO2 to bottle it up, though it might not be cost-effective to do so. But either way it isn't simply a case of bottling up the captured CO2 then using it.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    ·
    59m
    Under the Electoral College, the power of ordinary members to choose the leader would be crushed.

    Members would be banned from voting as individuals, with local CLPs as a whole contributing around 30% of the vote - whilst MPs and Unions held the vast bulk of democratic power.

    The Labour party is full of whoppers so that change sounds entirely sensible
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,729

    RobD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Going back to the subjects of gas supply and also practical climate issues, a question based on a lack of knowledge. (So hoping to be enlightened).

    Two bits of factual news today

    1. We are now looking at a shortage of CO2 for important processes including food supply, fertilisers, refrigeration and all manner of industrial processes.
    2. Drax are spending 20 million quid on updating their carbon capture systems to capture more of the CO2 from biomass burning and pump it under the North Sea.

    So...

    Is there some fundamental difference between CO2 (from carbon capture at power stations) and CO2 (used in all manner of industrial and manufacturing processes?

    Or

    Are our political and business leaders so utterly inept that they can't arrange for some of the CO2 being captured as a biproduct from power stations to be rediverted to the industries where it is in terribly short supply?

    My acceptance of gaps in my knowledge tends to make me think the former whilst my natural cynicism about the abilities of our leaders makes me strongly suspect the latter.

    CO2 is CO2.
    Isn't CO2 that is manufactured classified as 'food safe CO2'? May not be the technical term but it does require to be food grade certified doesn't it? Again maybe not the technical term.

    Is the CO2 that is a by product considered food grade?

    Sort of like the difference between using the meat of a pig that you slaughter and the meat of a pig that you find already dead. The latter to the best of my knowledge wouldn't be food safe.
    I guess that's just how pure the CO2 is. If you had some way to extract only CO2 from the emissions of a power plant it would be more than acceptable for foodstuffs.
    There are a number of Coca Cola plants around Europe where CO2 is captured from the exhaust of the on-site CHP plant and used for carbonation. I've visited one of them. The quality control on the CO2 is a serious business. They test for a very long list of potential contaminants.
    Indeed. That was my point, the CO2 that is carbon captured will have contaminants etc so not pass those tests.

    It might theoretically be possible to 'clean up' the CO2 to bottle it up, though it might not be cost-effective to do so. But either way it isn't simply a case of bottling up the captured CO2 then using it.
    Are you suggesting it would not be sootable?

    It’s been a long day…
  • Glom said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    That ignores the fact that these slurs are levied at fully transitioned trans-women as well. Repeating them without clarification shows an insensitivity for the struggle even those who completed the transition, let alone those in the middle (transition is not done on an out-patient basis). That insensitivity to a marginalised group can only be interpreted as hostility.

    The entire basis of PC is that words and phrases have accrued connotations, and we all need to be careful that we don't imply things we don't mean through careless use of them.
    PC means politically correct and it simply means ensuring you say what is politically correct for the times.

    In 1930s Germany, for example, it would have been un-PC to say anything pro-Jewish. In early 1950s America to say anything pro-Communist.

    Today, it means painstaking pedantry over language, to demonstrate you possess the right sentiments on race, gender and sexuality, but it doesn't intrinsically mean that - it just reflects our times.
  • Glom said:

    I see it is possible to flag posts as off-topic. Given this is pb, is this to congratulate the poster on leading the conversation?

    You really did ask for that.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087

    pigeon said:

    Leon said:

    Stocky said:

    Glom said:

    Hi, everyone. It is technically my first post, but I have been lurking for many, many years. The thread header has finally made me feel I should contribute.

    It is disappointing that Cyclefree, who wrote so much on the subject of Corbyn Labour's blind spots to bigotry in the form of antisemitism, has now fallen so deeply into her own blind spot.

    To be clear, this isn't about condemning abuse and intimidation of people like Rosie Duffield. Of course, such behaviour is contemptible (not to mention counterproductive). Nor is this even about concerns over protection of women's spaces if gender recognition is made too easy to abuse.

    Also "chest-feeding", if indeed that term is used, is stupid. What organ are you using to nurse the child if not a breast?

    As the old saying goes, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And this article, while articulating concerns about intimidation of those who are concerned about protections for women, does so in a way that is deeply transphobic. It is so because wording goes out of its way to pay no respect whatsoever to the validity of trans people as trans people.

    "in response to a question from Justin Webb on the Today programme about whether there was anywhere biological males should not go – replied “No, no”."

    I haven't seen the programme, but I highly doubt it went down like that. I'm sure the question was about transwomen specifically. By paraphrasing it in this way, Cyclefree is denying that transwomen are any different at any level from any man. They are basically just "men in dresses", a known anti-trans slur that she has in fact used in the past few days, but would never abide, from her writing on Corbynism, its antisemitic equivalents such as Zio or even the coded used of theoretically objective term Zionist.

    "let along something to be recategorized out of existence to assuage the feelings of some men."

    If the concern is predatory men abusing self-ID to access women's protected spaces, this is clearly not targeted at them, because recognition of trans people is not intended to protect their feelings, obviously. Rather it is targeted at transwomen, again denying that they are indeed so. Just "men in dresses".

    Denying the validity of transwomen, especially when conflating them with trojan horse predation, i.e. something to feared, is the very definition of transphobia.

    I'm sure Cyclefree doesn't want to be associated with any form of bigotry, hence brisling against being labelled transphobic, but if you deny the legitimacy of trans people and are blase about using insensitive and demeaning terminology to refer to them, then how else would you describe your attitude towards them?

    Clearly, we have a long way to go, but at least these issues are being talked about.

    Welcome but Cyclefree's language is entirely correct.

    Unless the individual in question has undergone a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and gone through a transition then yes they absolutely are men.

    To say that a man is a woman, without any transition or medical diagnosis just because he says he is a woman is to deny everything that actually makes a woman a woman.

    A trans woman is only a trans woman if she's undergone transition and followed the steps via treatment etc for medically diagnosed dysphoria. Which extremist activists want to skip entirely and allow any man to pretend to be a woman.
    Don't agree with that. A trans woman is a woman regardless of whether any treatment etc has taken place. He has transitioned into being a woman (a she) - and therefore IS a woman - as long as we are strictly talking about gender.
    My God this argument is so BORING
    Fear not, I am sure that the 73,768th circular shouting match about Scotland will be along shortly to drown it out.
    Also, have we done Brexit yet?
    What, that thing about Europe and the red bus? It's kinda ringing a bell...
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    RobD said:

    Surely that should read Keir Stalin


    Evolve Politics
    @evolvepolitics
    Police cars revolving light | NEW: Keir Starmer is considering banning ordinary Labour members from voting in Labour Leadership elections

    Is he? I thought the proposals were reverting to the rules in 2010, where the members could vote.
    I thought they were changing the rule so that 200 MPs have the same say as 400k members but not totally sure.

    Either way OMOV has to be the right system and i am no longer a member
    Yes, but that's not the same as "banning ordinary Labour members from voting", is it?
    They can vote at a CLP meeting but then that only counts for 1/650 th of the CLP one third vote.

    So could end up with 250k members voting for candidate A and150K voting for Candidate B but if a maj of CLPs have a Candidate B victory Candidate B gets more than half of the CLP third

    I think
    Like I said, not banning.
    But not Democratic either

    CLP 1 - A gets 51 MEMBER VOTES B 49 MEMBER VOTES
    CLP 2 - 51/49
    CLP3 - 5/ 552
    Total 107 members voted for A 600 for B

    New system allocates two thiirds of votes to A

    Any system that decide Candidate A wins the CLP vote in a Scenario like that is undemocratic
    Analagous to Westminster FPTP elections.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
    Yes, this is actually happening, and is an actual thing, and it is going to fuck everyone's heads, given the implications

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/19415358.issue-day-identifying-another-race/

    "THE extreme actions of a British influencer who has undergone surgery to look Korean have turned the spotlight on transracialism. "
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    Brains Trust:

    Does anyone have a feel for how IAG shares are going to go? I have had some stuck in my mum's Estate, which I will need to sell.

    Is now the time?

    Thanks
  • RobD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Precisely the point.

    Leaving the EU is not responsible for high gas prices. But not being part of the EU is responsible for taking the full brunt of high prices.

    And what must be understood is that leaving the internal energy market was a political choice. We rolled the dice.
    https://twitter.com/bestforbritain/status/1440009150050848771

    But the prices are very similar to several other EU countries, so I am not sure how Brexit comes into it at all.
    Sky did an in depth look at it tonight and Brexit did not arise

    The principle reason was the lack of wind over the last few months and it was stark when shown on a graph

    Unfortunately for all @Scott_P hot air even he has not been able to shift the dial
  • pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
    This.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,262
    Leon said:

    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
    Yes, this is actually happening, and is an actual thing, and it is going to fuck everyone's heads, given the implications

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/19415358.issue-day-identifying-another-race/

    "THE extreme actions of a British influencer who has undergone surgery to look Korean have turned the spotlight on transracialism. "
    Another thing for the Culture Warriors to get worked up about.

    Meanwhile most of the country is more concerned about tax rises, the cost of living and whether they be able to go on holiday next year.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    IshmaelZ said:

    justin124 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Yeh. She’s definitely next.
    She’s awful though. Like a smugger, more articulate Boris.

    Same sort of dodgy romantic history, too, according to that leaked Whip’s document.

    I think she has an interesting romantic history. But, nothing that would be considered unethical in this day and age.
    Johnson to be succeeded by Tory trollop!
    Bad evening on grindr?
    I know justin has some wrongheaded views on personal sexual morals but I don't think winding him up that way is a great way of pointing out that wrongheadedness.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 9,653
    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
    Some of the batty left are going to get in a right old pickle both criticising cultural appropriation while simultaneously supporting those who want to change racial identity.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    MattW said:

    Brains Trust:

    Does anyone have a feel for how IAG shares are going to go? I have had some stuck in my mum's Estate, which I will need to sell.

    Is now the time?

    Thanks

    I think they are about to take off.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    pigeon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    With regard to the trans debate, I am sympathetic to her position, but Cyclefree is unfortunately on the losing side. In the end, this is because the ideology of identity politics, which has effectively become the defacto state religion in the anglosphere; directs that in all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed.

    I have been waiting for years for a wave of popular anger to emerge in response to the insanity of woke identity politics, it never happens. If it didn't happen for the desecration of the centopah, it is unlikely to happen now. One must concede that trying to preserve the sanctity of womanhood is ultimately a hopeless battle.

    "all significant ways biological differences are socially constructed"

    Where does that leave Black Lives Matter?
    An in interesting place. If total freedom to deny/renounce immutable physical characteristics at will is to be regarded as a right, then presumably every form of trans identification is as valid as transgenderism? So white people can identify as black, black people can identify as white, and the entire construct of cultural appropriation belongs in the dustbin. It's all more than a bit of a mess.
    Trans racialism the next big thing?

    Arbitrary differences of race and sex etc are stupid, but a right to insist upon total self identification, without qualification, as is suggested in this debate, seems silly.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kle4 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    justin124 said:

    Sean_F said:

    Yeh. She’s definitely next.
    She’s awful though. Like a smugger, more articulate Boris.

    Same sort of dodgy romantic history, too, according to that leaked Whip’s document.

    I think she has an interesting romantic history. But, nothing that would be considered unethical in this day and age.
    Johnson to be succeeded by Tory trollop!
    Bad evening on grindr?
    I know justin has some wrongheaded views on personal sexual morals but I don't think winding him up that way is a great way of pointing out that wrongheadedness.
    He is a seriously unpleasant poster, a member of

    A sect, whose chief devotion lies
    In odd perverse antipathies;
    In falling out with that or this,
    And finding somewhat still amiss;
    More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
    Than dog distract or monkey sick;
    That with more care keep holy-day
    The wrong, than others the right way;
    Compound for sins they are inclined to,
    By damning those they have no mind to;

    Still so perverse and opposite,
    As if they worshipped God for spite.

    And if he leaves Truss alone I'll leave him alone.
This discussion has been closed.