Seriously, what's the downside? It was presumably pretty close without being a member but it's now demonstrated that full membership really does add some more guarantees.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
Interesting times (for me at least) in reading Pravda.
What was the line in the Goode Olde Days of the Cold War...
"There is no Izvestia in Pravda and no Pravda in Izvestia" ?
If that is correct, then it becomes even more bollocks that we are on the cusp of nuclear war. The article states most of the General Staff are also against the war. If anything, if Putin did order nuclear (and maybe even chemical) weapons to be used, there is a fair chance that is a catalyst for a coup.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
Interesting times (for me at least) in reading Pravda.
What was the line in the Goode Olde Days of the Cold War...
"There is no Izvestia in Pravda and no Pravda in Izvestia" ?
If that is correct, then it becomes even more bollocks that we are on the cusp of nuclear war. The article states most of the General Staff are also against the war. If anything, if Putin did order nuclear (and maybe even chemical) weapons to be used, there is a fair chance that is a catalyst for a coup.
It depends. It's possible for someone in the government to be agaisnt the war, but still believe the best way out for Russia is to escalate.
One report form the War, that's interesting to me. Ukraine are calming that yesterday (Friday) that over 500 Russians surrendered to them.
500 is a lot, if you add Killed wounded and missing on to that, Russia could be losing 1,000 a day.
Some how clamed of Prisoner seem more credible to me that clams of how many they have killed. how does any one side know how many of the other they have killed? they don't, really, they can count some body's, and say at least X, but there will be a lot more than that, some die in hospital, some get blown up, lots of other issues, but with prisoners you have a person in front of you.
Are the Ukrainians just mackling this up, possibly, but then presumably they are registering theses with the Red cross, so a risk in just making up a number,
it might be just a one off, but also after 2 weeks, and bad weather, seems to be when moral might crack, so maybe its the start of a trend, maybe. Just like trying to determine if a particular pole is an outlier or the start of a trend!!!
@jk_rowling Now @Keir_Starmer publicly misrepresents equalities law, in yet another indication that the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women’s rights. But I repeat: women are organising across party lines, and their resolve and their anger are growing.
I think this is going to be a problem for Starmer at the election.
I think it will be. He shouldn't mouth slogans.
If he gets confronted by it it could, but he might get lucky. My sense is most people are super fussed and wish to just express support around trans issues, and the problems occur when people with actually very radical and uncompromising opinions on it develop and push slogans which politicians will try to push thinking it all simple and benign, when there are actually some more complex aspects, and it piss another minority opinion off. And the public will be inclined to the side which seems to talk common sense at that point, baffled by the more radical ideas.
I do not want Johnson to be re-elected. I very much want this.
I am drawn to voting Labour next time.
But self-ID is my red line. I will not vote Labour or the Lib Dems if they adopt this as a policy. More medical care for transgender people: yes. Very much yes. Self-ID: no.
Womens' rights are critical for me. I have seen many changes in those rights and how women are treated in my lifetime, most of them for the better. They have been hard fought for. My daughter has a much easier life and working expectations and ambitions than I had when I started out. The sexism that was rife and routine and that I had to endure would shock people now.
So I am never going to vote for parties who do not take this seriously and who propose policies whose consequences they do not understand which will seriously harm and diminish and, in some cases, extinguish womens' rights. Men do not get to say or determine what a woman is. We draw the boundaries and it is up to men to respect our boundaries. And if we want spaces where only females with female bodies are allowed in, not males with male bodies, whatever they choose to call themselves, that's our choice. No means no, after all.
I'm not saying its impossible, the Russian Moral compass is so defective right now anything is believable.
I think this is highly unlikely, shooting injured people would be devastating to the moral and any commander know that. It would seriously open you up to legal ramifications after the war, maybe not form the Hage, but frim your own side if they where looking for ScapeGoats, to blame for not being very good.
They're Kadyrovtsy, so Chechens, and irregulars who have been accused of war crimes.
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
One report form the War, that's interesting to me. Ukraine are calming that yesterday (Friday) that over 500 Russians surrendered to them.
500 is a lot, if you add Killed wounded and missing on to that, Russia could be losing 1,000 a day.
Some how clamed of Prisoner seem more credible to me that clams of how many they have killed. how does any one side know how many of the other they have killed? they don't, really, they can count some body's, and say at least X, but there will be a lot more than that, some die in hospital, some get blown up, lots of other issues, but with prisoners you have a person in front of you.
Are the Ukrainians just mackling this up, possibly, but then presumably they are registering theses with the Red cross, so a risk in just making up a number,
it might be just a one off, but also after 2 weeks, and bad weather, seems to be when moral might crack, so maybe its the start of a trend, maybe. Just like trying to determine if a particular pole is an outlier or the start of a trend!!!
Thoughts?
500 who handed over their tanks and vehicles would be very handy....
I'm not saying its impossible, the Russian Moral compass is so defective right now anything is believable.
I think this is highly unlikely, shooting injured people would be devastating to the moral and any commander know that. It would seriously open you up to legal ramifications after the war, maybe not form the Hage, but frim your own side if they where looking for ScapeGoats, to blame for not being very good.
Perhaps something to do with barrier troops? In WW2 they had Barrier Troops to stop deserters - and hundreds of thousands were captured. From what I've read elsewhere, the 'injured' were also treated very shabbily at times by the same troops. If you weren't injured enough, you might be seen as a deserter...
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
To be fair, the 'west' will be sharing information with the Ukraine, and the 'west' seems to have had better information on Russian intentions than many senior Russian troops on the ground ...
One day. hopefully, we may get to learn about how we knew so much about their intentions.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
Impossible.
It would, for a start, imply there was somebody in the Russian government who *had* a mind, and such is clearly not the case.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
Well the Americans had the entire battle plan before the invasion so that would suggest plenty of information is leaking. We also saw Putin's ludicrous theatre before the war with some very uncomfortable looking advisers. They may be putting two and two together.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
Impossible.
It would, for a start, imply there was somebody in the Russian government who *had* a mind, and such is clearly not the case.
I imagine there are a lot of them who have a mind but have put it into cryogenic storage in the last few years as their boss became ever more crazed and domineering.
It would be fascinating to look inside the minds of the inner circle now. Psychology being what it is, I expect they are going through big swings of mood, oscillating between optimism, utter dejection, existential fear and backs-to-the-wall surges of nationalistic defiance, as are the Ukrainians.
We need the dejection to build up and take over more hours of the day. The other emotions (including fear) are more dangerous and damaging. I suspect the best way to turn officials off the war is a slow, crunching, bloody and financial ruinous stalemate. Not exciting or frightening enough to get the adrenalin pulsing but bad enough to throw off any remaining optimism or hope.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
I'm not saying this is true, and it does have more than a hint of propoganda.
But Ukraine does have an intelligence service, and the very first place they are likely to target is Russia. It isn't exactly ludicrous to suggest that individuals within the Russian govenment and senior military provide information to Ukraine for money or on principle, nor that Ukraine for reasons of culture and history, probably finds it easier to get an "in" than others.
Of course, if it was real gold dust, we'd almost certainly not hear about it, and the Ukrainians are of course also sending out a media message. But getting information on the conversations that are going on behind closed doors in Moscow is not "mind reading"; it's intelligence work.
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
Again, I find it just extraordinary that with all that's going on in the world right now, people are still obsessed with their hobby horse debates. Extraordinary.
I imagine a great deal more trans people are assaulted by men than trans people perform assaults on women. But hey ho, carry on with your hobby horse and bigotry.
Alex Kokcharov @AlexKokcharov In #Russia, one of the top Kremlin propagandists Solovyov says during his talk show: “With the sanctions like these, why should we stop at the borders of #Ukraine?”
Translation: Kremlin propaganda is promoting invasion of NATO member states.
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
Again, I find it just extraordinary that with all that's going on in the world right now, people are still obsessed with their hobby horse debates. Extraordinary.
I imagine a great deal more trans people are assaulted by men than trans people perform assaults on women. But hey ho, carry on with your hobby horse and bigotry.
Gammontastic. No time to listen to the witterings of the memsahibs when there's a war on, what?
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
Again, I find it just extraordinary that with all that's going on in the world right now, people are still obsessed with their hobby horse debates. Extraordinary.
I imagine a great deal more trans people are assaulted by men than trans people perform assaults on women. But hey ho, carry on with your hobby horse and bigotry.
Clearly you've never read the work of Edward Gibbon.
(Not that it was notably accurate, but in its fictionalised depiction of displacement therapy it was centuries ahead of its time.)
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
I'm not saying this is true, and it does have more than a hint of propoganda.
But Ukraine does have an intelligence service, and the very first place they are likely to target is Russia. It isn't exactly ludicrous to suggest that individuals within the Russian govenment and senior military provide information to Ukraine for money or on principle, nor that Ukraine for reasons of culture and history, probably finds it easier to get an "in" than others.
Of course, if it was real gold dust, we'd almost certainly not hear about it, and the Ukrainians are of course also sending out a media message. But getting information on the conversations that are going on behind closed doors in Moscow is not "mind reading"; it's intelligence work.
Yes, that's fair enough - I commented too hastily there.
The Russian newsagency that I periodically check has some vaguely hopeful posts: the negotiations seem to be moving into a substantive phase.
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
I’ll concede it’s less frivolous than conniptions over whether the 1812 Overture glorifies Russian artillery.
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
Any other PM, turning out to be a Russian spy when the country is nine tenths of the way to being at war with russia would be a setback. I am resigned to the fact that the most that will happen to Pig Dog is, Sue Gray will be asked to look into it when she has a moment.
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
Again, I find it just extraordinary that with all that's going on in the world right now, people are still obsessed with their hobby horse debates. Extraordinary.
I imagine a great deal more trans people are assaulted by men than trans people perform assaults on women. But hey ho, carry on with your hobby horse and bigotry.
I've not been involved in this debate, and try to stay out of it to be honest.
But you are coming across really badly here to the observer.
The impression you give is that because (in your words) you "imagine" assaults against women by trans people are less common than assaults by men against trans people, being concerned about the former at all constitutes a "hobby horse" that people are "obsessed" with. As well as being incredibly dismissive about actual assaults, your position makes literally no logical sense.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
I'm not saying this is true, and it does have more than a hint of propoganda.
But Ukraine does have an intelligence service, and the very first place they are likely to target is Russia. It isn't exactly ludicrous to suggest that individuals within the Russian govenment and senior military provide information to Ukraine for money or on principle, nor that Ukraine for reasons of culture and history, probably finds it easier to get an "in" than others.
Of course, if it was real gold dust, we'd almost certainly not hear about it, and the Ukrainians are of course also sending out a media message. But getting information on the conversations that are going on behind closed doors in Moscow is not "mind reading"; it's intelligence work.
Yes, that's fair enough - I commented too hastily there.
The Russian newsagency that I periodically check has some vaguely hopeful posts: the negotiations seem to be moving into a substantive phase.
We'll see. It is hard to be optimistic unless Putin is looking for a way out. And what sort of guarantees could they trust from a gangster who has no regard for the rule of law?
This year’s freestyle heelwork winner repeats her routine, but Crufts regulars will remember Lucie Plevova who dominated the sport for so many years, against which all of this year’s efforts were pale shadows. Here’s Lucie’s winning routine from 2018:
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
I’ll concede it’s less frivolous than conniptions over whether the 1812 Overture glorifies Russian artillery.
Which is about as controversial as claiming that the New Testament has a pronounced Christian bias.
According to information from the Ukrainian Chief Intelligence Directorate, President Vladimir Putin and Minister of Defence Sergei Shoygu are the last Russian statesmen left who support the war.
That looks like Ukraine trying to compete with the Russians for the wildest assertion of the day. How likely is it that the Ukrainians can read the minds of the entire Russian government?
To be fair, the 'west' will be sharing information with the Ukraine, and the 'west' seems to have had better information on Russian intentions than many senior Russian troops on the ground ...
One day. hopefully, we may get to learn about how we knew so much about their intentions.
The level of information that the West (US/UK at least) had on the Russian plans reminds me of a story about Crete.
The information on the attacks via ULTRA was do detailed that the UK knew how many pairs of socks each German paratrooper would be carrying. And their targets. And the timing of the drops. And the fact that on landing the paratroopers would be essentially unarmed for minutes.... Unfortunately Freyberg was hardwired to ignore intelligence, it seems.
@jk_rowling Now @Keir_Starmer publicly misrepresents equalities law, in yet another indication that the Labour Party can no longer be counted on to defend women’s rights. But I repeat: women are organising across party lines, and their resolve and their anger are growing.
I think this is going to be a problem for Starmer at the election.
I think it will be. He shouldn't mouth slogans.
If he gets confronted by it it could, but he might get lucky. My sense is most people are super fussed and wish to just express support around trans issues, and the problems occur when people with actually very radical and uncompromising opinions on it develop and push slogans which politicians will try to push thinking it all simple and benign, when there are actually some more complex aspects, and it piss another minority opinion off. And the public will be inclined to the side which seems to talk common sense at that point, baffled by the more radical ideas.
I do not want Johnson to be re-elected. I very much want this.
I am drawn to voting Labour next time.
But self-ID is my red line. I will not vote Labour or the Lib Dems if they adopt this as a policy. More medical care for transgender people: yes. Very much yes. Self-ID: no.
Womens' rights are critical for me. I have seen many changes in those rights and how women are treated in my lifetime, most of them for the better. They have been hard fought for. My daughter has a much easier life and working expectations and ambitions than I had when I started out. The sexism that was rife and routine and that I had to endure would shock people now.
So I am never going to vote for parties who do not take this seriously and who propose policies whose consequences they do not understand which will seriously harm and diminish and, in some cases, extinguish womens' rights. Men do not get to say or determine what a woman is. We draw the boundaries and it is up to men to respect our boundaries. And if we want spaces where only females with female bodies are allowed in, not males with male bodies, whatever they choose to call themselves, that's our choice. No means no, after all.
Yes, I agree. I accept that a very small number of people will desperately want to be the opposite sex. And we have the technology to do this now, so why not? Though it should not be pushed on children with the enthusiasm that it seems to be at the moment.
But my objection to as-soon-as-a-man-says-he's-a-woman-he's-a-woman is not so much all your very valid and very important objections - but that he just isn't. Simply saying the world is as we want it to be doesn't make it so. You can't simply twist reality or language like that, no matter how well-intentioned you think you're being. And if you're prepared to twist reality from what it so obviously is in that respect, what else might you be getting up to when you're in power? (I use 'you' in the sense of 'one' her, obviously - I'm not talking about Cyclefree.) Words matter. Reality matters.
This year’s freestyle heelwork winner repeats her routine, but Crufts regulars will remember Lucie Plevova who dominated the sport for so many years, against which all of this year’s efforts were pale shadows. Here’s Lucie’s winning routine from 2018:
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
I’ll concede it’s less frivolous than conniptions over whether the 1812 Overture glorifies Russian artillery.
Which is about as controversial as claiming that the New Testament has a pronounced Christian bias.
Yep. Taking that as read I guess it was the conniptions bit I was focussing on.
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
Again, I find it just extraordinary that with all that's going on in the world right now, people are still obsessed with their hobby horse debates. Extraordinary.
I imagine a great deal more trans people are assaulted by men than trans people perform assaults on women. But hey ho, carry on with your hobby horse and bigotry.
Violence and sexual violence against women, whether in peacetime or in war (and on the latter you might care to read Christina Lamb's book "Our Bodies, Their Battles") are neither minor hobby horses nor bigotry.
Your dismissal of the violence suffer at the hands of men OTOH probably qualifies as bigotry. It certainly qualifies as insensitive ignorance.
I reckon Ipswich's 1984 record of being the last team to be losing a league game at Old Trafford at half time before coming back to win may be in danger.
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
If he wants to stay, what's the mechanism to remove him before 2024?
A majority of MPs in Parliament can remove him at any time. It doesn't need special laws or processes. Just a majority of MPs to have some basic principles and vote him out.
This year’s freestyle heelwork winner repeats her routine, but Crufts regulars will remember Lucie Plevova who dominated the sport for so many years, against which all of this year’s efforts were pale shadows. Here’s Lucie’s winning routine from 2018:
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
Don't be an utter twit. Are you seriously saying that the protection of women from sexual assault is a frivolous matter? And what is this "locking all men up" nonsense? Your rhetorical question should be "do we exclude men from womens' toilets and prisons?" except it doesn't really work because the answer is Yes we do.
Again, I find it just extraordinary that with all that's going on in the world right now, people are still obsessed with their hobby horse debates. Extraordinary.
I imagine a great deal more trans people are assaulted by men than trans people perform assaults on women. But hey ho, carry on with your hobby horse and bigotry.
Violence and sexual violence against women, whether in peacetime or in war (and on the latter you might care to read Christina Lamb's book "Our Bodies, Their Battles") are neither minor hobby horses nor bigotry.
Your dismissal of the violence suffer at the hands of men OTOH probably qualifies as bigotry. It certainly qualifies as insensitive ignorance.
The irony of Kyf's post, apart from the ignorance it displayed of human psychology, is that nobody fits the description of 'minor hobby horses and bigotry' better than the extremists in the transgender lobby demanding self-id and contending without a trace of irony that everyone who thinks might not be a smart idea is a fascist. And it is they who have sadly hijacked the debate to the extent logical and rational discussion is more or less impossible.
Has there ever been a discussion about trans without it descending into accusations of bigotry? I hate to "both sides" it, but both sides have a problem.
via WaPo - Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., recently called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug” and said the Ukrainian government is “incredibly evil,” in remarks that are at odds with the broad bipartisan support for Ukraine among American lawmakers and the public amid Russia’s invasion.
“Remember that Zelensky is a thug. Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt, and it is incredibly evil, and it has been pushing woke ideologies,” Cawthorn told supporters at a recent event in North Carolina, according to video published Thursday by Raleigh-based TV station WRAL.
Rising apparatchik of 45 & Putinist Party USA speaks . . . the pigshit of his heart, mind & soul . . .
The bar has now switched from the rugby to the live football - it’s feels like a switch from watching a cage fight to an embroidery class.
Very well put. I'm always struck by the sudden feel of pointlessness when the telly switches from international rugby to club football. Meanwhile, there is probably cricket on the other side. All set up for an improbably gripping final session. Jack Leach has a look of Nigel Blackwell.
Thread from a former advisor to Putin, Andrey Illarionov - Part 1:
This is a European war. Putin wants not only to destroy Ukraine as a state, but to “return” the NATO alliance to the “1997 line in Europe.” Putin stated it in his ultimatum to the West on Dec 17, 2021, in the responses of the Russian MFA on Feb 17, 2022, on March 8 and 9th.
The Kremlin directly names the European states that, according to Putin’s intentions, should undergo so-called de-NATO-ization: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, plus the Baltic and Black Seas.
Putin’s invasion speech on February 24, with “justifications” for his attack on Ukraine, almost completely reproduced the argumentation of Hitler’s speech in the German Reichstag on September 1, 1939, the day Hitler, in agreement with Stalin, launched World War II.
Putin resorted to nuclear blackmail. Not against Ukraine, but NATO countries, whose officials made statements that displeased the Kremlin dictator. The lack of a response from the West to international banditry only whetted the appetite of the KGB maniac.
If Putin is not stopped, then hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people could die. This includes Ukrainians, citizens of countries targeted for “de-NATO-ization,” European allies in NATO, the United States.
Putin must be stopped. In Ukraine. Here and now. The West, and above all Europe, needs to realize a simple, unpleasant truth: If Putin’s missiles, bombers, and tanks are not stopped in Ukraine, they will fall on other European nations.
Unfortunately, US and NATO leadership is largely paralyzed. Therefore assistance to Ukraine should be provided on a bilateral and multilateral basis. It cannot be done by consensus, which is now unattainable, but on the basis of the principles of a Coalition of the Willing.
Such a coalition can include nations regardless of their membership in different blocs. The working basis of such a group might be, for example, members countries of a Joint Expeditionary Force, or JEF, a British-led coalition of 10 European countries.
via WaPo - Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., recently called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug” and said the Ukrainian government is “incredibly evil,” in remarks that are at odds with the broad bipartisan support for Ukraine among American lawmakers and the public amid Russia’s invasion.
“Remember that Zelensky is a thug. Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt, and it is incredibly evil, and it has been pushing woke ideologies,” Cawthorn told supporters at a recent event in North Carolina, according to video published Thursday by Raleigh-based TV station WRAL.
Rising apparatchik of 45 & Putinist Party USA speaks . . . the pigshit of his heart, mind & soul . . .
"remarks that are at odds with the broad bipartisan support for Ukraine among American lawmakers"
What West can and should do to stop Putin? 1. Revive a lend-lease procedure used during the Second World War for the supply of weapons to Ukraine. 2. Allocate massive financial assistance to fully cover Ukraine’s needed military materials. 3. Establish an air bridge to Ukraine for the supply of weapons, military equipment, ammunition, fuel. 4. Deploy the armed forces of a Coalition of the Willing to the Western Ukraine to ensure the security of supply of materials and the safety of evacuation of civilians. 5. Legally authorize and provide all-round assistance to volunteers who are ready to defend Ukraine at their own personal risk. 6. Warn the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko against the use of the Belarusian military and Belarusian territory for aggression against Ukraine. 7. Redeploy the armed forces of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia close to the borders of Belarus, and close of land links to the Russian enclave Kaliningrad. 8. Completely embargo all trade with Russia and Belarus, primarily on the export of Russian oil and gas. 9. Cease transport communication with Russia and Belarus by air, sea, and land. 10. Isolate the Russian and Belarusian banking systems internationally. 11. Freeze all assets of the Russian and Belarusian governments. 12. Close airports, sea ports and territory of Western countries for all transportation means belonging to the Russian and Belarussian governments. 13. Exclude Russia and Belarus from international organizations. 14. Refuse any negotiations with Putin on other issues, such as the Iran nuclear deal, except as necessary to stop war. 15. For aggression, the gravest crime against peace, the grossest violation of the UN Charter, initiate the exclusion Putin’s Russia from the UN SC. 16. Open a criminal case against Putin, his Sec Council members, the Gen Staff at the ICC. 17. Prepare for a Nuremberg-style process against all in the Russian and Belarusian leadership responsible for preparation and execution of aggressions against Ukraine and Georgia. 18. Impose international sanctions against the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, a parastatal entity whose present top clergy actively works for the Putin’s regime. 19. Form an international anti-Putin coalition to defend Ukraine. 20. Adopt, through the anti-Putin coalition, a modern analogue of the Atlantic Charter, which proclaims its goal to ensure international peace and security through the complete and unconditional de-Putinization of Russia.
After the barbarous murder of tens of thousands of people by Putin’s troops in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, humanity should have no illusions that if Putin is not stopped today, here and now, the number of victims around the world is bound to get worse.
Has there ever been a discussion about trans without it descending into accusations of bigotry? I hate to "both sides" it, but both sides have a problem.
But there aren't two sides, are there? I suppose I am what a mindless gammon like @kyf_100 would call anti-trans, but what I am against is opportunistic shits pretending to be trans and screwing things up for women and for the genuinely trans.
What West can and should do to stop Putin? 1. Revive a lend-lease procedure used during the Second World War for the supply of weapons to Ukraine. 2. Allocate massive financial assistance to fully cover Ukraine’s needed military materials. 3. Establish an air bridge to Ukraine for the supply of weapons, military equipment, ammunition, fuel. 4. Deploy the armed forces of a Coalition of the Willing to the Western Ukraine to ensure the security of supply of materials and the safety of evacuation of civilians. 5. Legally authorize and provide all-round assistance to volunteers who are ready to defend Ukraine at their own personal risk. 6. Warn the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko against the use of the Belarusian military and Belarusian territory for aggression against Ukraine. 7. Redeploy the armed forces of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia close to the borders of Belarus, and close of land links to the Russian enclave Kaliningrad. 8. Completely embargo all trade with Russia and Belarus, primarily on the export of Russian oil and gas. 9. Cease transport communication with Russia and Belarus by air, sea, and land. 10. Isolate the Russian and Belarusian banking systems internationally. 11. Freeze all assets of the Russian and Belarusian governments. 12. Close airports, sea ports and territory of Western countries for all transportation means belonging to the Russian and Belarussian governments. 13. Exclude Russia and Belarus from international organizations. 14. Refuse any negotiations with Putin on other issues, such as the Iran nuclear deal, except as necessary to stop war. 15. For aggression, the gravest crime against peace, the grossest violation of the UN Charter, initiate the exclusion Putin’s Russia from the UN SC. 16. Open a criminal case against Putin, his Sec Council members, the Gen Staff at the ICC. 17. Prepare for a Nuremberg-style process against all in the Russian and Belarusian leadership responsible for preparation and execution of aggressions against Ukraine and Georgia. 18. Impose international sanctions against the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, a parastatal entity whose present top clergy actively works for the Putin’s regime. 19. Form an international anti-Putin coalition to defend Ukraine. 20. Adopt, through the anti-Putin coalition, a modern analogue of the Atlantic Charter, which proclaims its goal to ensure international peace and security through the complete and unconditional de-Putinization of Russia.
After the barbarous murder of tens of thousands of people by Putin’s troops in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, humanity should have no illusions that if Putin is not stopped today, here and now, the number of victims around the world is bound to get worse.
An admirably comprehensive list, hats off. I'm particularly glad to see Belarus featuring so prominently here, the mention of the Orthodox Church, and opening of the idea of Russia's expulsion from the UN SC.
I would add that an emphasis must be made on the reversibility of many of these actions conditional on better behaviour. Russia has to bleed bleed bleed whilst Putinism holds sway, and then be welcomed back as soon as it does not. We have to be responsive both in the making and unmaking of pariah statuses.
The bar has now switched from the rugby to the live football - it’s feels like a switch from watching a cage fight to an embroidery class.
Very well put. I'm always struck by the sudden feel of pointlessness when the telly switches from international rugby to club football. Meanwhile, there is probably cricket on the other side. All set up for an improbably gripping final session. Jack Leach has a look of Nigel Blackwell.
Compared to rugby, is football even a sport? It’s on a par with waiting for a bus that’s late and might never come.
Bar emptying.
Fear I may have overdone the strikabombs, I have lost the ability to stand up 🥴
Has there ever been a discussion about trans without it descending into accusations of bigotry? I hate to "both sides" it, but both sides have a problem.
But there aren't two sides, are there? I suppose I am what a mindless gammon like @kyf_100 would call anti-trans, but what I am against is opportunistic shits pretending to be trans and screwing things up for women and for the genuinely trans.
Both sides have legitimate and persuasive positions, and I do not intend to endorse or reject either. But it's really not so helpful when discussions immediately descend into accusations of intolerance. It's a particularly bad debate because both sides tend to have a hair trigger for doing it.
via WaPo - Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., recently called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug” and said the Ukrainian government is “incredibly evil,” in remarks that are at odds with the broad bipartisan support for Ukraine among American lawmakers and the public amid Russia’s invasion.
“Remember that Zelensky is a thug. Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt, and it is incredibly evil, and it has been pushing woke ideologies,” Cawthorn told supporters at a recent event in North Carolina, according to video published Thursday by Raleigh-based TV station WRAL.
Rising apparatchik of 45 & Putinist Party USA speaks . . . the pigshit of his heart, mind & soul . . .
"remarks that are at odds with the broad bipartisan support for Ukraine among American lawmakers"
True enough, but above does NOT include Donald Trump and his most ardent followers.
And would add that some who wrap themselves in the Blue & Yellow today, are utter hypocrites who'd rape their own grannies for a $10 bill IF they thought they could get away with it.
Stock had a crowd of 100 or more anonymous masked & hooded demonstrators turn up on the University Open Day to intimate her, and call for her sacking.
"Forced out" or "Intimidated out" is quite a reasonable interpretation, I'd suggest.
It's not something that a 50 year old female academic should have to face, just for disagreeing with someone's opinion and expressing that disagreement publicly.
What about 40 year old or 30 year old female academics?
Emma Barnett has conducted a series of interviews with figures in this 'debate' on Woman's Hour, most recently Maya Forstater and Stock a few weeks ago. Barnett is pretty good at picking away at inconvenient truths for all the interviewees, particularly since I suspect her sympathies tend to be more in one direction.
I listened to the Stock interview while driving on the M8 and may have missed some of the nuance because I was duelling with an arsehole in a white van trying to undertake me, but the gist of it seemed to be that gender self identification was a 'fiction' compared to the necessary and immutable truth of sex, and people who had their feelings hurt by this were snowflakes (I paraphrase). Otoh Barnett pointed out to her that she had left her employer by choice and said university had made statements supporting her, Stock said she had 'felt' unsupported and under threat. Apparently some feelings are more important than others.
I'd say that a lot of the players in this (on both sides) have got high on their own supply of unfamiliar attention, and find it difficult to take that much offered piece of advice to step away from the keyboard.
Nah rubbish. Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community. Indeed many of them are people who have stood solidly behind minorities in that past and continue to do so. They are in no way being abusive towards the transgender community, they are simply putting forward a rational argument on a specific detail. They are certainly not trying to deprive them of a living or drive them out of their jobs.
Those attacking Stock for her views are doing all these things up to and including the threat of physical violence. To the extent that the police warned her to stay away from the University campus and advised her to get bodyguards.
Equating the two as you try to do is dishonest in the extreme.
"Those arguing for the biological basis for sex are not threatening the transgender community."
Depends - as so often - on tone and context.
Take the much profiled "Only women have a cervix".
If you're sat around just generally chewing the fat about body parts and biology - as per any normal Saturday - there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this statement. Because it's true. Or rather it's as close to being true as makes no difference. It's fine and dandy and most certainly not transphobic.
But it isn't *completely* true because there are many thousands of people - and that's just in the UK - who were born female but have transitioned to male. They have a certificate to prove this. They are therefore men. Legally they are. This is a fact. As much of a fact as that they were born female.
Now back to our (usually fine and dandy) statement that "Only women have a cervix" - if you come bowling in with this as a certain and perfect 100% fact in the context of the transgender debate what you are saying (deliberately) is that all those people referred to above, despite having gone through the F to M gender transition process and become men are actually NOT men. They are women. Because they have a cervix. Biology is destiny.
So the 'cervix' statement when delivered in this tone and context looks rather different, doesn't it? It's now nullifying the identity of trans people and effectively saying the whole notion of gender transition is a pretendy nonsense. And this IS transphobic. Or at least it very likely is.
We're on the brink of World War 3, and we're still discussing whether or not women can have penises.
I suspect these two things are more linked than you might think. In terms of Maslow's pyramid of important stuff going on, this one is about as far removed from the basic necessities of life (food, security, a roof over your head) as you can get. The sort of thing you only really debate when absolutely everything else is settled.
However, in focusing on things like the trans issue, we have forgotten to focus on the important things. Food, security, a roof over our heads. All of which may be gone very soon. Truly fiddling while Rome burns.
Wanting to be safe from violence is a pretty basic need. Women wanting to be safe from male violence is a pretty essential need for women. Changing definitions so that women are less safe is pretty bloody important. It comes under "security" in your hierarchy of needs.
Your argument sounds an awful lot like the old "all men are potential rapists" trope. Do we lock up all men because every man is a potential rapist? Of course not. Do we label all trans women as "men" for the same reason? I would hope not, though there are always marginal cases.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
bollox argument from you, if even one of them is a deviant it is one too many.
Has there ever been a discussion about trans without it descending into accusations of bigotry? I hate to "both sides" it, but both sides have a problem.
But there aren't two sides, are there? I suppose I am what a mindless gammon like @kyf_100 would call anti-trans, but what I am against is opportunistic shits pretending to be trans and screwing things up for women and for the genuinely trans.
Both sides have legitimate and persuasive positions, and I do not intend to endorse or reject either. But it's really not so helpful when discussions immediately descend into accusations of intolerance. It's a particularly bad debate because both sides tend to have a hair trigger for doing it.
I still don't see that there are two sides. Are there two sides to the racist/anti-racist debate? Nobody morally sane could be "against" trans people, but there's some tedious but very necessary qualifications that need to be made over safety, over the making of irreversible choices by the young, and over sport. The End.
via WaPo - Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., recently called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “thug” and said the Ukrainian government is “incredibly evil,” in remarks that are at odds with the broad bipartisan support for Ukraine among American lawmakers and the public amid Russia’s invasion.
“Remember that Zelensky is a thug. Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt, and it is incredibly evil, and it has been pushing woke ideologies,” Cawthorn told supporters at a recent event in North Carolina, according to video published Thursday by Raleigh-based TV station WRAL.
Rising apparatchik of 45 & Putinist Party USA speaks . . . the pigshit of his heart, mind & soul . . .
"remarks that are at odds with the broad bipartisan support for Ukraine among American lawmakers"
True enough, but above does NOT include Donald Trump and his most ardent followers.
And would add that some who wrap themselves in the Blue & Yellow today, are utter hypocrites who'd rape their own grannies for a $10 bill IF they thought they could get away with it.
Has there ever been a discussion about trans without it descending into accusations of bigotry? I hate to "both sides" it, but both sides have a problem.
But there aren't two sides, are there? I suppose I am what a mindless gammon like @kyf_100 would call anti-trans, but what I am against is opportunistic shits pretending to be trans and screwing things up for women and for the genuinely trans.
Both sides have legitimate and persuasive positions, and I do not intend to endorse or reject either. But it's really not so helpful when discussions immediately descend into accusations of intolerance. It's a particularly bad debate because both sides tend to have a hair trigger for doing it.
More bollox, Ishmael is right , you cannot give carte blanche to deviants just to make a very very very small minority of transdressers feel a bit better.
Has there ever been a discussion about trans without it descending into accusations of bigotry? I hate to "both sides" it, but both sides have a problem.
But there aren't two sides, are there? I suppose I am what a mindless gammon like @kyf_100 would call anti-trans, but what I am against is opportunistic shits pretending to be trans and screwing things up for women and for the genuinely trans.
Both sides have legitimate and persuasive positions, and I do not intend to endorse or reject either. But it's really not so helpful when discussions immediately descend into accusations of intolerance. It's a particularly bad debate because both sides tend to have a hair trigger for doing it.
I still don't see that there are two sides. Are there two sides to the racist/anti-racist debate? Nobody morally sane could be "against" trans people, but there's some tedious but very necessary qualifications that need to be made over safety, over the making of irreversible choices by the young, and over sport. The End.
"The End"? Oh, that's a pity, I had more to say. How lucky for you "The End" came just at the moment you stopped speaking.
Comments
Comeon Manure…!
500 is a lot, if you add Killed wounded and missing on to that, Russia could be losing 1,000 a day.
Some how clamed of Prisoner seem more credible to me that clams of how many they have killed. how does any one side know how many of the other they have killed? they don't, really, they can count some body's, and say at least X, but there will be a lot more than that, some die in hospital, some get blown up, lots of other issues, but with prisoners you have a person in front of you.
Are the Ukrainians just mackling this up, possibly, but then presumably they are registering theses with the Red cross, so a risk in just making up a number,
it might be just a one off, but also after 2 weeks, and bad weather, seems to be when moral might crack, so maybe its the start of a trend, maybe. Just like trying to determine if a particular pole is an outlier or the start of a trend!!!
Thoughts?
But the Norwegian is faster….at 36.5
Here’s the English collie…looking very good…the stadium erupts after a clear round at 33.4
Now Switzerland..fast but yappy..33.9 but five faults at the long jump
Last dog…the Scottish defending champion..fast…and Crazy from Scotland takes it again with 32.8 and clear
Ludicrous decision by a referee from France
I am drawn to voting Labour next time.
But self-ID is my red line. I will not vote Labour or the Lib Dems if they adopt this as a policy. More medical care for transgender people: yes. Very much yes. Self-ID: no.
Womens' rights are critical for me. I have seen many changes in those rights and how women are treated in my lifetime, most of them for the better. They have been hard fought for. My daughter has a much easier life and working expectations and ambitions than I had when I started out. The sexism that was rife and routine and that I had to endure would shock people now.
So I am never going to vote for parties who do not take this seriously and who propose policies whose consequences they do not understand which will seriously harm and diminish and, in some cases, extinguish womens' rights. Men do not get to say or determine what a woman is. We draw the boundaries and it is up to men to respect our boundaries. And if we want spaces where only females with female bodies are allowed in, not males with male bodies, whatever they choose to call themselves, that's our choice. No means no, after all.
But I will leave you to your fiddle, as Rome indeed burns.
So they've got the Chechen's doing the barrier work in Ukraine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier_troops#Russian-Ukrainian_war
One day. hopefully, we may get to learn about how we knew so much about their intentions.
It would, for a start, imply there was somebody in the Russian government who *had* a mind, and such is clearly not the case.
"Saudi Arabia executes 81 men in one day"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-60722057
It would be fascinating to look inside the minds of the inner circle now. Psychology being what it is, I expect they are going through big swings of mood, oscillating between optimism, utter dejection, existential fear and backs-to-the-wall surges of nationalistic defiance, as are the Ukrainians.
We need the dejection to build up and take over more hours of the day. The other emotions (including fear) are more dangerous and damaging. I suspect the best way to turn officials off the war is a slow, crunching, bloody and financial ruinous stalemate. Not exciting or frightening enough to get the adrenalin pulsing but bad enough to throw off any remaining optimism or hope.
No matter the result, this is a moral victory for England.
But Ukraine does have an intelligence service, and the very first place they are likely to target is Russia. It isn't exactly ludicrous to suggest that individuals within the Russian govenment and senior military provide information to Ukraine for money or on principle, nor that Ukraine for reasons of culture and history, probably finds it easier to get an "in" than others.
Of course, if it was real gold dust, we'd almost certainly not hear about it, and the Ukrainians are of course also sending out a media message. But getting information on the conversations that are going on behind closed doors in Moscow is not "mind reading"; it's intelligence work.
The URL gives you the outline of the story.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/how-boris-johnsons-friendship-with-evgeny-lebedev-deepened-despite-mi6-concerns-56bl5hklb
I imagine a great deal more trans people are assaulted by men than trans people perform assaults on women. But hey ho, carry on with your hobby horse and bigotry.
Oh you should always send for cabinet ministers' MI5 files if you enjoy a good laugh.
The head of MI6 had concerns about Boris Johnson’s friend Evgeny Lebedev almost a decade ago
In 2013, Sir John Sawers repeatedly rejected bid by KGB agent’s son to meet at MI6 HQ
No10 doesn't deny PM knew about incident
Lebedev instructed editor of the Independent, a paper he owned, to get him access to lunch with MI6 chief
Sawers refused, said he'd play no role in Lebedev campaign to infiltrate the establishment
Lebedev pushed back. MI6, aware of significant risks in meeting him, held firm
At the time, Johnson was building a close friendship with Lebedev
The incident was relayed to his most senior aides. One said it’s implausible he didn’t know too
But then London mayor kept seeing Lebedev, repeatedly visiting his villa and castle in Italy
New docs show Johnson opened doors of City Hall to Lebedev, who pitched festival with “substantial support” from Kremlin
He said he’d be “thrilled” if Lebedev’s papers could cover him positively
And he received £7k of flights, accommodation and private cars in three years
During this time Lebedev closely mirrored Putin positions
He suggested MI6 may have killed Alexander Litvinenko, played down invasion of Crimea, said Putin showed leadership in Syria
He said Russians thanked Putin for “unimaginable freedoms, “regained sense of national pride"
Fast Forward to 2019: Johnson said he wanted to give a peerage to Lebedev immediately after becoming PM
One former aide said he was “pathological” about it
Another believed it was a joke at first but said Johnson was determined
In March 2020, House of Lords Appointments Commission advised Johnson against nominating Lebedev
Peers cited national security concerns raised by British intelligence
Per source, PM reacted with disbelief, suggesting Lebedev couldn’t possibly be a risk
He then instructed officials to challenge intelligence assessment,
PM had rejected their analysis and wanted a specific reason why he couldn’t nominate Lebedev
Civil servant says this isn’t how intel works. PM seized on absence of one reason to re-submit nomination
Keir Starmer has written to Lord Bew of Holac asking it to make two unprecedented decisions: review Lebedev’s peerage, publish its advice to the PM
Marina Litvinenko also calls for review
Lebedev refused to comment at all but on Friday denied being a national security risk
https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1502707326452654085
(Not that it was notably accurate, but in its fictionalised depiction of displacement therapy it was centuries ahead of its time.)
The Russian newsagency that I periodically check has some vaguely hopeful posts: the negotiations seem to be moving into a substantive phase.
https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/76582/
https://interfax.com/newsroom/top-stories/76583/
Ireland 15
62 mins
And?
If he wants to stay, what's the mechanism to remove him before 2024?
But you are coming across really badly here to the observer.
The impression you give is that because (in your words) you "imagine" assaults against women by trans people are less common than assaults by men against trans people, being concerned about the former at all constitutes a "hobby horse" that people are "obsessed" with. As well as being incredibly dismissive about actual assaults, your position makes literally no logical sense.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5vwAox7Y4c&t=9s
The information on the attacks via ULTRA was do detailed that the UK knew how many pairs of socks each German paratrooper would be carrying. And their targets. And the timing of the drops. And the fact that on landing the paratroopers would be essentially unarmed for minutes.... Unfortunately Freyberg was hardwired to ignore intelligence, it seems.
But my objection to as-soon-as-a-man-says-he's-a-woman-he's-a-woman is not so much all your very valid and very important objections - but that he just isn't. Simply saying the world is as we want it to be doesn't make it so. You can't simply twist reality or language like that, no matter how well-intentioned you think you're being. And if you're prepared to twist reality from what it so obviously is in that respect, what else might you be getting up to when you're in power? (I use 'you' in the sense of 'one' her, obviously - I'm not talking about Cyclefree.)
Words matter. Reality matters.
Taking that as read I guess it was the conniptions bit I was focussing on.
Your dismissal of the violence suffer at the hands of men OTOH probably qualifies as bigotry. It certainly qualifies as insensitive ignorance.
Interesting story, and clock the Ed the Martyr penny. Pure Picasso.
Both the Akita and the Boston could be contenders here.
I hate to "both sides" it, but both sides have a problem.
“Remember that Zelensky is a thug. Remember that the Ukrainian government is incredibly corrupt, and it is incredibly evil, and it has been pushing woke ideologies,” Cawthorn told supporters at a recent event in North Carolina, according to video published Thursday by Raleigh-based TV station WRAL.
Rising apparatchik of 45 & Putinist Party USA speaks . . . the pigshit of his heart, mind & soul . . .
Meanwhile, there is probably cricket on the other side. All set up for an improbably gripping final session.
Jack Leach has a look of Nigel Blackwell.
This is a European war. Putin wants not only to destroy Ukraine as a state, but to “return” the NATO alliance to the “1997 line in Europe.” Putin stated it in his ultimatum to the West on Dec 17, 2021, in the responses of the Russian MFA on Feb 17, 2022, on March 8 and 9th.
The Kremlin directly names the European states that, according to Putin’s intentions, should undergo so-called de-NATO-ization: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, plus the Baltic and Black Seas.
Putin’s invasion speech on February 24, with “justifications” for his attack on Ukraine, almost completely reproduced the argumentation of Hitler’s speech in the German Reichstag on September 1, 1939, the day Hitler, in agreement with Stalin, launched World War II.
Putin resorted to nuclear blackmail. Not against Ukraine, but NATO countries, whose officials made statements that displeased the Kremlin dictator. The lack of a response from the West to international banditry only whetted the appetite of the KGB maniac.
If Putin is not stopped, then hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people could die. This includes Ukrainians, citizens of countries targeted for “de-NATO-ization,” European allies in NATO, the United States.
Putin must be stopped. In Ukraine. Here and now. The West, and above all Europe, needs to realize a simple, unpleasant truth: If Putin’s missiles, bombers, and tanks are not stopped in Ukraine, they will fall on other European nations.
Unfortunately, US and NATO leadership is largely paralyzed. Therefore assistance to Ukraine should be provided on a bilateral and multilateral basis. It cannot be done by consensus, which is now unattainable, but on the basis of the principles of a Coalition of the Willing.
Such a coalition can include nations regardless of their membership in different blocs. The working basis of such a group might be, for example, members countries of a Joint Expeditionary Force, or JEF, a British-led coalition of 10 European countries.
https://twitter.com/AnIllarionov/status/1502713031758913548
What West can and should do to stop Putin?
1. Revive a lend-lease procedure used during the Second World War for the supply of weapons to Ukraine.
2. Allocate massive financial assistance to fully cover Ukraine’s needed military materials.
3. Establish an air bridge to Ukraine for the supply of weapons, military equipment, ammunition, fuel.
4. Deploy the armed forces of a Coalition of the Willing to the Western Ukraine to ensure the security of supply of materials and the safety of evacuation of civilians.
5. Legally authorize and provide all-round assistance to volunteers who are ready to defend Ukraine at their own personal risk.
6. Warn the Belarusian dictator Lukashenko against the use of the Belarusian military and Belarusian territory for aggression against Ukraine.
7. Redeploy the armed forces of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia close to the borders of Belarus, and close of land links to the Russian enclave Kaliningrad.
8. Completely embargo all trade with Russia and Belarus, primarily on the export of Russian oil and gas.
9. Cease transport communication with Russia and Belarus by air, sea, and land.
10. Isolate the Russian and Belarusian banking systems internationally.
11. Freeze all assets of the Russian and Belarusian governments.
12. Close airports, sea ports and territory of Western countries for all transportation means belonging to the Russian and Belarussian governments.
13. Exclude Russia and Belarus from international organizations.
14. Refuse any negotiations with Putin on other issues, such as the Iran nuclear deal, except as necessary to stop war.
15. For aggression, the gravest crime against peace, the grossest violation of the UN Charter, initiate the exclusion Putin’s Russia from the UN SC.
16. Open a criminal case against Putin, his Sec Council members, the Gen Staff at the ICC.
17. Prepare for a Nuremberg-style process against all in the Russian and Belarusian leadership responsible for preparation and execution of aggressions against Ukraine and Georgia.
18. Impose international sanctions against the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church, a parastatal entity whose present top clergy actively works for the Putin’s regime.
19. Form an international anti-Putin coalition to defend Ukraine.
20. Adopt, through the anti-Putin coalition, a modern analogue of the Atlantic Charter, which proclaims its goal to ensure international peace and security through the complete and unconditional de-Putinization of Russia.
After the barbarous murder of tens of thousands of people by Putin’s troops in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, humanity should have no illusions that if Putin is not stopped today, here and now, the number of victims around the world is bound to get worse.
I'm particularly glad to see Belarus featuring so prominently here, the mention of the Orthodox Church, and opening of the idea of Russia's expulsion from the UN SC.
I would add that an emphasis must be made on the reversibility of many of these actions conditional on better behaviour. Russia has to bleed bleed bleed whilst Putinism holds sway, and then be welcomed back as soon as it does not. We have to be responsive both in the making and unmaking of pariah statuses.
Bar emptying.
Fear I may have overdone the strikabombs, I have lost the ability to stand up 🥴
And would add that some who wrap themselves in the Blue & Yellow today, are utter hypocrites who'd rape their own grannies for a $10 bill IF they thought they could get away with it.
Little Lindsay Graham springs to mind.
Oh, that's a pity, I had more to say. How lucky for you "The End" came just at the moment you stopped speaking.
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