Assuming Labour can cut immigration substantially - and I think they will because even they seem to understand what a big problem it is for them - and do something on the boats, then they will be able to go after Reform more considerably.
I’m not convinced this “Farage will privatise the NHS” line is a goer myself.
Lots of Labour activists and candidates are going with it on our local Facebook groups. People aren’t buying it. They would be better off talking about what they would do to improve the lives of people in County Durham rather than witter about the NHs. Same goes for Reform with the stop the boats stuff.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
All good things come to an end, and sadly this week we waved goodbye to the Mark Steyn cruise, which wrapped up its tour of Spain and Portugal on Sunday.
Lucky guests on the luxurious liner - known as the Celebrity Apex - enjoyed some fantastic perks courtesy of the Canadian author, who left GB News in 2023 after his knuckles were rapped by Ofcom for promoting dodgy COVID vaccine scepticism.
As well as having direct ocean access to his views on the invasion of Iraq (pro) and Muslim immigration (anti), guests are also treated to tapings of The Mark Steyn Show and live versions of Mark Steyn Club features, including Sunday Poem, Tales for Our Time and Steyn's Song of the Week. All this for the bargain basement price of $3,500 a cabin – and upwards.
Guests also enjoyed some VIP speakers who came along for the ride (and the paycheck). Those guests included Lawrence "Lozza" Fox, former Miss GB Leilani Dowding, Dan Wootton, Naomi Wolf, Allison Pearson and Calvin Robinson.
Some of the finest brains from both sides of the Atlantic, while stuck on a vessel you cannot leave without descending to your own watery grave?
Sign us up!
@Taz, Popbitch is paywalled since around February this year. Is there a way of getting around it?
You have to sign up for the weekly email, I've been subscribed for over twenty years.
A mere 20 years - I think I've been getting them since at least 1999. The long demised Popbitch forum was where I got my 9/11 news from as the BBC and most other websites had died under the strain but the PB Gods were sysadmin Gods who knew how to keep the server going even when the Rev was creating problems..
I signed up at the same time as I signed up to Holy Moly, long since gone to nanna and the angles.
It was before I moved up here in 2001. Can’t remember when though
And this is where extremism continues to rear its ugly head. Lets play your scenario: Trans woman uses female toilet Well-funded activist group sues
How would the case go?
The complainant (assuming standing) would win and be awarded damages. How else do you think it will go?
I appreciate you think that there is some woolly compromise, but the law is the law and there is no "your friend Lauren" exception. According to the law as it now stands "your friend Lauren" can piss in the Ladies only until somebody brings a case, and then she'll have to piss in the Gents until she dies.
I will never understand the belief, prevalent on PB, that people think the law doesn't apply to them.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Presumably Parliament could pass a law saying that you can change your sex.
This point gets to the heart of the politics. The SC has only declared on what the law as it stands means; that is the SC's job. It has to make sense of the doings of parliament from about 1200 onwards, when parliament doesn't always understand or declare itself.
Government is hiding behind the judgment as if it is the law of the Medes and Persians. That is because government (and most of parliament) want to pretend that this closes an issue. In truth of course it is government and parliament's job to decide the matters.
SFAICS the broad issue divides progressives into two groups - one might call them traditional feminists and wokeists. I don't think Labour want to poke a stick into that at the moment. I sense that quite a lot of Labour people are actually confused. I have some sympathy with them.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
You're implying that people should be considerate of others' reactions based on whether or not they 'pass'.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
My opinion is he should use the male toilets, as he looks like a male, he probably has the male bits and I suspect the police would be called soon enough if he went into a female toilet. This obviously flies in the face of the supreme court ruling.
6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
The RN would 100% do tow backs if ordered. If only because the CinC, Fleet who pulled it off would be a certainty for elevation to 1SL. If it worked, it would be career steroids for all involved so they would give it a red hot go.
The Australian Navy did 30+ tow backs without drowning anybody. After that, they didn't have to do any more because the boats stopped. So the processes and techniques for doing it are well understood and tested.
As I understand it the navy already said no because we don't have the suitable equipment to do so.
The RN never said no. The Guardian managed to find anonymous source in the Navy who said they were not sure it would work. They have never been tasked with it and, here's the thing about being in the Navy, you don't get to refuse to do something because you don't fancy it or think it's useless.
The only equipment needed is an OPV (the Navy has plenty of these) to spot the boats, 6-8 mad lads with small arms in a RHIB and a lifeboat into which to decant the luckless refugees.
The only reason the government doesn't do it is the same reason the tories never did it. They don't have the nerve to initiate it or the fortitude to see it through.
Meh. Remember that my starter for 10 is to tell the shouty extremists on both sides of the debate to STFU. I don't think Cyclefree is one.
I think I understand the principle of the "trans women are men are a threat to women" argument, even if I disagree with parts of it. And I'm certainly not here to mansplain.
My interpretation of it is that for many women a line had been crossed. Lesbians who had to fight for their rights being pissed off that now a bloody man could say they are a woman and therefore a lesbian. Women who have had to fight for their rights to vote and for equality and basic rights such as financial independence seeing men encroaching. I get it.
My point is that having won this battle, I hope that we can refocus on the basic rights of women to be treated with the same basic respect and dignity as men. Which includes the right not to be assaulted and raped and murdered by men. Whilst I can understand why some women would feel threatened by some trans men in a changing room, removing said trans men does not make them safe.
The basic reality lost in the screeching row is this - if a man wants to attack a woman in a female space there is no need to faff around pretending to be trans. They just get on with it. The "we are threatened" argument seemed to ignore that they were threatened before and are threatened now...
The GC goal has always been to use the threat of assault by “men pretending to be women” as a crowbar to eliminate trans rights. Obviously women were threatened before & threatened now & this ruling makes little to no difference to that reality. But making a difference to that reality was never the point: eliminating transwomen was the point.
Cyclefree using the phrase “trans identified men” is GC phrasing through & through. It’s good to see her being open about it to be honest: she’s spent years being coy on here, dropping the wink here & there to let like minded people know her true views.
Trans rights include the right not to be discriminated against because of being trans.
Trans rights do not include the right to go into the space of those of the opposite sex.
Her phrasing seems entirely accurate and reasonable and doesn't impede upon trans rights at all.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
You're implying that people should be considerate of others' reactions based on whether or not they 'pass'.
As an inveterate asker of questions you seem a little disdainful of the questions of others. *In best williamglen voice* Which toilet do you think Balian should use?
I found Farage’s move to the left especially on nationalising steel, praising trade unions interesting. The “re-industrialisation” message is something that worked very effectively for Trump and Johnson.
I fear for the job of one Ed Miliband who I think is probably going to be severely undermined. I just cannot see how the government don’t allow new oil and gas licenses now.
Although Ed Miliband avoided a Reform candidate last time, UKIP got 22% of the vote in Doncaster North in 2015 so it will certainly be on the Reform target list
Pennsylvania's manufacturers have had a bad month, I wonder if something might have caused it:
The diffusion index for current general activity dropped 39 points to -26.4 in April, its lowest reading since April 2023 (see Chart 1). Nearly 39 percent of the firms reported decreases in general activity this month, while 13 percent reported increases; 41 percent reported no change. The index for new orders also fell sharply, from 8.7 in March to -34.2 this month, its lowest reading since April 2020. The current shipments index decreased 11 points to -9.1 this month.
The firms reported mostly steady employment overall, as the employment index fell 20 points to 0.2 in April. Most firms (84 percent) reported no change in employment, while small, nearly identical shares reported increases and decreases (6 percent). The average workweek index fell sharply, from 8.7 to -12.7.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
You're implying that people should be considerate of others' reactions based on whether or not they 'pass'.
As an inveterate asker of questions you seem a little disdainful of the questions of others. *In best williamglen voice* Which toilet do you think Balian should use?
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Presumably Parliament could pass a law saying that you can change your sex.
This point gets to the heart of the politics. The SC has only declared on what the law as it stands means; that is the SC's job. It has to make sense of the doings of parliament from about 1200 onwards, when parliament doesn't always understand or declare itself.
Government is hiding behind the judgment as if it is the law of the Medes and Persians. That is because government (and most of parliament) want to pretend that this closes an issue. In truth of course it is government and parliament's job to decide the matters.
SFAICS the broad issue divides progressives into two groups - one might call them traditional feminists and wokeists. I don't think Labour want to poke a stick into that at the moment. I sense that quite a lot of Labour people are actually confused. I have some sympathy with them.
Wouldn’t demanding politicians pass a carefully thought out law, based on principles, be a massive violation of the politicians basic rights?
- the right not to think coherently - the right to take both sides of the argument, depending on who they are talking to - the right not to say things that might be unpopular on Twatter - the right not to take a stand on anything - Etc
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
It is an interesting question. I agree with the judgement - to have concluded anything else would be to indulge in a fantasy. However, I still maintain that in toilet and changing facilities, the rule should be thus:
1. Ladies Loos Women, surgically transitioned MTF transsexuals. 2. Mens Loos Men, surgically transitioned FTM transsexuals. 3. Disabled Loos Everyone already permitted, and those in transition
Some form of id would be granted to fully transitioned transsexuals after their reassignment is complete to show in the case of challenge. Another form might be required for those in transition in the case of challenge there, though I suspect that would be non-existent, as we all understand someone using a disabled loo might not look physically disabled.
I surmise that the risk of sexual assault to women from biological men but living as women and without a penis, would be virtually nothing. I am open for the reverse to be shown. I suspect it's probably the same risk as from other women.
I appreciate that that is me as a man trying to dictate who goes in women's spaces, but it is just an opinion.
This is not a supporting argument, but there is a historical precedent of emasculated males sharing women's spaces - eunuchs in harems.
I think that by pushing this, trans activists have polarised the debate and actually put fully-transitioned MTF transsexuals in a worse position than they were in before, which is a common characteristic of all such activist grifters.
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
You're implying that people should be considerate of others' reactions based on whether or not they 'pass'.
As an inveterate asker of questions you seem a little disdainful of the questions of others. *In best williamglen voice* Which toilet do you think Balian should use?
It would be cruel to make him use a urinal.
I'm not sure what the pole vaulter's arangements are, but I believe an operating penis (as far as peeing anyway) can be constructed?
And this is where extremism continues to rear its ugly head. Lets play your scenario: Trans woman uses female toilet Well-funded activist group sues
How would the case go?
The complainant (assuming standing) would win and be awarded damages. How else do you think it will go?
I appreciate you think that there is some woolly compromise, but the law is the law and there is no "your friend Lauren" exception. According to the law as it now stands "your friend Lauren" can piss in the Ladies only until somebody brings a case, and then she'll have to piss in the Gents until she dies.
I will never understand the belief, prevalent on PB, that people think the law doesn't apply to them.
You're avoiding the question.
For damages to be awarded, the complainant would need to show the venue acting negligently somehow. So again, how does the case go? How does the complainant show that the venue didn't suitably police admission to the ladies loo?
Its absurd. It's *the application* of the law which is the problem, not the law.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
You're implying that people should be considerate of others' reactions based on whether or not they 'pass'.
I'm saying it's a complicated situation. What gives me hope is that most people, most of the time, are empathetic towards each other and find solutions that work locally.
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
No, I want the issue solved and put to bed, as it has been in Australia. Where they put the necessary policies in place (against screaming leftist objections naturally), none of which involved handwringing global summits to discuss the 'pan-pacific migrant crisis'.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
Sigh, this is giving Russia the green light to finish the job.
US ready to walk away from peace efforts within days, Rubio warns
Some alarming rhetoric coming from the US secretary of state this morning, following his meeting with European partners in Paris yesterday.
Marco Rubio said just moments ago from the French capital that the US will walk away from its efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine unless there are clear signs of progress in the coming days.
"We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this [peace deal] is doable in the short term, because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on," he said.
"We're not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end," he added.
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
No, I want the issue solved and put to bed, as it has been in Australia. Where they put the necessary policies in place (against screaming leftist objections naturally), none of which involved handwringing global summits to discuss the 'pan-pacific migrant crisis'.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
The English channel is much, much narrower than the seas around Australia.
Not all overseas solutions are the same. Are we talking about processing during an asylum claim, final destination after a claim was successful, final destination after a claim was unsuccessful, or what?
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
You're implying that people should be considerate of others' reactions based on whether or not they 'pass'.
I'm saying it's a complicated situation. What gives me hope is that most people, most of the time, are empathetic towards each other and find solutions that work locally.
It's because of the other cases that we need laws, so it's better to use them as a basis for working out what the law should be rather than wishful thinking based on how people ought to behave.
Hope this is a sign @Cyclefree is feeling a bit better.
Absolutely, and it's a powerful piece. I feel like I sit at the crossroads on this issue. I have a wife and a daughter and have seen and heard too many examples of men who tret women and girls as chattel. Protecting women from the predatory nature of certain men is something I actively support.
I also have involvement in the trans area. I'm bisexual so I'm part of the LGBTetc community. My eldest (non-binary but biologically male) had a trans boyfriend for a while and they're still close friends. A former colleague and good friend is a trans woman saving up for surgery.
My basic rule with rights is that if they trample on the human rights of other people they aren't rights. I support both the need for female spaces (my wife despises open changing even when everyone has the same genitalia) and to provide dignity and respect for people who genuinely have dysmorphia and are medically working their way through transition.
The problem with the trans debate is the screaming extremists at both ends of the spectrum. Absolutism is usually wrong - issues are not black and white and this one is no different. I do have to float a question though - in the race to be inclusive have we not lost sight of who we are being inclusive of?
I can see a world of difference between people who are seriously and medically altering their bodies to become the gender they believe they really are, and a bloke wearing a frock and a wig. But the trans rights row seems to lump everyone together.
Yes, but there's a problem. In a finite world, rights are likely to trample over each other.
Take toilets. There aren't enough as it is, so the idea that two categories should become three is pretty unlikely. What happens in the meantime?
At the risk of triggering the eminently triggerable guardians of lavvies and changing rooms, a reminder that there are many places where no one gives a feck. This is the single lav for all customers in The Pub, the Valetta hostelry where Ollie Reed drank and breathed his last. What Ollie's views on Trans people were I don't know, but I suspect not giving a feck may have been involved.
In France recently and the restaurant also only had the one mixed sex toilets - no big surprise over there, but what did surprise me was they also had urinals right next to the wash basins. Can't imagine many Brits happy with that set up.
It certainly used to be common in Belgian bars, you walked past the urinals to get to the cubicles.
I remember the old ‘lay and display’ toilets in Germany. Yuk
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
No, I want the issue solved and put to bed, as it has been in Australia. Where they put the necessary policies in place (against screaming leftist objections naturally), none of which involved handwringing global summits to discuss the 'pan-pacific migrant crisis'.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
Why do you purposefully try to pretend that Rwanda was the same as the other countries solutions?
Other countries discuss and occasionally implement overseas processing. Undocumented migrants arrive, are removed to a processing centre and if successful are released into the general population.
That was NOT the Rwanda scheme. Rwanda was send the migrants to Rwanda. No processing, no possibility of being successful and being released into the British population.
I have no problem with the concept of a processing centre. Rwanda was not one.
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
No, I want the issue solved and put to bed, as it has been in Australia. Where they put the necessary policies in place (against screaming leftist objections naturally), none of which involved handwringing global summits to discuss the 'pan-pacific migrant crisis'.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
The missing piece of the puzzle compared to Australia is the British equivalent of Christmas Island. The logistics of sending refugees abroad is not simple and you need somewhere beyond the reach of the legal-industrial complex to warehouse them while it gets organised.
Rwanda was only one element of the Australian solution and, on its own, probably wouldn't have been workable.
Big Rish and the Gang knew all this of course. The entire policy was just something to distract red wall morons from the fact that 95%+ of the Brexitwave immigration were legal entries that the tories could have reduced any time they wanted.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
You're implying that people should be considerate of others' reactions based on whether or not they 'pass'.
I'm saying it's a complicated situation. What gives me hope is that most people, most of the time, are empathetic towards each other and find solutions that work locally.
It's because of the other cases that we need laws, so it's better to use them as a basis for working out what the law should be rather than wishful thinking based on how people ought to behave.
I agree we need laws. Laws, however, are based on how people ought to behave, so I don't get your sarky final comment.
Sigh, this is giving Russia the green light to finish the job.
US ready to walk away from peace efforts within days, Rubio warns
Some alarming rhetoric coming from the US secretary of state this morning, following his meeting with European partners in Paris yesterday.
Marco Rubio said just moments ago from the French capital that the US will walk away from its efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine unless there are clear signs of progress in the coming days.
"We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this [peace deal] is doable in the short term, because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on," he said.
"We're not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end," he added.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
You're implying that people should be considerate of others' reactions based on whether or not they 'pass'.
I'm saying it's a complicated situation. What gives me hope is that most people, most of the time, are empathetic towards each other and find solutions that work locally.
It's because of the other cases that we need laws, so it's better to use them as a basis for working out what the law should be rather than wishful thinking based on how people ought to behave.
I agree we need laws. Laws, however, are based on how people ought to behave, so I don't get your sarky final comment.
For example, if a non-passing transwoman is in a female toilet and making their presence known in a way that could be perceived to be intimidating, whose side should the law be on? Should it back this person's display of dominance because they have every right to be there?
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
No, I want the issue solved and put to bed, as it has been in Australia. Where they put the necessary policies in place (against screaming leftist objections naturally), none of which involved handwringing global summits to discuss the 'pan-pacific migrant crisis'.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
Why do you purposefully try to pretend that Rwanda was the same as the other countries solutions?
Other countries discuss and occasionally implement overseas processing. Undocumented migrants arrive, are removed to a processing centre and if successful are released into the general population.
That was NOT the Rwanda scheme. Rwanda was send the migrants to Rwanda. No processing, no possibility of being successful and being released into the British population.
I have no problem with the concept of a processing centre. Rwanda was not one.
You're wrong, many other countries scheme are processing and if successful are released into the general population of the safe country they've been processed in rather than repatriated.
And this is where extremism continues to rear its ugly head. Lets play your scenario: Trans woman uses female toilet Well-funded activist group sues
How would the case go?
The complainant (assuming standing) would win and be awarded damages. How else do you think it will go?
I appreciate you think that there is some woolly compromise, but the law is the law and there is no "your friend Lauren" exception. According to the law as it now stands "your friend Lauren" can piss in the Ladies only until somebody brings a case, and then she'll have to piss in the Gents until she dies.
I will never understand the belief, prevalent on PB, that people think the law doesn't apply to them.
...For damages to be awarded, the complainant would need to show the venue acting negligently somehow. So again, how does the case go? How does the complainant show that the venue didn't suitably police admission to the ladies loo?...
By demonstrating that "your friend Lauren" used them.
This is (in a nutshell) the case in Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife and Beth Upton, a case which is now widely expected to be resolved against the trans woman Beth Upton and her employers NHS Fife.
If Beth Upton had changed her name to "your friend Lauren" maybe she would have gotten away with it, but for some reason she failed to avail herself of that protection. Next time perhaps she could acquire a LibDem friend to act as a legal shield.
Off-topic, I'm back to applying for a business bank account I can pay this HMRC cheque into. Starling said no previously and whilst you can reapply they will maintain the previous answer. Bank of Scotland is next (as I am sat in one of their former banks).
It pulls up information supposedly off Companies House. Which is wrong. Application stops as I have to update CH. But I can't as CH is right already. It's their system.
Sigh. Business banking has been a nightmare to manage ever since I started in business 5 years ago.
I found Farage’s move to the left especially on nationalising steel, praising trade unions interesting. The “re-industrialisation” message is something that worked very effectively for Trump and Johnson.
I fear for the job of one Ed Miliband who I think is probably going to be severely undermined. I just cannot see how the government don’t allow new oil and gas licenses now.
They should have allowed new gas licenses anyway. Currently we’re expensively importing LNG from elsewhere, at significant environmental cost. The way to zero-carbon is to reduce our usage, not hypocritically refuse to produce the stuff whilst buying it in from elsewhere & simultaneously crowing about how green we are.
The problem with this argument is that we simply don't have much gas left to extract. New licenses would make in an immaterial difference to the amount we have to import over the next 10-15 years.
Otherwise, I agree. We actually have quite cheap gas compared with our European neighbours, while electricity is expensive. Let's transfer the tax burden to gas and accelerate our transition to electricity.
Can you point me to a good source of such comparisons for European countries?
It is a commonplace in anti-environmental politics to cite as commonplaces "we have the most (expensive/taxed) (gas/electricity/fuel) in Europe." Usually there us a variable percentage of wibble involved.
Finding comparisons at wholesale or retail level, or by fuel, can be tricky.
On topic, yesterday we discussed Lib Dem views within the Trans debate.
Here is a piece on Lib Dem Voice (for anyone down a hole, perhaps the key platform for activists since 2007 about the verdict, with a few comments. To it catches the tenor of the public conversation amongst activists quite well. That is, a focus on the perceived rights of trans people being the main question, and a bit of a feeling of the Leadership holding back.
There will be other views, but I think this is how I judge the positioning of more vocal activists. That includes, imo, the view of the editor of LDV.
My view? At federal conference last year I attended the stalls of both sides of this debate. And found much I agreed with at both stalls!
Ed Davey said that we accept the judgement in full - sensible as its the Supreme Court. The ruling provides a very useful definition of "what is a woman" so that we can now move on from the tireless virtue signalling about whether a woman can have a penis or not.
What do I think the party should do? Campaign on Something Else.
What was the useful definition of 'what a woman is' in the ruling?
On a point of order - does @Cyclefree and her fellow activists accept that this ruling does nothing for female safety? Women get dragged into toilets and changing rooms by men and then get assaulted, raped, murdered. Men already had access to womens spaces because the rapey murdery ones just barge in. And still will.
The threat to women was not trans women, it's men. I hope that the ruling allows us to move on from this minority sport and go back to basics which is raising young men to understand that their rights over women are zero.
I doubt it: Cyclefree will simply assert that transwomen are men & therefore a threat to women. Look at the actual content of her header article:
So what is this at heart about? Safeguarding
Convincing people that transwomen are threat to women has been the single most successful part of the Gender Crit PR assault on trans rights. She’s not going to give up on it now, is she?
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons and other women's spaces.
This person was killed prior to the clarification by the excellent Supreme Court.
What makes you think this will happen more and more simply because the Supreme Court has ruled to protect women’s spaces ?
You do not think all the hatred and lack of understanding towards trans people we are seeing, coupled with the "They're a threat!!!!" shite, will not cause problems for them?
Sigh, this is giving Russia the green light to finish the job.
US ready to walk away from peace efforts within days, Rubio warns
Some alarming rhetoric coming from the US secretary of state this morning, following his meeting with European partners in Paris yesterday.
Marco Rubio said just moments ago from the French capital that the US will walk away from its efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine unless there are clear signs of progress in the coming days.
"We need to figure out here now, within a matter of days, whether this [peace deal] is doable in the short term, because if it's not, then I think we're just going to move on," he said.
"We're not going to continue with this endeavour for weeks and months on end," he added.
Unless the Russians capture Kyiv they aren't finishing the job and unless Ukraine forces the Russians out of the Donbass they aren't either.
So no peace deal just means continued stalemate
And continued war. Which, unless something changes, Russia will win, especially if they have North Korean and Chinese or Kazak support. Incidentally I rather doubt the weight of the last two. What needs to happen is for Putin to die. His colours are nailed to the mast, as I understand it, but whether his successors will be so obtuse I doubt. Although, of course, Kyiv/Kiev means a lot to Russians, especially the Orthodox Church.
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons.
Facts - not PR.
Remarkable that Fry was campaigning 80 years after she died. Can't keep a good woman down!
Cyclefree using the phrase “trans identified men” is GC phrasing through & through. It’s good to see her being open about it to be honest: she’s spent years being coy on here, dropping the wink here & there to let like minded people know her true views.
In the past two days several posters have emerged from the 'defending womens rights' smokescreen to show their true colours; an utter determination to denigrate and marginalise people who already have a difficult path in life.
I have to wonder how many of these people have trans friends or family. Few or none, I suspect. It's much easier to de-humanise an entire section of society if you don't actually have to experience their humanity face-to-face.
For what it’s worth @Cyclefree my girlfriend (who is not very politically engaged) is very upset with the Supreme Court decision. A lot of my other women (not trans women) friends are also upset with it.
This person was killed prior to the clarification by the excellent Supreme Court.
What makes you think this will happen more and more simply because the Supreme Court has ruled to protect women’s spaces ?
You do not think all the hatred and lack of understanding towards trans people we are seeing, coupled with the "They're a threat!!!!" shite, will not cause problems for them?
When it comes to single sex spaces, all males in a female space are a threat.
And that includes biological males who identify as female.
As the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has said, trans people may need a "third space" such as gender neutral facilities available to them. They do not need access to single sex spaces.
For what it’s worth @Cyclefree my girlfriend (who is not very politically engaged) is very upset with the Supreme Court decision. A lot of my other women (not trans women) friends are also upset with it.
It isn’t a men vs women issue.
Mrs J - very much a feminist - is also furious about it.
Sadly, I've never been able to convince her to contribute on here. Not because of us, but because she likes to maintain a very low social media profile. Which is fair enough.
For what it’s worth @Cyclefree my girlfriend (who is not very politically engaged) is very upset with the Supreme Court decision. A lot of my other women (not trans women) friends are also upset with it.
It isn’t a men vs women issue.
Polling shows that the gender critical campaigns have worked very well on the public - they are becoming more trans-sceptic over time, but also that women continue to have less anti-trans views than men.
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons.
Facts - not PR.
Thank you for making my argument for me more effectively than I ever could Cyclefree.
Of course it’s PR: You cherry pick a specific set of emotive cases to achieve a particular goal. That the victims of these awful people could have been protected by the actions of the authorities simply based on their history of sexual assault is besides the point as far as you are concerned: what you’re interested is highlighting the trans-ness of the perpetrator in order to make women fear transwomen as a class.
(As I’ve said before on PB: people with a history of sexual assault perpetrated on women should never have been put in low-security female prisons. This was so obviously the case that I was astonished at the time that the prison service allowed it to happen& was something I agreed with you on 100%.)
On topic, yesterday we discussed Lib Dem views within the Trans debate.
Here is a piece on Lib Dem Voice (for anyone down a hole, perhaps the key platform for activists since 2007 about the verdict, with a few comments. To it catches the tenor of the public conversation amongst activists quite well. That is, a focus on the perceived rights of trans people being the main question, and a bit of a feeling of the Leadership holding back.
There will be other views, but I think this is how I judge the positioning of more vocal activists. That includes, imo, the view of the editor of LDV.
My view? At federal conference last year I attended the stalls of both sides of this debate. And found much I agreed with at both stalls!
Ed Davey said that we accept the judgement in full - sensible as its the Supreme Court. The ruling provides a very useful definition of "what is a woman" so that we can now move on from the tireless virtue signalling about whether a woman can have a penis or not.
What do I think the party should do? Campaign on Something Else.
What was the useful definition of 'what a woman is' in the ruling?
On a point of order - does @Cyclefree and her fellow activists accept that this ruling does nothing for female safety? Women get dragged into toilets and changing rooms by men and then get assaulted, raped, murdered. Men already had access to womens spaces because the rapey murdery ones just barge in. And still will.
The threat to women was not trans women, it's men. I hope that the ruling allows us to move on from this minority sport and go back to basics which is raising young men to understand that their rights over women are zero.
I doubt it: Cyclefree will simply assert that transwomen are men & therefore a threat to women. Look at the actual content of her header article:
So what is this at heart about? Safeguarding
Convincing people that transwomen are threat to women has been the single most successful part of the Gender Crit PR assault on trans rights. She’s not going to give up on it now, is she?
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons and other women's spaces.
Facts - not PR. --------------------------------------
Strikes me, and I'm really not being facetious, that we need a special prison for men who identify as women.
And, O/T, it's good to see you around this morning, Ms Cyclefree.
As the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has said, trans people may need a "third space" such as gender neutral facilities available to them. They do not need access to single sex spaces.
Maybe they should be required to paint a Star of David and "juden" on the door of those facilities.
Oh wait, sorry, getting my brands of fascism mixed up.
An old friend of mine, a veteran of the Steppes and Pamirs, told me that if you want a guaranteed good meal in these parts, find a themed British (or Irish pub) and order a curry (they are usually on the menu)
He’s right. Had one last night at Almaty’s “Shakespeare’s Head”. I almost cried. Proper spicing. Great nan bread. Fresh samosas. Lovely Rogan Josh. Heat heat heat
And excellent beers and G&Ts and football on the telly
From the "small things" department, I can report that ChatGPT has discovered the existence of black shorts, on being told about them.
Not quite there yet - real action men have a rank, and eagle eyes are required for "watching you".
Is there no longer a Prohibition against AI images?
The prohibition only applies to you given your past form, once out of 100 comments on PB 40 of them was you posting AI images.
OGH considered it spam by you and very disrespectful that he wrote a thread and you derailed it with your obsession.
So, uniquely, I’m not allowed to talk about AI. Nor am I allowed to post AI images. Just me
Also I’m uniquely not to talk about white people in a certain way and also not allowed REDACTED
It’s lucky I have a new place to go
It’s your history of exposing our good hosts to the possibility of being sued for contempt of court and/or libel, despite being asked nicely to watch what you say that has resulted in you being singled out in this fashion as you well know.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
It is an interesting question. I agree with the judgement - to have concluded anything else would be to indulge in a fantasy. However, I still maintain that in toilet and changing facilities, the rule should be thus:
1. Ladies Loos Women, surgically transitioned MTF transsexuals. 2. Mens Loos Men, surgically transitioned FTM transsexuals. 3. Disabled Loos Everyone already permitted, and those in transition
Some form of id would be granted to fully transitioned transsexuals after their reassignment is complete to show in the case of challenge. Another form might be required for those in transition in the case of challenge there, though I suspect that would be non-existent, as we all understand someone using a disabled loo might not look physically disabled.
I surmise that the risk of sexual assault to women from biological men but living as women and without a penis, would be virtually nothing. I am open for the reverse to be shown. I suspect it's probably the same risk as from other women.
I appreciate that that is me as a man trying to dictate who goes in women's spaces, but it is just an opinion.
This is not a supporting argument, but there is a historical precedent of emasculated males sharing women's spaces - eunuchs in harems.
I think that by pushing this, trans activists have polarised the debate and actually put fully-transitioned MTF transsexuals in a worse position than they were in before, which is a common characteristic of all such activist grifters
That has a certain practical logic to it, given the very low numbers of post-surgery transsexuals.
On the identity question, it seems to me that post-surgery transsexuals should be able to adopt the M or F for their sex on their driving licences etc. That won't please all campaigners, but to me it is a proposal of practical logic as part of a modus vivendi.
On this you are, I think, overoptimistic:
Some form of id would be granted to fully transitioned transsexuals after their reassignment is complete to show in the case of challenge. Another form might be required for those in transition in the case of challenge there, though I suspect that would be non-existent, as we all understand someone using a disabled loo might not look physically disabled.
It is absolutely routine for non-visibly-disabled people to be challenged about whether they have a disability, and it is a right pain for those people. It is rife around eg Blue Badge Parking spaces and people using mobility aids in 'pedestrian areas' (where they usually qualify as a pedestrian).
We get an identical thing with "Why are there only X, usually 5 or 6 or 9, disabled people in the House of Commons", when the real number is usually more like 40 or 50 or 70. I haven't taken the time yet to add up something close to the real number this time - I got to about 30 within a week of the Election, but more always reveal themselves.
A case I cited here (I have a photo) was a wheelchair using friend who was challenged in St Pancras Station whilst she was towing her manual wheelchair behind her E-Brompton at walking pace. The Officer seemed to think he was Jesus, and could instruct her to pick up her mobility aid and walk. TBF St Pancras staff are generally good.
Rhetorical tolerance for non-visibly-disabled, or even visibly disabled, people vanishes very promptly when there is even a modest interest the other way. When the person needing to be tolerant is even slightly inconvenienced, the hostile blowback can be intense.
As the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has said, trans people may need a "third space" such as gender neutral facilities available to them. They do not need access to single sex spaces.
Maybe they should be required to paint a Star of David and "juden" on the door of those facilities.
Oh wait, sorry, getting my brands of fascism mixed up.
Well, I did think of suggesting they use the disabled loo. But the optics aren't great!
An old friend of mine, a veteran of the Steppes and Pamirs, told me that if you want a guaranteed good meal in these parts, find a themed British (or Irish pub) and order a curry (they are usually on the menu)
He’s right. Had one last night at Almaty’s “Shakespeare’s Head”. I almost cried. Proper spicing. Great nan bread. Fresh samosas. Lovely Rogan Josh. Heat heat heat
And excellent beers and G&Ts and football on the telly
Or you could go to Kutir and have the proper thing. Much closer too.
On topic: This is a victory for GC campaigners and those who fought for it are entitled to celebrate. Their viewpoint (biology at birth trumps gender identity) is validated in law. The GRA has lost its meaning and force. The losers are trans people. The ruling effectively changes their default treatment in society from inclusion to exclusion. It's a major blow for them. It will make their lives worse. Nobody should be in any doubt about this.
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
No, I want the issue solved and put to bed, as it has been in Australia. Where they put the necessary policies in place (against screaming leftist objections naturally), none of which involved handwringing global summits to discuss the 'pan-pacific migrant crisis'.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
The missing piece of the puzzle compared to Australia is the British equivalent of Christmas Island. The logistics of sending refugees abroad is not simple and you need somewhere beyond the reach of the legal-industrial complex to warehouse them while it gets organised.
Rwanda was only one element of the Australian solution and, on its own, probably wouldn't have been workable.
Big Rish and the Gang knew all this of course. The entire policy was just something to distract red wall morons from the fact that 95%+ of the Brexitwave immigration were legal entries that the tories could have reduced any time they wanted.
Once again, I will propose my solution - West Falkland. Anyone arriving without proper paperwork gets sent there.
British so no trouble with courts.
It should be a state of the art facility with good accommodation. No need for barbed wire because there's nowhere else to go. You can't leave except for the ferry and the operator will know all the residents personally and can just turn anyone else away.
You are free to leave any time you like, once you get another passport.
The weather is crap so anyone who doesn't want to be there won't tolerate it but genuine asylum seekers will be happy to wait for a year.
(Ideally this should also be accompanied by measures to make it easier for genuine asylum seekers to seek it nearer home).
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons.
Facts - not PR.
Thank you for making my argument for me more effectively than I ever could Cyclefree.
Of course it’s PR: You cherry pick a specific set of emotive cases to achieve a particular goal. That the victims of these awful people could have been protected by the actions of the authorities simply based on their history of sexual assault is besides the point as far as you are concerned: what you’re interested is highlighting the trans-ness of the perpetrator in order to make women fear transwomen as a class.
(As I’ve said before on PB: people with a history of sexual assault perpetrated on women should never have been put in low-security female prisons. This was so obviously the case that I was astonished at the time that the prison service allowed it to happen& was something I agreed with you on 100%.)
No, she's identifying the maleness of the perpetrators. You have missed the point entirely and I'm glad that the Supreme Court has bitch slapped all of the activists and politicians who pushed to allow biological men into women's spaces.
As the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has said, trans people may need a "third space" such as gender neutral facilities available to them. They do not need access to single sex spaces.
Maybe they should be required to paint a Star of David and "juden" on the door of those facilities.
Oh wait, sorry, getting my brands of fascism mixed up.
It's not fascism to have single sex spaces that are required for safeguarding reasons being restricted to those they exist to safeguard.
Some years ago I was very anti trans people. That was until (when I was a councillor) I attended a talk organised by the Council given by a trans person who was transitioning from male to female. She told us about the psychological issues she endured. Many people transitioning attempt suicide - may be a call for help or a serious attempt. At the end I was much more sympathetic. Now my godson is transitioning and it is clearly mental anguish for her. Despite my more symathetic views to trans people I do agree the supreme court decison. But we must remember for many trans people it is a deep need to "change sex". Now having some direct knowledge I know that for my godchild it was a heart breaking issue and also incredibly hard for her "very" straght parents.
As the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has said, trans people may need a "third space" such as gender neutral facilities available to them. They do not need access to single sex spaces.
Maybe they should be required to paint a Star of David and "juden" on the door of those facilities.
Oh wait, sorry, getting my brands of fascism mixed up.
It's not fascism to have single sex spaces that are required for safeguarding reasons being restricted to those they exist to safeguard.
It's fascism 101. Exclude people from places they could previously use, make them stand out, leave them in no doubt they are unequal and unwelcome. If you have the slightest grasp of history you know where this road leads.
On topic, yesterday we discussed Lib Dem views within the Trans debate.
Here is a piece on Lib Dem Voice (for anyone down a hole, perhaps the key platform for activists since 2007 about the verdict, with a few comments. To it catches the tenor of the public conversation amongst activists quite well. That is, a focus on the perceived rights of trans people being the main question, and a bit of a feeling of the Leadership holding back.
There will be other views, but I think this is how I judge the positioning of more vocal activists. That includes, imo, the view of the editor of LDV.
My view? At federal conference last year I attended the stalls of both sides of this debate. And found much I agreed with at both stalls!
Ed Davey said that we accept the judgement in full - sensible as its the Supreme Court. The ruling provides a very useful definition of "what is a woman" so that we can now move on from the tireless virtue signalling about whether a woman can have a penis or not.
What do I think the party should do? Campaign on Something Else.
What was the useful definition of 'what a woman is' in the ruling?
On a point of order - does @Cyclefree and her fellow activists accept that this ruling does nothing for female safety? Women get dragged into toilets and changing rooms by men and then get assaulted, raped, murdered. Men already had access to womens spaces because the rapey murdery ones just barge in. And still will.
The threat to women was not trans women, it's men. I hope that the ruling allows us to move on from this minority sport and go back to basics which is raising young men to understand that their rights over women are zero.
I doubt it: Cyclefree will simply assert that transwomen are men & therefore a threat to women. Look at the actual content of her header article:
So what is this at heart about? Safeguarding
Convincing people that transwomen are threat to women has been the single most successful part of the Gender Crit PR assault on trans rights. She’s not going to give up on it now, is she?
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons and other women's spaces.
Facts - not PR.
I've just logged on to my work emails - there is some sort of chat function by which you can send emails to the whole company (on which there is a lot of identity politics): I've received an email which contains the following snippets: "Unison's 2024 women's conference agreed (with no votes against) a 'Unite for more rights" motion stating that 'Trans women are women' and 'Trans men are men' and 'women's rights are not diminished by Trans people having more rights' "(interestingly, the word 'trans' was capitalised throughout - what grammatical madness is this?); also, further down, an encouragement to go to a 'trans rights peaceful process'.
The madness has deep roots.
Aalso, on a separate note, the email contained the announcement that next week is 'lesbian visibility week' since a single day is not enough, in order to 'highlight the importance of uniting against lesbian erasure and uplifting those who deserve to live fully and authentically''.
Thank you for your article @Cyclefree. You made an error of fact/elision, namely "Tax KC Jolyon Maugham complained bitterly that the court refused to hear from trans groups. An outright lie. As he wrote last year none applied to intervene". Maugham's GoodLawProject filed its application for intervention on behalf of the trans people Victoria McCloud and Stephen Whittle on 13/9/24[1]. It was denied and none of the lawyers, intervenors nor judges were trans.
Whilst Victoria McCloud and Stephen Whittle do not constitute a trans group individually (though possibly collectively), they are certainly trans people, so I think it's true to say that the Supreme Court refused to hear from trans people.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
That is a question. This is Balian Buschbaum, a pole vaulter.
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
It is an interesting question. I agree with the judgement - to have concluded anything else would be to indulge in a fantasy. However, I still maintain that in toilet and changing facilities, the rule should be thus:
1. Ladies Loos Women, surgically transitioned MTF transsexuals. 2. Mens Loos Men, surgically transitioned FTM transsexuals. 3. Disabled Loos Everyone already permitted, and those in transition
Some form of id would be granted to fully transitioned transsexuals after their reassignment is complete to show in the case of challenge. Another form might be required for those in transition in the case of challenge there, though I suspect that would be non-existent, as we all understand someone using a disabled loo might not look physically disabled.
I surmise that the risk of sexual assault to women from biological men but living as women and without a penis, would be virtually nothing. I am open for the reverse to be shown. I suspect it's probably the same risk as from other women.
I appreciate that that is me as a man trying to dictate who goes in women's spaces, but it is just an opinion.
This is not a supporting argument, but there is a historical precedent of emasculated males sharing women's spaces - eunuchs in harems.
I think that by pushing this, trans activists have polarised the debate and actually put fully-transitioned MTF transsexuals in a worse position than they were in before, which is a common characteristic of all such activist grifters
That has a certain practical logic to it, given the very low numbers of post-surgery transsexuals.
On the identity question, it seems to me that post-surgery transsexuals should be able to adopt the M or F for their sex on their driving licences etc. That won't please all campaigners, but to me it is a proposal of practical logic as part of a modus vivendi.
On this you are, I think, overoptimistic:
Some form of id would be granted to fully transitioned transsexuals after their reassignment is complete to show in the case of challenge. Another form might be required for those in transition in the case of challenge there, though I suspect that would be non-existent, as we all understand someone using a disabled loo might not look physically disabled.
It is absolutely routine for non-visibly-disabled people to be challenged about whether they have a disability, and it is a right pain for those people. It is rife around eg Blue Badge Parking spaces and people using mobility aids in 'pedestrian areas' (where they usually qualify as a pedestrian).
We get an identical thing with "Why are there only X, usually 5 or 6 or 9, disabled people in the House of Commons", when the real number is usually more like 40 or 50 or 70. I haven't taken the time yet to add up something close to the real number this time - I got to about 30 within a week of the Election, but more always reveal themselves.
A case I cited here (I have a photo) was a wheelchair using friend who was challenged in St Pancras Station whilst she was towing her manual wheelchair behind her E-Brompton at walking pace. The Officer seemed to think he was Jesus, and could instruct her to pick up her mobility aid and walk. TBF St Pancras staff are generally good.
Rhetorical tolerance for non-visibly-disabled, or even visibly disabled, people vanishes very promptly when there is even a modest interest the other way. When the person needing to be tolerant is even slightly inconvenienced, the hostile blowback can be intense.
PS There is a somewhat parallel debate around whether disabled people should be able to be challenged and how to identify themselves and prove eligibility for a concession or facility (eg disabled loos, parking), and prevention of abuse of such facilities by non-disabled people (eg a person taking over a disabled loo for 20 minutes to wash and change, blocking it eg to people with IBD).
For some, carrying a "disabled" card is a reminder of when 1930s Germany identified disabled people with a Black Triangle, and history in other modern societies of compulsory sterilisation, eugenics, abortion of disabled babies etc. These are emotive issues.
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
No, I want the issue solved and put to bed, as it has been in Australia. Where they put the necessary policies in place (against screaming leftist objections naturally), none of which involved handwringing global summits to discuss the 'pan-pacific migrant crisis'.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
The English channel is much, much narrower than the seas around Australia.
Not all overseas solutions are the same. Are we talking about processing during an asylum claim, final destination after a claim was successful, final destination after a claim was unsuccessful, or what?
My idea would be to process claims in a third country. Successful claimants would be brought back on the same transport as claimants went out on.
I agreed with the criticism of Rwanda for being a final destination not a process. I still thought it was worthwhile in sum as a deterrent though, because it was.
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Once they had towed back a stack of them it would soon stop
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons.
Facts - not PR.
Thank you for making my argument for me more effectively than I ever could Cyclefree.
Of course it’s PR: You cherry pick a specific set of emotive cases to achieve a particular goal. That the victims of these awful people could have been protected by the actions of the authorities simply based on their history of sexual assault is besides the point as far as you are concerned: what you’re interested is highlighting the trans-ness of the perpetrator in order to make women fear transwomen as a class.
(As I’ve said before on PB: people with a history of sexual assault perpetrated on women should never have been put in low-security female prisons. This was so obviously the case that I was astonished at the time that the prison service allowed it to happen& was something I agreed with you on 100%.)
No, she's identifying the maleness of the perpetrators. You have missed the point entirely and I'm glad that the Supreme Court has bitch slapped all of the activists and politicians who pushed to allow biological men into women's spaces.
This is the problem, some extremists want to deny that there is anything "male" about a "trans woman" at all.
But it's not true, and Cyclefree, FWS et al have recognised that and so have the Supreme Court.
Just as you can not "pray away the gay" so you can not identify away maleness.
Both are real and exist. Whether you like it or not.
Safeguarding exists to protect the vulnerable and that means no males in single sex female spaces. If you don't want to identify as male, but are male, then sorry but that includes you. If a third space is needed it should be offered as an alternative.
Strikes me, and I'm really not being facetious, that we need a special prison for men who identify as women.
And, O/T, it's good to see you around this morning, Ms Cyclefree.
This is clearly a minefield but I really don't think so. If you commit a crime it means your normal rights are restricted. This applies both to women and to trans women. The first requirement of the prison services beyond incarcerating criminals is to keep everyone safe. So their judgement should decide this. If the imprisoned criminals don't like the arrangement maybe they shouldn't commit the crime?
It's a complete nonsense to base your gender recognition policy on the tiny number of trans women criminals and the even tinier number of times the prison authorities make a mistake in where they put them.
Hope this is a sign @Cyclefree is feeling a bit better.
Absolutely, and it's a powerful piece. I feel like I sit at the crossroads on this issue. I have a wife and a daughter and have seen and heard too many examples of men who tret women and girls as chattel. Protecting women from the predatory nature of certain men is something I actively support.
I also have involvement in the trans area. I'm bisexual so I'm part of the LGBTetc community. My eldest (non-binary but biologically male) had a trans boyfriend for a while and they're still close friends. A former colleague and good friend is a trans woman saving up for surgery.
My basic rule with rights is that if they trample on the human rights of other people they aren't rights. I support both the need for female spaces (my wife despises open changing even when everyone has the same genitalia) and to provide dignity and respect for people who genuinely have dysmorphia and are medically working their way through transition.
The problem with the trans debate is the screaming extremists at both ends of the spectrum. Absolutism is usually wrong - issues are not black and white and this one is no different. I do have to float a question though - in the race to be inclusive have we not lost sight of who we are being inclusive of?
I can see a world of difference between people who are seriously and medically altering their bodies to become the gender they believe they really are, and a bloke wearing a frock and a wig. But the trans rights row seems to lump everyone together.
Yes, but there's a problem. In a finite world, rights are likely to trample over each other.
Take toilets. There aren't enough as it is, so the idea that two categories should become three is pretty unlikely. What happens in the meantime?
At the risk of triggering the eminently triggerable guardians of lavvies and changing rooms, a reminder that there are many places where no one gives a feck. This is the single lav for all customers in The Pub, the Valetta hostelry where Ollie Reed drank and breathed his last. What Ollie's views on Trans people were I don't know, but I suspect not giving a feck may have been involved.
In France recently and the restaurant also only had the one mixed sex toilets - no big surprise over there, but what did surprise me was they also had urinals right next to the wash basins. Can't imagine many Brits happy with that set up.
It certainly used to be common in Belgian bars, you walked past the urinals to get to the cubicles.
My friend Lauren will physically transition to be physically female. By which point I would hope that even the most strident activists wouldn't be demanding that a biologically transformed woman be denied entry to certain toilets etc.
I think that's naive. The entire point of the Supreme Court ruling was that i) one's status is settled at birth and does not change, and ii) single-sex spaces are based on the status at birth. There is no "my friend Lauren" exception.
As I pointed out to you the other day, if somebody like "my friend Lauren" used a single-sex female toilet, then the organizers of that toilet could be sued and under the new ruling the organizers would lose.
Perhaps more toilets will be converted into unisex, which has occurred in an M&S near us?
Will trans men be forced to use female toilets? Will females be upset by them as well?
They will certainly find some new imagined offence to bleat about.
For what it’s worth @Cyclefree my girlfriend (who is not very politically engaged) is very upset with the Supreme Court decision. A lot of my other women (not trans women) friends are also upset with it.
...I can see a world of difference between people who are seriously and medically altering their bodies to become the gender they believe they really are, and a bloke wearing a frock and a wig...
...Perhaps a certificate to recognise the ressignment of gender would have been useful to distinguish between the two groups. But after the Supreme Court decision it appears such an instrument bestows no rights enforceable in a court...
I've mostly kept out of this debate. I don't understand the strength of dismay of the Trans community - the Supreme Court hasn't overturned anything, merely ruled on what the law is. It doesn't have to stand for all time.
Personally I am happy with the ruling as frankly it is a statement of the obvious but sometimes the obvious needs saying. I am happy too that my daughters, should they need it, will be able to benefit from the security of a women only space, free from the risk of a man gaining access by self-declaring as a woman and "putting on a frock" as Rochdale puts it in his colourful way. And female sport is secure.
At the same time there is clearly a gap in the law for people who have undergone gender reassignment surgery. I have no difficulty in accepting that they are the sex they have become, which it appears the law currently rejects. So once the dust has settled some further thought will be needed about how to address that, if there is a consensus for change.
I agree with every word you just said. I am deliberately colourful at times to honour my Lancashire heritage and to make an argument stand out a little.
Having legal definitions of "man" and "woman" should not be the basis for removing all rights and dignities of trans men and women. As I have said above, as someone who is LGBTQetc* I absolutely support the rights of my friend and my kid's friend. But rights need to have legal definitions to be hung from, and this lets us move on from the virtue signalling divisive drivvel about who can have a cock.
Can we now find a way to support women's rights AND trans rights? One should not need to be imposed on the other. They can coexist if we are all understanding and reasonable.
*and again, that's me being colourful. The endless letters seem to change depending who you ask. I actually think "queer" is a wonderful catch-all, repossessing a word used by my dad to (unknowingly) keep me in the closet and throwing in back in bigot faces
Haha I appreciate your colour and I wish I could put things as confidently, and also meekly try to avoid being shouted down. I might use such a phrase at the dinner table, but even then my daughters would take me to task over it!
6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
The RN would 100% do tow backs if ordered. If only because the CinC, Fleet who pulled it off would be a certainty for elevation to 1SL. If it worked, it would be career steroids for all involved so they would give it a red hot go.
The Australian Navy did 30+ tow backs without drowning anybody. After that, they didn't have to do any more because the boats stopped. So the processes and techniques for doing it are well understood and tested.
As I understand it the navy already said no because we don't have the suitable equipment to do so.
We're facing a new security paradigm in Europe. A live threat from Russia and a growing one from America. Thanks to decades of cuts we have a navy which can barely defend our home waters never mind do anything else.
If tow backs are what we want our remaining naval assets to be doing we may as well just pack up now and let Russia do what it wants.
The other basic problem with tow backs is where you are towing them back to. As tow backs is the suggestion from the FU foreigners brigade we wouldn't be doing so in collaboration with France. So why couldn't the French navy just tow the boats the other way?
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
If my points were 'unworkable performative crap', you wouldn't need to respond with asinine misrepresentations or mealy mouthed acknowledgements disguised as rebukes.
I have not said 'stop paying France' have I? I have said payments should be set up in a different way that is dependent on results. You take the estimated impact on the boats of the current grants under the 'deal'. You translate that into a price per boat destroyed, smuggler arrested etc., and you agree to pay that per evidence of each outcome - you could agree to pay more than the 'going rate' as an incentive. Payment on delivery.
The previous Government already detained asylum seekers in a barge. It was perfectly servicable and comfortable. The current Government ended that - that is performative. As for other facilities, yes nimbys and Tory constituency MPs were against them - since when is that an objection for you?
Rwanda could easily have been used as a processing centre. The Government could have done so - it would have been sufficiently different from the Tories' policy 'more humane, more just' to be do-able politically. Instead they pathetically scrapped the whole scheme to make an infantile party political point, and then went bizarrely to 'learn from Claudia Meloni' on overseas processing.
Nobody EVER decried the concept of going after people smugglers, what a bizarre lie. 'Smash the gangs' was criticised as the sole strategy for solving illegal migration, and that criticism has proven valid in the event. However, even with it being the sole strategy, the police are quite clearly doing a shit job, which is why they got shown up by the BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6pyyqep831o
I suspect Yvette Cooper is 'not getting involved in operational matters', and if she doesn't have the levers to give the police a rocket over this, she needs to get them.
Towbacks and overseas processing worked in Australia. And they are far more dangerous there. I don't see what objection France could have - they were quite clearly OK with them being in French waters, as they allowed them without hindrance. So yes, they would go back to France. And if boats don't get through, no more boats come.
Morning luv! I'm picking apart specifically to demonstrate that its unworkable crap.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
No, I want the issue solved and put to bed, as it has been in Australia. Where they put the necessary policies in place (against screaming leftist objections naturally), none of which involved handwringing global summits to discuss the 'pan-pacific migrant crisis'.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
The English channel is much, much narrower than the seas around Australia.
Not all overseas solutions are the same. Are we talking about processing during an asylum claim, final destination after a claim was successful, final destination after a claim was unsuccessful, or what?
My idea would be to process claims in a third country. Successful claimants would be brought back on the same transport as claimants went out on.
I agreed with the criticism of Rwanda for being a final destination not a process. I still thought it was worthwhile in sum as a deterrent though, because it was.
Perhaps the Channel Islands could fulfil the role of a third country, they do after all have experience with camps (though they modestly try not to mention it).
As the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has said, trans people may need a "third space" such as gender neutral facilities available to them. They do not need access to single sex spaces.
Maybe they should be required to paint a Star of David and "juden" on the door of those facilities.
Oh wait, sorry, getting my brands of fascism mixed up.
It's not fascism to have single sex spaces that are required for safeguarding reasons being restricted to those they exist to safeguard.
“Safeguarding” of public toilets has always been a figleaf.
There’s currently no explicit law that stops anyone of any gender using any toilet - it’s up the proprietor within the limits of the various equality acts.
Assaults on women in female toilets by men will sadly continue regardless of whether it’s illegal for them to enter them - are we really suggesting that men who are willing to sexually assault people in a public space will suddenly be put off by the stick figure on the door? Obviously not. Someone my wife knows was assaulted by a man who followed her into the women’s toilets: He didn’t need to put a dress on to do that.
Once again this is GCs taking a genuine issue and deliberately conflating it with trans people in order to achieve their goals.
Some years ago I was very anti trans people. That was until (when I was a councillor) I attended a talk organised by the Council given by a trans person who was transitioning from male to female. She told us about the psychological issues she endured. Many people transitioning attempt suicide - may be a call for help or a serious attempt. At the end I was much more sympathetic. Now my godson is transitioning and it is clearly mental anguish for her. Despite my more symathetic views to trans people I do agree the supreme court decison. But we must remember for many trans people it is a deep need to "change sex". Now having some direct knowledge I know that for my godchild it was a heart breaking issue and also incredibly hard for her "very" straght parents.
Unfortunately the suicide statistics for trans people are sobering.
There should be no doubt. This ruling, and the celebrations of those who support it, will drive more trans people to take their lives.
On topic, yesterday we discussed Lib Dem views within the Trans debate.
Here is a piece on Lib Dem Voice (for anyone down a hole, perhaps the key platform for activists since 2007 about the verdict, with a few comments. To it catches the tenor of the public conversation amongst activists quite well. That is, a focus on the perceived rights of trans people being the main question, and a bit of a feeling of the Leadership holding back.
There will be other views, but I think this is how I judge the positioning of more vocal activists. That includes, imo, the view of the editor of LDV.
My view? At federal conference last year I attended the stalls of both sides of this debate. And found much I agreed with at both stalls!
Ed Davey said that we accept the judgement in full - sensible as its the Supreme Court. The ruling provides a very useful definition of "what is a woman" so that we can now move on from the tireless virtue signalling about whether a woman can have a penis or not.
What do I think the party should do? Campaign on Something Else.
What was the useful definition of 'what a woman is' in the ruling?
On a point of order - does @Cyclefree and her fellow activists accept that this ruling does nothing for female safety? Women get dragged into toilets and changing rooms by men and then get assaulted, raped, murdered. Men already had access to womens spaces because the rapey murdery ones just barge in. And still will.
The threat to women was not trans women, it's men. I hope that the ruling allows us to move on from this minority sport and go back to basics which is raising young men to understand that their rights over women are zero.
I doubt it: Cyclefree will simply assert that transwomen are men & therefore a threat to women. Look at the actual content of her header article:
So what is this at heart about? Safeguarding
Convincing people that transwomen are threat to women has been the single most successful part of the Gender Crit PR assault on trans rights. She’s not going to give up on it now, is she?
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons and other women's spaces.
Facts - not PR.
I've just logged on to my work emails - there is some sort of chat function by which you can send emails to the whole company (on which there is a lot of identity politics): I've received an email which contains the following snippets: "Unison's 2024 women's conference agreed (with no votes against) a 'Unite for more rights" motion stating that 'Trans women are women' and 'Trans men are men' and 'women's rights are not diminished by Trans people having more rights' "(interestingly, the word 'trans' was capitalised throughout - what grammatical madness is this?); also, further down, an encouragement to go to a 'trans rights peaceful process'.
The madness has deep roots.
Aalso, on a separate note, the email contained the announcement that next week is 'lesbian visibility week' since a single day is not enough, in order to 'highlight the importance of uniting against lesbian erasure and uplifting those who deserve to live fully and authentically''.
TBH in a work situation I didn't really care whether someone was gay or not. When I was an employer we just had cubicle toilets for both sexes and that was that.
For what it’s worth @Cyclefree my girlfriend (who is not very politically engaged) is very upset with the Supreme Court decision. A lot of my other women (not trans women) friends are also upset with it.
It isn’t a men vs women issue.
Ditto.
I’m sure Cyclefree will let us know what she thinks of these women, won’t you Cyclefree? Tell us what you really think, don’t hold back.
As the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has said, trans people may need a "third space" such as gender neutral facilities available to them. They do not need access to single sex spaces.
Maybe they should be required to paint a Star of David and "juden" on the door of those facilities.
Oh wait, sorry, getting my brands of fascism mixed up.
It's not fascism to have single sex spaces that are required for safeguarding reasons being restricted to those they exist to safeguard.
It's fascism 101. Exclude people from places they could previously use, make them stand out, leave them in no doubt they are unequal and unwelcome. If you have the slightest grasp of history you know where this road leads.
Total bullshit.
They never could previously use single sex spaces and it was people making an error in what the law means that meant they temporarily could.
People making an error in law then the courts slapping down that error is not fascism, it is the rule of law.
Single sex female spaces exist to protect females. Which has never legally included males who identify as females.
Interesting but hardly surprising to see Trump and Meloni apparently getting on well.
Both are strong on "immigration" which is apparently at the root of all Europe's problems.
Yet I hear no practical or coherent solutions - from "stop the boats" to "re-migration", there's a lot of people talking about immigration and saying something needs to be done but I've not heard a syllable of a practical and workable solution.
More "complaints" from Britain's greatest bunch of whingers, GB News, about Sudanese refugees at a 4* hotel - okay, fine. How do you get them out of that hotel? Where do you put them while their asylum cases are being processed? I'm led to believe (it's GB News so I take it with a bucketful of salt) there are thousands more waiting in Northern France to cross the Channel. Right - how do you prevent them crossing if that's the objective?
The whole debate is couched in sensationalist, fear mongering terms - practicality and common sense are noticeable by their absence.
Is this a serious question?
Or is it another 'what are these Brexit freedoms I hear so much about?', and then you list them, and silence, and then a week or so later - 'So who can list me a single Brexit freedom?'
If it is a serious question, you can do a number of things.
If our grant rate is three times that of France, where are you going to apply? We could do that by capping asylum figures. That could be done now.
Secondly, you could stop paying France eye watering millions upfront for what seems like zero assistance, and pay them on results - per boats destroyed, migrants detained, smugglers arrested.
Thirdly, you can detain migrants in basic purpose-built or hired accommodation. Airbases, barges. The hotels have to stop. A warm bed, safety, cleanliness and food is what someone claiming asylum should be entitled to, nothing else.
Fourthly, you can have overseas processing or overseas housing for asylum seekers, a la Rwanda. To make the latter work, you probably need to leave the ECHR. To make the former work, you don't necessarily, because there's no danger of refoulement if the successful claimants are shipped back to the UK.
Fifthly, you can actually go after the people smugglers. It took a massive BBC investigation to get the police to get their finger out of their arse and arrest the last one.
Sixthly, you can do tow backs. This is a cruel to be kind solution, as it does place boat people in a very stressful situation. It does have the upside of being a massive disincentive to ever get on a channel crossing, so in the long run probably save lives.
Want me to continue?
This is unworkable performative crap and I'm sure Lucky knows this. 1. "Cap asylum numbers" - the only point which isn't unreasonable 2. "Stop paying France" - with what is proposed below? 3. "Detain migrants in gulags" - where? Remember that the Tory government proposed this using disused airbases, only to have Tory MPs - some very senior - scream and howl. The proposal is to build fortified open prison camps, so again my question is where? Staffed by whom? Secured by whom? At what cost? 4. "Oversees processing" at which point he comedically refers to Rwanda which was not oversees processing. I have no objection in principle, but again, where? Staffed by whom? And what is the domestic legal process to render people from the UK to wherever when our courts are underfunded and partially functional? 5. "Go after the people smugglers" - the option the Tories endlessly decried. This is a great idea. Many are in France. Ah, we told france to fuck off in point 2 and are about to do worse in point 6. 6. "Do tow backs" - also known as "drowning". Who will be doing the tow backs? Coast Guard and the Navy are not only not equipped but also pointed out that such orders would be illegal last time this was seriously suggested. Even if you manage to only drown a few boats the rest arrive back into France who would need to be cooperative. See point 2.
You don't need to continue. Your proposals are crayon politics, drawn by a small child in red crayon. As always, the key to policy is that it actually has to be deliverable. Actionable. Realistic, not just "can't we tell these foreigners to fuck off".
Its a great insight into the coming Reform manifesto and deserved further commentary.
Yep but it also emphasises the scale of the problem you have countering Reform because your typical Reform voter believes that bullshit and isn't interested to wait for the flaws to the quick fixes to be explained.
Sure. And they have a point, whether its on this issue or all of the other ones that befuddle this country. Why can't we fix these issues? Or even accept they are issues?
As a management consultant one of my specialities is cutting through the ideas which operationally don't work. The problem with the crayon politics approach is that they are pointless as saying nothing. "Why not just tow them back" indeed.
And yet the complex creative situations haven’t worked. Are you surprised, therefore, that people get angry and focus on simplistic solutions?
From the "small things" department, I can report that ChatGPT has discovered the existence of black shorts, on being told about them.
Not quite there yet - real action men have a rank, and eagle eyes are required for "watching you".
Is there no longer a Prohibition against AI images?
The prohibition only applies to you given your past form, once out of 100 comments on PB 40 of them was you posting AI images.
OGH considered it spam by you and very disrespectful that he wrote a thread and you derailed it with your obsession.
So, uniquely, I’m not allowed to talk about AI. Nor am I allowed to post AI images. Just me
Also I’m uniquely not to talk about white people in a certain way and also not allowed REDACTED
It’s lucky I have a new place to go
It’s your history of exposing our good hosts to the possibility of being sued for contempt of court and/or libel, despite being asked nicely to watch what you say that has resulted in you being singled out in this fashion as you well know.
Yeah, no, that’s a load of shite, as we all know. But I won’t waste another brain cell arguing about it
For what it’s worth @Cyclefree my girlfriend (who is not very politically engaged) is very upset with the Supreme Court decision. A lot of my other women (not trans women) friends are also upset with it.
It isn’t a men vs women issue.
More about age. Younger people in general are more likely to support trans inclusion.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Brianna_Ghey
Do you think Balian should be using the male or female toilets?
It was before I moved up here in 2001. Can’t remember when though
I appreciate you think that there is some woolly compromise, but the law is the law and there is no "your friend Lauren" exception. According to the law as it now stands "your friend Lauren" can piss in the Ladies only until somebody brings a case, and then she'll have to piss in the Gents until she dies.
I will never understand the belief, prevalent on PB, that people think the law doesn't apply to them.
Government is hiding behind the judgment as if it is the law of the Medes and Persians. That is because government (and most of parliament) want to pretend that this closes an issue. In truth of course it is government and parliament's job to decide the matters.
SFAICS the broad issue divides progressives into two groups - one might call them traditional feminists and wokeists. I don't think Labour want to poke a stick into that at the moment. I sense that quite a lot of Labour people are actually confused. I have some sympathy with them.
https://x.com/johnjamesni/status/1912552381432373420?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
The only equipment needed is an OPV (the Navy has plenty of these) to spot the boats, 6-8 mad lads with small arms in a RHIB and a lifeboat into which to decant the luckless refugees.
The only reason the government doesn't do it is the same reason the tories never did it. They don't have the nerve to initiate it or the fortitude to see it through.
Trans rights do not include the right to go into the space of those of the opposite sex.
Her phrasing seems entirely accurate and reasonable and doesn't impede upon trans rights at all.
*In best williamglen voice*
Which toilet do you think Balian should use?
Great headline
Rachel Reeves?
- the right not to think coherently
- the right to take both sides of the argument, depending on who they are talking to
- the right not to say things that might be unpopular on Twatter
- the right not to take a stand on anything
- Etc
1. Ladies Loos
Women, surgically transitioned MTF transsexuals.
2. Mens Loos
Men, surgically transitioned FTM transsexuals.
3. Disabled Loos
Everyone already permitted, and those in transition
Some form of id would be granted to fully transitioned transsexuals after their reassignment is complete to show in the case of challenge. Another form might be required for those in transition in the case of challenge there, though I suspect that would be non-existent, as we all understand someone using a disabled loo might not look physically disabled.
I surmise that the risk of sexual assault to women from biological men but living as women and without a penis, would be virtually nothing. I am open for the reverse to be shown. I suspect it's probably the same risk as from other women.
I appreciate that that is me as a man trying to dictate who goes in women's spaces, but it is just an opinion.
This is not a supporting argument, but there is a historical precedent of emasculated males sharing women's spaces - eunuchs in harems.
I think that by pushing this, trans activists have polarised the debate and actually put fully-transitioned MTF transsexuals in a worse position than they were in before, which is a common characteristic of all such activist grifters.
Most amusing is that you're still clinging to Rwanda as something that could have worked.
The depressing thing is that you have zero interest in actually tackling the pan-European migration crisis. You just want to score political points.
For damages to be awarded, the complainant would need to show the venue acting negligently somehow. So again, how does the case go? How does the complainant show that the venue didn't suitably police admission to the ladies loo?
Its absurd. It's *the application* of the law which is the problem, not the law.
If Rwanda was unworkable, why is the Government actively discussed other overseas solutions? Why did they go to Meloni to 'learn' about her policy of processing in Albania? Making it up as they go along, much like you.
"Canada’s Role in a Shifting Global Order"
I like the teaser sentence: "There's a risk premium in US assets,"
You can take the man out of the Central Bank, but ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V11qNDDElZw
So no peace deal just means continued stalemate
Not all overseas solutions are the same. Are we talking about processing during an asylum claim, final destination after a claim was successful, final destination after a claim was unsuccessful, or what?
Also I’m uniquely not to talk about white people in a certain way and also not allowed REDACTED
It’s lucky I have a new place to go
Other countries discuss and occasionally implement overseas processing. Undocumented migrants arrive, are removed to a processing centre and if successful are released into the general population.
That was NOT the Rwanda scheme. Rwanda was send the migrants to Rwanda. No processing, no possibility of being successful and being released into the British population.
I have no problem with the concept of a processing centre. Rwanda was not one.
Rwanda was only one element of the Australian solution and, on its own, probably wouldn't have been workable.
Big Rish and the Gang knew all this of course. The entire policy was just something to distract red wall morons from the fact that 95%+ of the Brexitwave immigration were legal entries that the tories could have reduced any time they wanted.
This person was killed prior to the clarification by the excellent Supreme Court.
What makes you think this will happen more and more simply because the Supreme Court has ruled to protect women’s spaces ?
Continue supporting Ukraine to grind down the Russian military in the meat grinder and to destroy Russia's energy system.
Which is why it works as a deterrent.
This is (in a nutshell) the case in Sandie Peggie v NHS Fife and Beth Upton, a case which is now widely expected to be resolved against the trans woman Beth Upton and her employers NHS Fife.
If Beth Upton had changed her name to "your friend Lauren" maybe she would have gotten away with it, but for some reason she failed to avail herself of that protection. Next time perhaps she could acquire a LibDem friend to act as a legal shield.
It pulls up information supposedly off Companies House. Which is wrong. Application stops as I have to update CH. But I can't as CH is right already. It's their system.
Sigh. Business banking has been a nightmare to manage ever since I started in business 5 years ago.
It is a commonplace in anti-environmental politics to cite as commonplaces "we have the most (expensive/taxed) (gas/electricity/fuel) in Europe." Usually there us a variable percentage of wibble involved.
Finding comparisons at wholesale or retail level, or by fuel, can be tricky.
IN RESPONSE TO @Phil
Not PR but facts.
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
See here - https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-male-criminality-sex-offences/.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
Would you like me to list more? Because I can.
Here is the latest HMP Equalities Report - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmpps-offender-equalities-annual-report-2023-to-2024/hmpps-offender-equalities-report-202324. It does not state what offences the prisoners are in for. But you will note that 51 transgender prisoners (men claiming to be "women", the vast majority without a GRC, are in female prisons, and on the basis of self-ID which is not - and never has been - the law in the U.K.
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons and other women's spaces.
Facts - not PR.
And we all thought you had joined another social media group rather than just taking a bus to the Boondocks.
I just wanted to say “Osh” coz it’s such a fun name
Bish-Bosh I’m off to Osh
What needs to happen is for Putin to die. His colours are nailed to the mast, as I understand it, but whether his successors will be so obtuse I doubt.
Although, of course, Kyiv/Kiev means a lot to Russians, especially the Orthodox Church.
I have to wonder how many of these people have trans friends or family. Few or none, I suspect. It's much easier to de-humanise an entire section of society if you don't actually have to experience their humanity face-to-face.
It isn’t a men vs women issue.
Otoh outing some of your 'creations' might be moderately entertaining.
And that includes biological males who identify as female.
As the Equalities and Human Rights Committee has said, trans people may need a "third space" such as gender neutral facilities available to them. They do not need access to single sex spaces.
Announcing you are leaving us during a thread entitled "phallic drift" is pretty flamboyant.
Sadly, I've never been able to convince her to contribute on here. Not because of us, but because she likes to maintain a very low social media profile. Which is fair enough.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51545-where-does-the-british-public-stand-on-transgender-rights-in-202425
Of course it’s PR: You cherry pick a specific set of emotive cases to achieve a particular goal. That the victims of these awful people could have been protected by the actions of the authorities simply based on their history of sexual assault is besides the point as far as you are concerned: what you’re interested is highlighting the trans-ness of the perpetrator in order to make women fear transwomen as a class.
(As I’ve said before on PB: people with a history of sexual assault perpetrated on women should never have been put in low-security female prisons. This was so obviously the case that I was astonished at the time that the prison service allowed it to happen& was something I agreed with you on 100%.)
Not PR but facts.
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
See here - https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-male-criminality-sex-offences/.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
Would you like me to list more? Because I can.
Here is the latest HMP Equalities Report - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmpps-offender-equalities-annual-report-2023-to-2024/hmpps-offender-equalities-report-202324. It does not state what offences the prisoners are in for. But you will note that 51 transgender prisoners (men claiming to be "women", the vast majority without a GRC, are in female prisons, and on the basis of self-ID which is not - and never has been - the law in the U.K.
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons and other women's spaces.
Facts - not PR.
--------------------------------------
Strikes me, and I'm really not being facetious, that we need a special prison for men who identify as women.
And, O/T, it's good to see you around this morning, Ms Cyclefree.
Oh wait, sorry, getting my brands of fascism mixed up.
An old friend of mine, a veteran of the Steppes and Pamirs, told me that if you want a guaranteed good meal in these parts, find a themed British (or Irish pub) and order a curry (they are usually on the menu)
He’s right. Had one last night at Almaty’s “Shakespeare’s Head”. I almost cried. Proper spicing. Great nan bread. Fresh samosas. Lovely Rogan Josh. Heat heat heat
And excellent beers and G&Ts and football on the telly
On the identity question, it seems to me that post-surgery transsexuals should be able to adopt the M or F for their sex on their driving licences etc. That won't please all campaigners, but to me it is a proposal of practical logic as part of a modus vivendi.
On this you are, I think, overoptimistic:
Some form of id would be granted to fully transitioned transsexuals after their reassignment is complete to show in the case of challenge. Another form might be required for those in transition in the case of challenge there, though I suspect that would be non-existent, as we all understand someone using a disabled loo might not look physically disabled.
It is absolutely routine for non-visibly-disabled people to be challenged about whether they have a disability, and it is a right pain for those people. It is rife around eg Blue Badge Parking spaces and people using mobility aids in 'pedestrian areas' (where they usually qualify as a pedestrian).
We get an identical thing with "Why are there only X, usually 5 or 6 or 9, disabled people in the House of Commons", when the real number is usually more like 40 or 50 or 70. I haven't taken the time yet to add up something close to the real number this time - I got to about 30 within a week of the Election, but more always reveal themselves.
A case I cited here (I have a photo) was a wheelchair using friend who was challenged in St Pancras Station whilst she was towing her manual wheelchair behind her E-Brompton at walking pace. The Officer seemed to think he was Jesus, and could instruct her to pick up her mobility aid and walk. TBF St Pancras staff are generally good.
Rhetorical tolerance for non-visibly-disabled, or even visibly disabled, people vanishes very promptly when there is even a modest interest the other way. When the person needing to be tolerant is even slightly inconvenienced, the hostile blowback can be intense.
British so no trouble with courts.
It should be a state of the art facility with good accommodation. No need for barbed wire because there's nowhere else to go. You can't leave except for the ferry and the operator will know all the residents personally and can just turn anyone else away.
You are free to leave any time you like, once you get another passport.
The weather is crap so anyone who doesn't want to be there won't tolerate it but genuine asylum seekers will be happy to wait for a year.
(Ideally this should also be accompanied by measures to make it easier for genuine asylum seekers to seek it nearer home).
Not PR but facts.
TW are men. They are not some third sex and they are not women. They have male pattern criminality. Indeed judging by what evidence there is from court and prison statistics they may be a greater risk to women.
See here - https://fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-male-criminality-sex-offences/.
And here is the Ministry of Justice data from 2020, presented to a Parliamentary Committee.
This is not PR. These are facts.
Let's put some names to these facts:
1. Andrew Miller, the Scottish butcher who lived as a woman for many years and was convicted for kidnapping and raping a young girl over 72 hours. His behaviour was described by the sentencing judge as "frankly nauseating in its level of depravity and criminal deviance."
The judge went on to say: "I note that you are recorded by the risk assessor as talking in detail about your desire to limit the impact of your offending on what is referred to as the wider trans community. By way of contrast, however, the assessor reports that, during her discussions with you, you appeared to deflect from the harm your sexual assaults have caused to your victim."
2. Katie Dolatowski, 6'5", a man who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl, Katie in a woman's public bathroom. Initially sent to a woman's prison. He praised Sturgeon's GRR Bill which would have allowed him to get a GRC without any questions at all. I bet he did.
3. Convicted double rapist Isla Bryson who only discovered he was a "woman" just before sentencing.
4. Andrew Burns/Tiffany Scott - died in prison last year - convicted of attacking a nurse in Cheshire in 2010 (among other offences) and described as an "unmanageable risk to public safety".
5. Abbi Taylor, a 46 year old man who identifies as a woman and a lover of nappies and was sentenced on Tuesday for smearing faeces over the walls of a nursery and other revolting behaviour.
7. Cameron Downing, a non-binary man convicted of various sexual assaults of men and women, who accessed the Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre over a period of years and was described by the judge when he was being sentenced as a "danger to women".
Would you like me to list more? Because I can.
Here is the latest HMP Equalities Report - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmpps-offender-equalities-annual-report-2023-to-2024/hmpps-offender-equalities-report-202324. It does not state what offences the prisoners are in for. But you will note that 51 transgender prisoners (men claiming to be "women", the vast majority without a GRC, are in female prisons, and on the basis of self-ID which is not - and never has been - the law in the U.K.
A century ago Elizabeth Fry campaigned to have separate prisons for women. Go away and research why that was and then ask yourself why it is that a century later women are having to campaign all over again to keep men out of women's prisons and other women's spaces.
Facts - not PR.
I've just logged on to my work emails - there is some sort of chat function by which you can send emails to the whole company (on which there is a lot of identity politics): I've received an email which contains the following snippets:
"Unison's 2024 women's conference agreed (with no votes against) a 'Unite for more rights" motion stating that 'Trans women are women' and 'Trans men are men' and 'women's rights are not diminished by Trans people having more rights' "(interestingly, the word 'trans' was capitalised throughout - what grammatical madness is this?);
also, further down, an encouragement to go to a 'trans rights peaceful process'.
The madness has deep roots.
Aalso, on a separate note, the email contained the announcement that next week is 'lesbian visibility week' since a single day is not enough, in order to 'highlight the importance of uniting against lesbian erasure and uplifting those who deserve to live fully and authentically''.
For some, carrying a "disabled" card is a reminder of when 1930s Germany identified disabled people with a Black Triangle, and history in other modern societies of compulsory sterilisation, eugenics, abortion of disabled babies etc. These are emotive issues.
Others say "make them prove it".
I agreed with the criticism of Rwanda for being a final destination not a process. I still thought it was worthwhile in sum as a deterrent though, because it was.
But it's not true, and Cyclefree, FWS et al have recognised that and so have the Supreme Court.
Just as you can not "pray away the gay" so you can not identify away maleness.
Both are real and exist. Whether you like it or not.
Safeguarding exists to protect the vulnerable and that means no males in single sex female spaces. If you don't want to identify as male, but are male, then sorry but that includes you. If a third space is needed it should be offered as an alternative.
It's a complete nonsense to base your gender recognition policy on the tiny number of trans women criminals and the even tinier number of times the prison authorities make a mistake in where they put them.
There’s currently no explicit law that stops anyone of any gender using any toilet - it’s up the proprietor within the limits of the various equality acts.
Assaults on women in female toilets by men will sadly continue regardless of whether it’s illegal for them to enter them - are we really suggesting that men who are willing to sexually assault people in a public space will suddenly be put off by the stick figure on the door? Obviously not. Someone my wife knows was assaulted by a man who followed her into the women’s toilets: He didn’t need to put a dress on to do that.
Once again this is GCs taking a genuine issue and deliberately conflating it with trans people in order to achieve their goals.
There should be no doubt. This ruling, and the celebrations of those who support it, will drive more trans people to take their lives.
"Unison's 2024 women's conference agreed (with no votes against) a 'Unite for more rights" motion stating that 'Trans women are women' and 'Trans men are men' and 'women's rights are not diminished by Trans people having more rights' "(interestingly, the word 'trans' was capitalised throughout - what grammatical madness is this?);
also, further down, an encouragement to go to a 'trans rights peaceful process'.
The madness has deep roots.
Aalso, on a separate note, the email contained the announcement that next week is 'lesbian visibility week' since a single day is not enough, in order to 'highlight the importance of uniting against lesbian erasure and uplifting those who deserve to live fully and authentically''.
TBH in a work situation I didn't really care whether someone was gay or not. When I was an employer we just had cubicle toilets for both sexes and that was that.
They never could previously use single sex spaces and it was people making an error in what the law means that meant they temporarily could.
People making an error in law then the courts slapping down that error is not fascism, it is the rule of law.
Single sex female spaces exist to protect females. Which has never legally included males who identify as females.