However I would challenge one assumption that Cyclefree has made - a group who are entirely within their rights to question whether the Supreme Court's ruling is the right one that should be the law is politicians - and anyone else who engages in political debate under our right to free speech.
The Supreme Court ruling on any matter is not the end of the debate, it is the end of the debate as to what the law is today.
If the politicians, or any campaigners, or anyone else interested in politics, or any citizens at all, wish the law were different then they are entirely within their rights to say that the law is an ass, and the law should be changed, in Parliament. That is what Parliament is for.
They just can't pretend the law is anything other than what the Court says it is anymore.
Yes, politicians can criticise the outcome of a Supreme Court judgment because they think the law should be different, and commit to campaigning to change it. What they should not do is say the Judges reached their decision because of "bigotry, prejudice and hatred".
As reported in @heraldscotland today, we were contacted by the committee, albeit in a manner which contrasted to the paid orgs.*
The interveners were not contacted.
However, while Maggie Chapman remains on that committee, we cannot see how we can respond. We have always been happy to engage with those who disagree with us, but we cannot engage with those who rabble-rouse, disrespect the rule of law, lie about the women who supported us, and flout parliamentary standards.
*Notice that for the SG (party to case with lots of paid staff) the Committee "appreciates you will be not immediately be in a position to provide a full response" - but omits that sentence, for @ForWomenScot, 3 volunteer women who've just been thro the mill, over Easter weekend.
Few politicians (with the odd exception) have covered themselves in glory in this episode, but the SNP and Scottish Greens have been particularly poor.
Wasn't the SNP position on gender reform pretty much that of Theresa May's (if I recall correctly a pol for whom you have some regard) in 2017? In fact unlike most other policy areas I think there was even some consultation between the governments over the issue. You can blame the SNP for some naivety by not noticing the convulsions fuelled by unelected commentators and tabloids rippling through the English body politic, but their views were certainly not out of the ordinary at the time.
Any updates on what the good Baroness thinks of the issue now?
Yep, the Tories fell for the guff, but mercifully saw the light.
Badenoch was on this years ahead of Labour, but much of the mess in the UK happened on their watch.
The SNP on the other hand were the only ones who pursued the TWAW logic to its destructive conclusion.
Any news from Nicola, who's still an elected politician, and just seen her totemic policy publicly trashed?
I see you lot are still obsessed with Sturgeon, someone who's standing down in a year. May (who 'apologised for her past votes while taking credit for helping advance LGBT rights within her party') otoh will still be an unelected politician for many years to come.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
That may be so, but if Trump caves on tariffs (as he might be doing on the China ones) doesn't that mean that equities will bounce back, but not necessarily Treasuries?
I suppose it depends on just how far his wings are clipped
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
How the federal government is tracking changes in the supply of street drugs The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s new harm reduction initiative is helping prevent needless deaths.
[LOADS of mildly technical stuff snipped to get to the politics]
Ironically of course the rightwing media who attacked the SC judges over their Brexit decisions now applaud them on their gender recognition judgement.
While the woke leftists and progressives who hate the judges gender recognition decision that a woman is born that way backed the judges on their Brexit decisions requiring Parliament to implement Brexit at each stage
Ironically of course the rightwing media who attacked the SC judges over their Brexit decisions now applaud them on their gender recognition judgement.
While the woke leftists and progressives who hate the judges gender recognition decision that a woman is born that way backed the judges on their Brexit decisions requiring Parliament to implement Brexit at each stage
Well I think…. hope, perhaps….., that I can be described as a ‘woke leftist’. I welcomed both decisions. What will have to happen now is a serious look at the provision of facilities for people who don’t conform to the norms.
Yes, I too am comfortable about both decisions and how they clarified the law.
Though we do need to look at the laws around gender recognition again, as a GRC seems pointless now.
I think too there will be problems of enforcement. Trans-people are not going away.
They don't need to go away, they just need to not go into the opposite sexes protected places.
Unprotected spaces are open to all.
There needs to be sex-neutral provisions available as well as, not instead of, single sex provisions.
In most public spaces nowadays the disabled toilet does this well, being sex neutral and often intended for more than just disabled people (eg many nowadays dual-purpose as baby changing facilities which suits their larger footprint that can fit a.baby changing table).
We need calm and sensible solutions instead of vitriol and whatabouterism.
Yesterday PBers were lamenting the lack of enforcement of the law in many areas. I think that this one is going to be even harder to enforce.
In high level sport it can be enforced, and in prisons too, but in mundane everyday places such as restaurants and bars? Much more difficult.
Great to see some real investment into some real infrastructure, rather than "investment" that doesn't have any infrastructure legacy.
We need to be building a lot more roads etc in this country. Especially linking places that are unlinked directly, like that example, with bridges and tunnels.
Farage seems to think we should have no climate change targets at all. I don’t think he’s changed his mind at all, he’s just dishonestly pretending he’s not still a climate change denier.
Ironically of course the rightwing media who attacked the SC judges over their Brexit decisions now applaud them on their gender recognition judgement.
While the woke leftists and progressives who hate the judges gender recognition decision that a woman is born that way backed the judges on their Brexit decisions requiring Parliament to implement Brexit at each stage
Ironically of course the rightwing media who attacked the SC judges over their Brexit decisions now applaud them on their gender recognition judgement.
While the woke leftists and progressives who hate the judges gender recognition decision that a woman is born that way backed the judges on their Brexit decisions requiring Parliament to implement Brexit at each stage
Well I think…. hope, perhaps….., that I can be described as a ‘woke leftist’. I welcomed both decisions. What will have to happen now is a serious look at the provision of facilities for people who don’t conform to the norms.
Yes, I too am comfortable about both decisions and how they clarified the law.
Though we do need to look at the laws around gender recognition again, as a GRC seems pointless now.
I think too there will be problems of enforcement. Trans-people are not going away.
They don't need to go away, they just need to not go into the opposite sexes protected places.
Unprotected spaces are open to all.
There needs to be sex-neutral provisions available as well as, not instead of, single sex provisions.
In most public spaces nowadays the disabled toilet does this well, being sex neutral and often intended for more than just disabled people (eg many nowadays dual-purpose as baby changing facilities which suits their larger footprint that can fit a.baby changing table).
We need calm and sensible solutions instead of vitriol and whatabouterism.
Yesterday PBers were lamenting the lack of enforcement of the law in many areas. I think that this one is going to be even harder to enforce.
In high level sport it can be enforced, and in prisons too, but in mundane everyday places such as restaurants and bars? Much more difficult.
Why are you worrying about enforcement? It’s more like the age of consent - there as a legal protection where necessary but otherwise not something that needs to be enforced.
What we often see when Labour are in Government is reduced turnout in local contests - in 1998 it was about 30% if memory serves. Labour voters at a General Election tend to stay at home when the job is done and register any discontent via abstention.
We also know in local contests the LDs, Greens and Independents of various forms become more of a factor. The exceptionally strong Conservative performance in 2021 leaves the party defending a lot of seats whereas Labour and LD are starting from much lower bases (as are Reform).
The Conservatives have gone into opposition with a strong residual councillor base (over 5,000) whereas in 1997 they had about 3,000. Labour have 6,325 and the LDs 3,011.
The Conservatives are defending the majority of the seats being contested and we have the added complication of more seats with multiple candidates. With Reform contesting nearly every seat and Labour, the LDs and Greens contesting a higher proportion than has been the case in previous rounds (as well as the aforementioned Independents), we could well see some strange results once you factor in low turnout.
You don't often see parties losing more than half the seats they are defending in local elections (GEs are different as we saw last year) - even in 1995 when the Conservatives lost 2,018 seats in one night, they still won 2,069 so if they are starting from around 1,000 as well you'd be looking at 475-500 seats as the top of the losses - anything more and it's really poor for Badenoch.
Farage seems to think we should have no climate change targets at all. I don’t think he’s changed his mind at all, he’s just dishonestly pretending he’s not still a climate change denier.
It’s a form of denial to think that anything we do to reduce emissions within the UK will make a difference to the trajectory of global climate change.
Ironically of course the rightwing media who attacked the SC judges over their Brexit decisions now applaud them on their gender recognition judgement.
While the woke leftists and progressives who hate the judges gender recognition decision that a woman is born that way backed the judges on their Brexit decisions requiring Parliament to implement Brexit at each stage
Ironically of course the rightwing media who attacked the SC judges over their Brexit decisions now applaud them on their gender recognition judgement.
While the woke leftists and progressives who hate the judges gender recognition decision that a woman is born that way backed the judges on their Brexit decisions requiring Parliament to implement Brexit at each stage
Well I think…. hope, perhaps….., that I can be described as a ‘woke leftist’. I welcomed both decisions. What will have to happen now is a serious look at the provision of facilities for people who don’t conform to the norms.
Yes, I too am comfortable about both decisions and how they clarified the law.
Though we do need to look at the laws around gender recognition again, as a GRC seems pointless now.
I think too there will be problems of enforcement. Trans-people are not going away.
They don't need to go away, they just need to not go into the opposite sexes protected places.
Unprotected spaces are open to all.
There needs to be sex-neutral provisions available as well as, not instead of, single sex provisions.
In most public spaces nowadays the disabled toilet does this well, being sex neutral and often intended for more than just disabled people (eg many nowadays dual-purpose as baby changing facilities which suits their larger footprint that can fit a.baby changing table).
We need calm and sensible solutions instead of vitriol and whatabouterism.
Yesterday PBers were lamenting the lack of enforcement of the law in many areas. I think that this one is going to be even harder to enforce.
In high level sport it can be enforced, and in prisons too, but in mundane everyday places such as restaurants and bars? Much more difficult.
Most of the time the law is enforced not by the Police or regulations, but social acceptance and voluntary enforcement.
See eg smoking in restaurants and bars, how often have you seen a Police Officer or similar enforce that regulation? Instead people tend to follow the law and it becomes habitual.
If it becomes the cultural norm that anyone can use the women's toilets, even if they're male, then that becomes the norm. If it becomes the cultural norm that only women can use the women's toilets, and anyone who is non-binary can use the disabled as a private sex-neutral alternative, then that becomes the norm.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
Look, I'll take it if he's struggling for options. I'll even throw in a research centre in his name at a Russell Group university
ETA: Sod it, for that money I can probably throw in renaming the university too
However I would challenge one assumption that Cyclefree has made - a group who are entirely within their rights to question whether the Supreme Court's ruling is the right one that should be the law is politicians - and anyone else who engages in political debate under our right to free speech.
The Supreme Court ruling on any matter is not the end of the debate, it is the end of the debate as to what the law is today.
If the politicians, or any campaigners, or anyone else interested in politics, or any citizens at all, wish the law were different then they are entirely within their rights to say that the law is an ass, and the law should be changed, in Parliament. That is what Parliament is for.
They just can't pretend the law is anything other than what the Court says it is anymore.
They could criticise the law. Which is the actual issue.
I note that not a single voice (that I have heard) has been raised to *change the law*
They could pass a law making single sex spaces open to trans - and make it specifically primary legislation so that it wins the game of Top Trumps (ha) Law.
But they won’t.
Oh they definitely won't change the law as that's a simple way of losing 1 million votes to gain 10,000 (albeit loud) ones..
Oh, indeed.
And they wonder why people think of politicians as lying shysters.
It's hard times for them. What feels unique to me is that there is no national party with a large, reliable solid base. Labour's base has splintered into the usual factions + temporary converts (like me); LDs national base is not large enough; The Tories have what is left after over half their vote has split away; Reform are too new to have a reliable base, and anyone relying on their voter base in the long run needs to get out more.
DK and NOTA doing OK.
A difficulty is the bleak and uncertain, but not catastrophic, economic outlook. That makes positive commitments difficult, while not seeming so desperate as to call for emergency measures. Floating voters are generally morose and willing to give Reform a try, without much enthusiasm - they've tried everyone else. I'm canvassing a couple of times a week and getting lots of genuine-sounding don't knows, plus a reduced stock of loyalists for the established parties.
That said, I've yet to meet a voter who expressed any opinion about the trans controversy or Supreme Court ruling. They obviously exist, but are heavily outnumbered by people who want an improvement in their economic position and/or benefits.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
This reads as if in your case, you set a limit of 100bn for your casual punts.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
This reads as if in your case, you set a limit of 100bn for your casual punts.
Typical lawyer, will be bemoaning that he is not well paid and that taxes should be levied on those who can afford 200bn punts next.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
This reads as if in your case, you set a limit of 100bn for your casual punts.
Well that’s true but I am normally very well inside that limit. At least 99.99%.
Top class science reporting: "Not only are these elements long, they're enormously heavy, weighing over 73,000 tonnes. Yet incredibly, sealing the ends watertight and fitting them with ballast tanks, gives enough buoyancy to tow them behind tugboats."
Someone needs to revisit Archimedes' principle. And have mind blown by the mass of an aircraft carrier. I'm also not sure the ballast tanks are there for buoyancy!
Funky design though - do they get buried afterwards? I guess they'll naturally silt up. Wondering how vulnerable they might be to 'accidental' damage from passing ships towing explosives.
Got to love having a rare doctor's appointment moved (both time and place) and being notified of it by message. Still, with any luck I'll be fine today and, if so, might just cancel it.
JohnO is going to kick me out of the PB Tories club but I do think the Tories erred in picking Badenoch over Jenrick, even with this sleazy Dirty Desmond baggage.
I believe you have something there. Would Jenrick Conservatives pick up a fair proportion of the N*zi vote from Reform?
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
This reads as if in your case, you set a limit of 100bn for your casual punts.
Well that’s true but I am normally very well inside that limit. At least 99.99%.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Funky design though - do they get buried afterwards? I guess they'll naturally silt up. Wondering how vulnerable they might be to 'accidental' damage from passing ships towing explosives.
If it’s a submerged tube unnel, then it's been done many times before. The Conway and Medway tunnels here in the UK for instance. But this one is long...
Farage seems to think we should have no climate change targets at all. I don’t think he’s changed his mind at all, he’s just dishonestly pretending he’s not still a climate change denier.
He's not. As far as I'm aware, he has never been one. He has denied human action as the cause, or a major cause, of climate change. That is totally different.
More embarrassing has been Labour’s attempts to rewrite history. A Labour source told the Telegraph the judgement showed why it was “so important that Keir hauled the Labour Party back to the common-sense position the public take on these sorts of issues”. This was, the source said, “one of the reasons the country felt Labour was safe to elect”. Really? Wasn’t it Starmer who, in 2021, called the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield’s statement “only women have a cervix” “something that shouldn’t be said”. And wasn’t it John Healey, now the Defence Secretary, who said during the 2024 election campaign that clarification of the law around sex and gender was a “distraction” and “not needed”? On 16 April, Phillipson claimed Labour had “always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex”. But she said in a June 2024 interview that trans women with a GRC should use female toilets. Why can’t politicians admit they got it wrong?
Yes, it's awful. However the pragmatic morality of political power truly is quite different from ordinary normality. There are reasons for this.
Rory was once my MP. I wish he still was. He is rational, sane, sensible, consistent, moderate and articulate. He is no longer in power politics for exactly those reasons. But millions turn to him for articulate analysis of what is going on.
Starmer has hardly held firm on a single controverted issue. This is well documented. As a result he is PM. No-one listens to anything he says in the sort of way they listen to Rory; the whole thing is platitudinous, meaningless drivel. But he exercises power, and despite the moral bankruptcy of it, is OK. I have no idea what he thinks. perhaps he just doesn't.
Bagehot in the Economist said all this a few months ago, comparing these two same people.
To understand all this, don't start with Aristotle or John Rawls, start with Machiavelli. For the advanced course, start with Trump.
Actually thought Kemi Badenoch was quite compelling about this in the Commons yesterday. And that might be the first time I have said that.
It's because she actually believes what she's saying rather than being a reactionary. When politicians are authentic you can tell, but the problem with modern politicians is that they believe in very little other than not losing.
There were some signs yesterday that Philippson believed what she was saying - it felt like "the penny had dropped" that this was not just a "trans rights" issue but also a "women's rights" issue, given her history - as she pointed out - in women's refuges. Against the multiple attempts at special pleading on the former, not the latter, from her own back benches she held a firm line. We'll see how deeply it has taken root when schools guidance comes out.
Similarly Wes Streeting seems to have "got it" over "gender affirming care" (sic) - when the penny dropped that this could be doing serious harm to young gay kids, as he once was himself.
With Starmer the "penny" seems to be the Supreme Court - if they'd said the moon was made of green cheese he'd have supported that too....
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
This reads as if in your case, you set a limit of 100bn for your casual punts.
Well that’s true but I am normally very well inside that limit. At least 99.99%.
Funky design though - do they get buried afterwards? I guess they'll naturally silt up. Wondering how vulnerable they might be to 'accidental' damage from passing ships towing explosives.
Video (AI?) of the tunnel construction. Seems it will be buried. No cycle lane though even though there was an offer to part finance one.
Anyone who thinks nobody should ever say the Supreme Court has made a bad decision should either propose a bill that would enshrine a ban in legislation (maybe a Treason Bill?), or else get a big swishy thing that goes on the end of their finger that they can wag all the time, saying "Don't criticise judges, or else society will fall apart".
Personally I think this decision by the Supreme Court was a good decision. But if someone wants to say it was a crock, that's fine by me.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
If he's buying short dated treasury bills, it's not really a punt it's just a cash equivalent.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
Great to see some real investment into some real infrastructure, rather than "investment" that doesn't have any infrastructure legacy.
We need to be building a lot more roads etc in this country. Especially linking places that are unlinked directly, like that example, with bridges and tunnels.
Did my second journey through the Silvertown Tunnel yesterday, via the extended 129 bus. Did the tunnel via the SL4 bus two weeks ago today.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Yes, as usual my contribution was not particularly original. The judgment itself made the same point.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
This is one of my local anti-wheelchair barriers, installed iirc in about 1977-1980 to close a rat-run (I used to cycle down there on my RSW14 before we left the area in 1976, and it wasn't there) to get to my grandma's house.
Now it blocks anyone using a mobility aid from reaching their closest small supermarket. The throughway is 2ft wide. This is a signposted Public Footpath on the Definitive Map, so I think I can shift this one under S130A of the Highways Act..
Does anyone know of any such similar barriers outside Nottinghamshire? It is built from the kind of blocks they used to keep vehicles off verges and from cutting traffic islands. I know 3 or 4 in my town, and a few in Nottingham (eg to close the Rolleston Drive rat-run in Lenton - second link).
My photo quota. Ignore autoselfish White Van man who has parked on the public footpath, blocking it. He's just a normal vehicle driver not thinking beyond the end of his nose, or about other people.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
If he's buying short dated treasury bills, it's not really a punt it's just a cash equivalent.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
The US has never defaulted.
But then, the US has never previously been run by a criminal lunatic bent on destroying its economy.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Yes, as usual my contribution was not particularly original. The judgment itself made the same point.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
Can they not use accessible toilets?
Robin Moira White was arguing on the BBC politics show yesterday that this judgement will lead to the end of men's and women's facilities and if anyone doesn't like it, they can queue up for the accessible toilet.
@Fishing you call it a woke American import but do you realise that the High Court and the Court of Appeal were called the “Supreme Courts” for almost the whole of the 20th century. See Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1910. It is no alien term to the British legal system.
No I wasn't, thanks for the trivia. Despite enduring a fair chunk of the 20th century, I never heard them referred to as such and I doubt many other non-lawyers did. And it could still have been an American import as the United States somewhat predated 1910, though perhaps not a Blairite one.
But I agree our courts were even more clearly misnamed too.
They were known as the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, or the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords and/or the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
So it certainly wasn't a widely used term, even if they were practically the supreme court (small s and small c).
Today Britain has a "National Security Council" and what is now widely referred to as the "Supreme Court" (but wasn't before). In brand management terms, renaming the House of Lords "the Senate" would be a mistake.
The real risk for Reform (beyond supposedly the NHS which I’m really not convinced about) is that they just come across as opposing without offering any real solutions.
To her credit in the last couple of weeks I do think Badenoch has found some actual differences in policy to Labour.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
If he's buying short dated treasury bills, it's not really a punt it's just a cash equivalent.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
The US has never defaulted.
But then, the US has never previously been run by a criminal lunatic bent on destroying its economy.
I think it’s actually worse than that. He’s a criminal lunatic who thinks he knows how to improve the US economy. This makes him far more unpredictable and dangerous.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
If he's buying short dated treasury bills, it's not really a punt it's just a cash equivalent.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
The US has never defaulted.
But then, the US has never previously been run by a criminal lunatic bent on destroying its economy.
According to The Hill, the USA has defaulted on it's financial obligations 4 times.
- The default on the U.S. government’s demand notes in early 1862, caused by the Treasury’s financial difficulties trying to pay for the Civil War. - The overt default by the U.S. government on its gold bonds in 1933, by refusing to honor its explicit promise to redeem its silver certificate paper dollars for silver dollars. - The fourth default was the 1971 breaking of the U.S. government’s commitment to redeem dollars held by foreign governments for gold under the Bretton Woods Agreement.
More embarrassing has been Labour’s attempts to rewrite history. A Labour source told the Telegraph the judgement showed why it was “so important that Keir hauled the Labour Party back to the common-sense position the public take on these sorts of issues”. This was, the source said, “one of the reasons the country felt Labour was safe to elect”. Really? Wasn’t it Starmer who, in 2021, called the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield’s statement “only women have a cervix” “something that shouldn’t be said”. And wasn’t it John Healey, now the Defence Secretary, who said during the 2024 election campaign that clarification of the law around sex and gender was a “distraction” and “not needed”? On 16 April, Phillipson claimed Labour had “always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex”. But she said in a June 2024 interview that trans women with a GRC should use female toilets. Why can’t politicians admit they got it wrong?
Yes, it's awful. However the pragmatic morality of political power truly is quite different from ordinary normality. There are reasons for this.
Rory was once my MP. I wish he still was. He is rational, sane, sensible, consistent, moderate and articulate. He is no longer in power politics for exactly those reasons. But millions turn to him for articulate analysis of what is going on.
Starmer has hardly held firm on a single controverted issue. This is well documented. As a result he is PM. No-one listens to anything he says in the sort of way they listen to Rory; the whole thing is platitudinous, meaningless drivel. But he exercises power, and despite the moral bankruptcy of it, is OK. I have no idea what he thinks. perhaps he just doesn't.
Bagehot in the Economist said all this a few months ago, comparing these two same people.
To understand all this, don't start with Aristotle or John Rawls, start with Machiavelli. For the advanced course, start with Trump.
Actually thought Kemi Badenoch was quite compelling about this in the Commons yesterday. And that might be the first time I have said that.
It's because she actually believes what she's saying rather than being a reactionary. When politicians are authentic you can tell, but the problem with modern politicians is that they believe in very little other than not losing.
There were some signs yesterday that Philippson believed what she was saying - it felt like "the penny had dropped" that this was not just a "trans rights" issue but also a "women's rights" issue, given her history - as she pointed out - in women's refuges. Against the multiple attempts at special pleading on the former, not the latter, from her own back benches she held a firm line. We'll see how deeply it has taken root when schools guidance comes out.
Similarly Wes Streeting seems to have "got it" over "gender affirming care" (sic) - when the penny dropped that this could be doing serious harm to young gay kids, as he once was himself.
With Starmer the "penny" seems to be the Supreme Court - if they'd said the moon was made of green cheese he'd have supported that too....
Yep because there is no real political cost in saying that’s the law.
The cost comes from trying to change the law to please some very vocal complainers because that would upset the other set of very vocal former complainers (who are currently happy) and a lot of people who want the whole issue is disappear as it’s an unsolvable quagmire best avoided by anyone sane
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Yes, as usual my contribution was not particularly original. The judgment itself made the same point.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
Why can't they go into gender-neutral toilets, like disabled ones?
I don't know of many places without gender-neutral toilets.
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
The real risk for Reform (beyond supposedly the NHS which I’m really not convinced about) is that they just come across as opposing without offering any real solutions.
To her credit in the last couple of weeks I do think Badenoch has found some actual differences in policy to Labour.
I think come to an actual general election, people will recoil from the prospect of Farage as PM. He's a gifted media personality, alright, but hand him and his minions the keys to No10? The challenge for Kemi is whether she really can look like an alternative to Sir Keir. Jury very much out on that, but her recent performance in the House does show a capacity to rise to the occasion unlike, say, IDS.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
If he's buying short dated treasury bills, it's not really a punt it's just a cash equivalent.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
The US has never defaulted.
But then, the US has never previously been run by a criminal lunatic bent on destroying its economy.
Actually, the US has defaulted.
The UK is one of the only major nations to have never defaulted.
I think it’s actually worse than that. He’s a criminal lunatic who thinks he knows how to improve the US economy. This makes him far more unpredictable and dangerous.
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
If he's buying short dated treasury bills, it's not really a punt it's just a cash equivalent.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
The US has never defaulted.
But then, the US has never previously been run by a criminal lunatic bent on destroying its economy.
Actually, the US has defaulted.
The UK is one of the only major nations to have never defaulted.
We defaulted after WW 1 when we made a lot of gilts unredeemable. We bought these up only recently.
Looking at the latest polling from Canada and Australia this morning.
The latest Canadian polling continues to show a small tightening of the race between Carney's Liberals and Poilievre's Conservatives. The Liberal lead is around 1-5 points which is within margin of error but the unknown (and small sub samples from national polls aren't much use) is how the two parties are performing in each provinces.
Worth re-stating Ontario and Quebec have between them 199 of the 338 ridings so nearly two thirds. Alberta and Saskatchewan may look big but in seat terms they aren't. British Columbia is probably the key area but if the Liberals hold on in Ontario and Quebec it won't matter much what Poilievre does elsewhere as he will find it impossible to win a majority without doing well in those areas.
In Australia, the latest Roy Morgan poll (to be fair, fieldwork done before the third leaders' debate which seems to have been a score draw at worst for Dutton) puts Labor half a point ahead of the Coalition on the primary vote and eleven points up on the 2 party preferred (2PP) measure 55.5-44.5. That would be a comfortable Labor majority.
Plenty of media speculation and a note LNP gains in Victoria may be just 2-4 seats which wouldn't be enough as Labor is holding up well in NSW and the West. There's apparently a fourth Leaders' Debate on Sunday evening (Australia time).
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
If he's buying short dated treasury bills, it's not really a punt it's just a cash equivalent.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
The US has never defaulted.
But then, the US has never previously been run by a criminal lunatic bent on destroying its economy.
Actually, the US has defaulted.
The UK is one of the only major nations to have never defaulted.
We defaulted after WW 1 when we made a lot of gilts unredeemable. We bought these up only recently.
That, I think, is one reason why the USA screwed us down so heavily in 1941.
More embarrassing has been Labour’s attempts to rewrite history. A Labour source told the Telegraph the judgement showed why it was “so important that Keir hauled the Labour Party back to the common-sense position the public take on these sorts of issues”. This was, the source said, “one of the reasons the country felt Labour was safe to elect”. Really? Wasn’t it Starmer who, in 2021, called the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield’s statement “only women have a cervix” “something that shouldn’t be said”. And wasn’t it John Healey, now the Defence Secretary, who said during the 2024 election campaign that clarification of the law around sex and gender was a “distraction” and “not needed”? On 16 April, Phillipson claimed Labour had “always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex”. But she said in a June 2024 interview that trans women with a GRC should use female toilets. Why can’t politicians admit they got it wrong?
Yes, it's awful. However the pragmatic morality of political power truly is quite different from ordinary normality. There are reasons for this.
Rory was once my MP. I wish he still was. He is rational, sane, sensible, consistent, moderate and articulate. He is no longer in power politics for exactly those reasons. But millions turn to him for articulate analysis of what is going on.
Starmer has hardly held firm on a single controverted issue. This is well documented. As a result he is PM. No-one listens to anything he says in the sort of way they listen to Rory; the whole thing is platitudinous, meaningless drivel. But he exercises power, and despite the moral bankruptcy of it, is OK. I have no idea what he thinks. perhaps he just doesn't.
Bagehot in the Economist said all this a few months ago, comparing these two same people.
To understand all this, don't start with Aristotle or John Rawls, start with Machiavelli. For the advanced course, start with Trump.
Actually thought Kemi Badenoch was quite compelling about this in the Commons yesterday. And that might be the first time I have said that.
As long as you ignore Tory history when in power and difficult cases, this issue is not a terribly difficult one for Daily Mail Tories to take a line.
So far KB is dealing with tough policy matters by delay, and apology for the Tory past, while saying she is setting out principles. She isn't doing this well because I have no idea what they are beyond motherhood and apple pie.
In reality she has hard choices to make. Like does she want the One Nation vote or the Farage vote.
To get a majority under FPTP she needs most of both.
However much of the former has gone LD and most of the latter Reform
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
That makes Soros and Black Wednesday look like a flutter on the grand national. He must be very confident that this nonsense is going to stop and US Treasuries are going to rebound. Very confident.
I think he is very confident that Trumpski is a blowhard who backs down at every opportunity
The record to date is that is the smart move but I am not sure I would be betting more than $100bn on it.
If he was betting on a US recovery he'd be investing in stocks.
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
If he's buying short dated treasury bills, it's not really a punt it's just a cash equivalent.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
The US has never defaulted.
But then, the US has never previously been run by a criminal lunatic bent on destroying its economy.
Actually, the US has defaulted.
The UK is one of the only major nations to have never defaulted.
We defaulted after WW 1 when we made a lot of gilts unredeemable. We bought these up only recently.
England and Scotland have also both defaulted, before 1707.
Farage seems to think we should have no climate change targets at all. I don’t think he’s changed his mind at all, he’s just dishonestly pretending he’s not still a climate change denier.
It’s a form of denial to think that anything we do to reduce emissions within the UK will make a difference to the trajectory of global climate change.
For the vast majority of people the good they do in the world matters little in the grand scheme of things. However most of them do not use this fact to justify not bothering. If they did everything would go to shit in very short order.
Top class science reporting: "Not only are these elements long, they're enormously heavy, weighing over 73,000 tonnes. Yet incredibly, sealing the ends watertight and fitting them with ballast tanks, gives enough buoyancy to tow them behind tugboats."
Someone needs to revisit Archimedes' principle. And have mind blown by the mass of an aircraft carrier. I'm also not sure the ballast tanks are there for buoyancy!
In a way, they are. There are different approaches to building submerged tunnels, but one is to split the tunnel section into separate watertight compartments, each with separate flooding and emptying controls. Often a mass of concrete is also added to help it sink, to be removed later. Water is then pumped into, and out of, the tanks separately to maintain trim as it firstly floats, then is sunk. They could use the entire tunnel as one large tank, but that would lead to significant trim problems due to the free surface effect.
This makes the tunnel segment pretty much like a submarine, and the tanks in a submarine are also called ballast tanks.
(From memory; one of my lecturers worked on the geo end aspects of the Medway Tunnel.)
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
He did go for "it" in 2016. He just got royally shafted by Govey.
A week on BBC's Women's Hour (finally) interview one of the women behind the For Women Scotland case - makes a change from lawyers and trans activists:
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
He did go for "it" in 2016. He just got royally shafted by Govey.
He didn't formally go for the MP nominations stage of the Tory process is what I mean but you kind of prove my point.
Had it not been for Gove, then he might have won in 2016, and if he had then those who backed him in 2014 would have won their bets, despite betting on someone who was not [then] an MP.
Burnham could become PM through a similar process, if Starmer is not replaced before the next election. I don't think he will, but it's possible.
The former Fox News host wrote in a recent book that “women cannot physically meet the same standards as men” and that mothers were needed “but not in the military, especially in combat units”.
An Immigrant Held in U.S. Custody ‘Simply Disappeared’ The Venezuelan man did not appear on a list of people sent to a prison in El Salvador, and his family and friends had no idea of his whereabouts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/us/venezuela-immigrant-disappear-deport-ice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Bk8.kZP5.-qaBmaPOd8KS&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare ...The failure to list his deportation and location on any publicly accessible records may have been a simple oversight, but the matter continues to raise alarm among immigrant advocates and legal scholars, who say Mr. Prada’s case suggests a new level of disarray in the immigration system, as officials face pressure to rapidly fulfill President Trump’s pledge of mass deportations. While hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been deported under various administrations in recent years, it is extraordinarily unusual for them to disappear without a legal record.
“I have not heard of a disappearance like this in my 40-plus years of practicing and teaching immigration law,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration scholar at Cornell Law School...
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
He did go for "it" in 2016. He just got royally shafted by Govey.
He didn't formally go for the MP nominations stage of the Tory process is what I mean but you kind of prove my point.
Had it not been for Gove, then he might have won in 2016, and if he had then those who backed him in 2014 would have won their bets, despite betting on someone who was not [then] an MP.
Burnham could become PM through a similar process, if Starmer is not replaced before the next election. I don't think he will, but it's possible.
Labour are most probably finished forever. Burnham is a blast from the distant and despised past, he isn't going to do any damage to Farage's high flying National Socialists or Jenrick's resurgent populist Tories.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Yes, as usual my contribution was not particularly original. The judgment itself made the same point.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
Can they not use accessible toilets?
Robin Moira White was arguing on the BBC politics show yesterday that this judgement will lead to the end of men's and women's facilities and if anyone doesn't like it, they can queue up for the accessible toilet.
Organisations failing to provide single sex facilities risk indirect discrimination claims and will also be in breach of their separate legal obligations to provide such facilities as employers to their staff. They may also be in breach of their obligations under the regulations in force since October 2024 to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff.
White is not a reliable guide to the law. Dreadful track record in the courts.
VIDEO | Pahalgam terror attack: Former Jammu and Kashmir DGP SP Vaid says, "I believe that this is Pulwama 2 moment for India. This is attack is not any co-incidence; it is a well-planned attack. I have said this earlier too... these are Pakistan SSG commandos dressed as terrorists. A couple of days ago, Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir made a statement, and you see such kind of an attack here... Asim Munir is using 'jihad' language, the attack has been carried in a similar way. The response should be similar to what Israel did after Hamas attack. There should be an appropriate response."
More embarrassing has been Labour’s attempts to rewrite history. A Labour source told the Telegraph the judgement showed why it was “so important that Keir hauled the Labour Party back to the common-sense position the public take on these sorts of issues”. This was, the source said, “one of the reasons the country felt Labour was safe to elect”. Really? Wasn’t it Starmer who, in 2021, called the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield’s statement “only women have a cervix” “something that shouldn’t be said”. And wasn’t it John Healey, now the Defence Secretary, who said during the 2024 election campaign that clarification of the law around sex and gender was a “distraction” and “not needed”? On 16 April, Phillipson claimed Labour had “always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex”. But she said in a June 2024 interview that trans women with a GRC should use female toilets. Why can’t politicians admit they got it wrong?
Yes, it's awful. However the pragmatic morality of political power truly is quite different from ordinary normality. There are reasons for this.
Rory was once my MP. I wish he still was. He is rational, sane, sensible, consistent, moderate and articulate. He is no longer in power politics for exactly those reasons. But millions turn to him for articulate analysis of what is going on.
Starmer has hardly held firm on a single controverted issue. This is well documented. As a result he is PM. No-one listens to anything he says in the sort of way they listen to Rory; the whole thing is platitudinous, meaningless drivel. But he exercises power, and despite the moral bankruptcy of it, is OK. I have no idea what he thinks. perhaps he just doesn't.
Bagehot in the Economist said all this a few months ago, comparing these two same people.
To understand all this, don't start with Aristotle or John Rawls, start with Machiavelli. For the advanced course, start with Trump.
Actually, start with Putin. One of the Adam Curtis documentaries points out that Putin has created an autocracy where politics is no longer the province of the people but instead hived off to a political class. For this to work you have to be attentive to the public mood by meeting angry citizens, taking polls, monitoring the people, etc
We use democracy as information transfer, selecting the party we want to govern from defined parties who believe in things. It works, but it's a bit brutal and tends to veer from side to side. Autocracy can work better, because politicians who believe in nothing except their own power can choose policies that reflect the public mood and change overnight at need.
Starmer, as a politician who believes in nothing and is willing to lie about past positions, is a halfway house to autocracy. And has done very well.
Ironically of course the rightwing media who attacked the SC judges over their Brexit decisions now applaud them on their gender recognition judgement.
While the woke leftists and progressives who hate the judges gender recognition decision that a woman is born that way backed the judges on their Brexit decisions requiring Parliament to implement Brexit at each stage
Ironically of course the rightwing media who attacked the SC judges over their Brexit decisions now applaud them on their gender recognition judgement.
While the woke leftists and progressives who hate the judges gender recognition decision that a woman is born that way backed the judges on their Brexit decisions requiring Parliament to implement Brexit at each stage
Well I think…. hope, perhaps….., that I can be described as a ‘woke leftist’. I welcomed both decisions. What will have to happen now is a serious look at the provision of facilities for people who don’t conform to the norms.
Yes, I too am comfortable about both decisions and how they clarified the law.
Though we do need to look at the laws around gender recognition again, as a GRC seems pointless now.
I think too there will be problems of enforcement. Trans-people are not going away.
They don't need to go away, they just need to not go into the opposite sexes protected places.
Unprotected spaces are open to all.
There needs to be sex-neutral provisions available as well as, not instead of, single sex provisions.
In most public spaces nowadays the disabled toilet does this well, being sex neutral and often intended for more than just disabled people (eg many nowadays dual-purpose as baby changing facilities which suits their larger footprint that can fit a.baby changing table).
We need calm and sensible solutions instead of vitriol and whatabouterism.
Yesterday PBers were lamenting the lack of enforcement of the law in many areas. I think that this one is going to be even harder to enforce.
In high level sport it can be enforced, and in prisons too, but in mundane everyday places such as restaurants and bars? Much more difficult.
Most of the time the law is enforced not by the Police or regulations, but social acceptance and voluntary enforcement.
See eg smoking in restaurants and bars, how often have you seen a Police Officer or similar enforce that regulation? Instead people tend to follow the law and it becomes habitual.
If it becomes the cultural norm that anyone can use the women's toilets, even if they're male, then that becomes the norm. If it becomes the cultural norm that only women can use the women's toilets, and anyone who is non-binary can use the disabled as a private sex-neutral alternative, then that becomes the norm.
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
He did go for "it" in 2016. He just got royally shafted by Govey.
He didn't formally go for the MP nominations stage of the Tory process is what I mean but you kind of prove my point.
Had it not been for Gove, then he might have won in 2016, and if he had then those who backed him in 2014 would have won their bets, despite betting on someone who was not [then] an MP.
Burnham could become PM through a similar process, if Starmer is not replaced before the next election. I don't think he will, but it's possible.
Labour are most probably finished forever. Burnham is a blast from the distant and despised past, he isn't going to do any damage to Farage's high flying National Socialists or Jenrick's resurgent populist Tories.
So, if Labour are finished, who do you think the 40+% of the electorate who would never vote for a right-wing party will coalesce around eventually?
So assuming that this Parliament will do nothing to change the GRA or EA to change the law we'll now have at least 3-4 years to live under the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law.
The Cyclefree position is that this will make women safer. I think it will make women less safe with the added disadvantage of making trans people less safe as well. Are there any datasets we can look at over the next few years to determine which one of us is right?
Top class science reporting: "Not only are these elements long, they're enormously heavy, weighing over 73,000 tonnes. Yet incredibly, sealing the ends watertight and fitting them with ballast tanks, gives enough buoyancy to tow them behind tugboats."
Someone needs to revisit Archimedes' principle. And have mind blown by the mass of an aircraft carrier. I'm also not sure the ballast tanks are there for buoyancy!
In a way, they are. There are different approaches to building submerged tunnels, but one is to split the tunnel section into separate watertight compartments, each with separate flooding and emptying controls. Often a mass of concrete is also added to help it sink, to be removed later. Water is then pumped into, and out of, the tanks separately to maintain trim as it firstly floats, then is sunk. They could use the entire tunnel as one large tank, but that would lead to significant trim problems due to the free surface effect.
This makes the tunnel segment pretty much like a submarine, and the tanks in a submarine are also called ballast tanks.
(From memory; one of my lecturers worked on the geo end aspects of the Medway Tunnel.)
Sure, but they control the level of buoyancy (by filling and emptying). If you just wanted full buoyancy then no tanks is equivalent to empty tanks (minus the tank mass). The original quote implies that the ballast tanks are important to being able to float at all (again, they are important for being able to float in the desired way and then sink when needed).
If the tunnel sections themselves were not sealed with water-tight bulkheads then the ballast tanks, empty*, would actually be a buoyancy aid, otherwise surrounded by water. When otherwise surrounded by air, they are not.
*well, air-filled, of course but that's the terminology
So assuming that this Parliament will do nothing to change the GRA or EA to change the law we'll now have at least 3-4 years to live under the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law.
The Cyclefree position is that this will make women safer. I think it will make women less safe with the added disadvantage of making trans people less safe as well. Are there any datasets we can look at over the next few years to determine which one of us is right?
You’ll probably both find statistics to support your position. It will probably be impossible to distinguish from other effects.
So assuming that this Parliament will do nothing to change the GRA or EA to change the law we'll now have at least 3-4 years to live under the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law.
The Cyclefree position is that this will make women safer. I think it will make women less safe with the added disadvantage of making trans people less safe as well. Are there any datasets we can look at over the next few years to determine which one of us is right?
You’ll probably both find statistics to support your position. It will probably be impossible to distinguish from other effects.
Yes, I agree, but my attempt is to get to an agreement of what statistics are likely to give some pointers before we get to 2030. If we wait until the statistics are out then the temptation will be to cherry pick the bits that support each position.
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
He did go for "it" in 2016. He just got royally shafted by Govey.
He didn't formally go for the MP nominations stage of the Tory process is what I mean but you kind of prove my point.
Had it not been for Gove, then he might have won in 2016, and if he had then those who backed him in 2014 would have won their bets, despite betting on someone who was not [then] an MP.
Burnham could become PM through a similar process, if Starmer is not replaced before the next election. I don't think he will, but it's possible.
Labour are most probably finished forever. Burnham is a blast from the distant and despised past, he isn't going to do any damage to Farage's high flying National Socialists or Jenrick's resurgent populist Tories.
So, if Labour are finished, who do you think the 40+% of the electorate who would never vote for a right-wing party will coalesce around eventually?
Burnham would also have more appeal to the redwall now than Starmer
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
He did go for "it" in 2016. He just got royally shafted by Govey.
The best speech Boris Johnson ever made was the one then explaining why he was not suitable to be PM.
However I would challenge one assumption that Cyclefree has made - a group who are entirely within their rights to question whether the Supreme Court's ruling is the right one that should be the law is politicians - and anyone else who engages in political debate under our right to free speech.
The Supreme Court ruling on any matter is not the end of the debate, it is the end of the debate as to what the law is today.
If the politicians, or any campaigners, or anyone else interested in politics, or any citizens at all, wish the law were different then they are entirely within their rights to say that the law is an ass, and the law should be changed, in Parliament. That is what Parliament is for.
They just can't pretend the law is anything other than what the Court says it is anymore.
Yes, politicians can criticise the outcome of a Supreme Court judgment because they think the law should be different, and commit to campaigning to change it. What they should not do is say the Judges reached their decision because of "bigotry, prejudice and hatred".
As reported in @heraldscotland today, we were contacted by the committee, albeit in a manner which contrasted to the paid orgs.*
The interveners were not contacted.
However, while Maggie Chapman remains on that committee, we cannot see how we can respond. We have always been happy to engage with those who disagree with us, but we cannot engage with those who rabble-rouse, disrespect the rule of law, lie about the women who supported us, and flout parliamentary standards.
*Notice that for the SG (party to case with lots of paid staff) the Committee "appreciates you will be not immediately be in a position to provide a full response" - but omits that sentence, for @ForWomenScot, 3 volunteer women who've just been thro the mill, over Easter weekend.
Few politicians (with the odd exception) have covered themselves in glory in this episode, but the SNP and Scottish Greens have been particularly poor.
Wasn't the SNP position on gender reform pretty much that of Theresa May's (if I recall correctly a pol for whom you have some regard) in 2017? In fact unlike most other policy areas I think there was even some consultation between the governments over the issue. You can blame the SNP for some naivety by not noticing the convulsions fuelled by unelected commentators and tabloids rippling through the English body politic, but their views were certainly not out of the ordinary at the time.
Any updates on what the good Baroness thinks of the issue now?
Yep, the Tories fell for the guff, but mercifully saw the light.
Badenoch was on this years ahead of Labour, but much of the mess in the UK happened on their watch.
The SNP on the other hand were the only ones who pursued the TWAW logic to its destructive conclusion.
Any news from Nicola, who's still an elected politician, and just seen her totemic policy publicly trashed?
I see you lot are still obsessed with Sturgeon, someone who's standing down in a year. May (who 'apologised for her past votes while taking credit for helping advance LGBT rights within her party') otoh will still be an unelected politician for many years to come.
I see you lot are determined to memory-hole St Nicola "the most successful Scottish politician of her generation" destined for a high flying role in the UN
I've used my picture allocation for the day, otherwise I'd post JK Rowling's response to Sturgeon's Easter selfie of herself in the gym.
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
He did go for "it" in 2016. He just got royally shafted by Govey.
A rare moment when every teacher in the land felt empathy for Massive Johnson.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Yes, as usual my contribution was not particularly original. The judgment itself made the same point.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
Like this person you mean who was at the demo stating that he would continue to breach women's boundaries, regardless of their wishes?
Gosh - why might women and girls have an objection to having such a man who doesn't give a toss about their consent in with them?
What is not satisfactory is men standing up for blokes like this and showing fuck all sympathy for women who have had to put up with men like this forcing their way into women's spaces and abusing any who object, in the most vitriolic and violent tones. Men can make space for them in their own spaces, they can "be kind" and "inclusive" or they can create neutral spaces for them, to use. Though when this has been offered this has been refused because they want to force women to validate them. This is - bluntly - coercive behaviour and no women should be expected to tolerate it. It is not satisfactory to expect women to give up their needs and rights to solve the problem of men's violence against other men or men not being inclusive of other sorts of men. This is a problem for men to solve. Not women.
Looking at the latest polling from Canada and Australia this morning.
The latest Canadian polling continues to show a small tightening of the race between Carney's Liberals and Poilievre's Conservatives. The Liberal lead is around 1-5 points which is within margin of error but the unknown (and small sub samples from national polls aren't much use) is how the two parties are performing in each provinces.
Worth re-stating Ontario and Quebec have between them 199 of the 338 ridings so nearly two thirds. Alberta and Saskatchewan may look big but in seat terms they aren't. British Columbia is probably the key area but if the Liberals hold on in Ontario and Quebec it won't matter much what Poilievre does elsewhere as he will find it impossible to win a majority without doing well in those areas.
In Australia, the latest Roy Morgan poll (to be fair, fieldwork done before the third leaders' debate which seems to have been a score draw at worst for Dutton) puts Labor half a point ahead of the Coalition on the primary vote and eleven points up on the 2 party preferred (2PP) measure 55.5-44.5. That would be a comfortable Labor majority.
Plenty of media speculation and a note LNP gains in Victoria may be just 2-4 seats which wouldn't be enough as Labor is holding up well in NSW and the West. There's apparently a fourth Leaders' Debate on Sunday evening (Australia time).
Latest Newspoll is much closer at 52 to 48 and Australian polls tend to overestimate Labor slightly
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Yes, as usual my contribution was not particularly original. The judgment itself made the same point.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
Can they not use accessible toilets?
Robin Moira White was arguing on the BBC politics show yesterday that this judgement will lead to the end of men's and women's facilities and if anyone doesn't like it, they can queue up for the accessible toilet.
Organisations failing to provide single sex facilities risk indirect discrimination claims and will also be in breach of their separate legal obligations to provide such facilities as employers to their staff. They may also be in breach of their obligations under the regulations in force since October 2024 to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff.
White is not a reliable guide to the law. Dreadful track record in the courts.
Can you expand upon this as I've worked in places with only a single cubicle, shared by everyone, workplaces with separate ones, and workplaces with unisex facilities.
When are single sex facilities required? Is it based on number of employees as presumably places with only one WC aren't expected to have them.
"The Supreme Court has done its job. It has stated what the law is."
Anyone can see what the law IS. They can just read it. the Supreme Court has given its opinion on what the law MEANS. Not the same thing at all. A different bunch of judges could have judged completely differently, and may do in a year or two, who knows?. And anybody can have an opinion, though obviously with different levels of information and legitimacy. Somebody's opinion has to be determinative, but, whatever the merits of this case, the idea that we all must just STFU and do what lawyers tell us, even if we know it is completely wrong, stifles democratic debate and legitimate protest.
After decades of experience with them, I hold the legal profession in contempt (unless I need them or they agree with me, obviously). With vanishingly few exceptions, they constantly opine about matters in which they have no expertise, or, often, interest, act as a cosy cartel, charge outrageous fees, are next to CEOs the profession with most psychopaths, and are staggeringly pompous and self-important as a profession, no matter how self-deprecating they can be as individuals.
An obvious example of their self-importance is the name - the Supreme Court. It is a a ghastly Blairite American import, and like most such (e.g. wokeness) completely unsuited to the conditions in this country. It implies, no states explicitly that the Court is supreme, whereas in fact it is subordinate to Parliament, which in turn is subordinate to the people.
But I suppose Provisional Interpreting Court S.T. Parliament and the People and Maybe a Few International Treaties doesn't quite have the same ring to it?
I wrote an article that referred to Jacob Rees Mogg and David Starkey approvingly when they decried the concept of a standalone Supreme Court and provided links thus
"... Part 6 * [61] “Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks at the PopCon launch” (2024) Sir Jacob Rees Mogg at the PopCon Conference February 2024. See the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfy08kxcPo * [62] “We Are About To Elect A Government Nobody Wants. What went wrong?” (2024) David Starkey at The New Culture Forum Conference 2024. See the link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClDrkcSfKjk ..."
Amongst the findings of a new Ashcroft poll is that Andy Burnham is the preference of both all voters and Labour voters to succeed Starmer as Labour leader followed by Angela Rayner
Understandable but completely impossible because Andy isn’t an MP
Its entirely possible that the next Labour leader isn't currently an MP.
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
Err he was.
Oops, you're right! My mistake!
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
He did go for "it" in 2016. He just got royally shafted by Govey.
He didn't formally go for the MP nominations stage of the Tory process is what I mean but you kind of prove my point.
Had it not been for Gove, then he might have won in 2016, and if he had then those who backed him in 2014 would have won their bets, despite betting on someone who was not [then] an MP.
Burnham could become PM through a similar process, if Starmer is not replaced before the next election. I don't think he will, but it's possible.
Labour are most probably finished forever. Burnham is a blast from the distant and despised past, he isn't going to do any damage to Farage's high flying National Socialists or Jenrick's resurgent populist Tories.
So, if Labour are finished, who do you think the 40+% of the electorate who would never vote for a right-wing party will coalesce around eventually?
So assuming that this Parliament will do nothing to change the GRA or EA to change the law we'll now have at least 3-4 years to live under the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law.
The Cyclefree position is that this will make women safer. I think it will make women less safe with the added disadvantage of making trans people less safe as well. Are there any datasets we can look at over the next few years to determine which one of us is right?
I would expect it to be more than 3-4 years as no sane political party is going to want to go near this quagmire
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Yes, as usual my contribution was not particularly original. The judgment itself made the same point.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
Can they not use accessible toilets?
Robin Moira White was arguing on the BBC politics show yesterday that this judgement will lead to the end of men's and women's facilities and if anyone doesn't like it, they can queue up for the accessible toilet.
Organisations failing to provide single sex facilities risk indirect discrimination claims and will also be in breach of their separate legal obligations to provide such facilities as employers to their staff. They may also be in breach of their obligations under the regulations in force since October 2024 to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of their staff.
White is not a reliable guide to the law. Dreadful track record in the courts.
Can you expand upon this as I've worked in places with only a single cubicle, shared by everyone, workplaces with separate ones, and workplaces with unisex facilities.
When are single sex facilities required? Is it based on number of employees as presumably places with only one WC aren't expected to have them.
An employer has to provide separate men-only and women-only facilities (toilets and a wash basin) unless it is separate, lockable from the inside.
Farage seems to think we should have no climate change targets at all. I don’t think he’s changed his mind at all, he’s just dishonestly pretending he’s not still a climate change denier.
It’s a form of denial to think that anything we do to reduce emissions within the UK will make a difference to the trajectory of global climate change.
For the vast majority of people the good they do in the world matters little in the grand scheme of things. However most of them do not use this fact to justify not bothering. If they did everything would go to shit in very short order.
Doing good on a small scale is fine, but all too often do gooders do harm.
Because @Cyclefree’s profile is private, it appears to be impossible to discover whether she has retracted her apparently false & deeply unpleasant remarks about Lia Thomas.
Have you retracted them Cyclefree? I have searched all the news articles I could find, as did several others here & can find no mention anywhere of the behaviour you describe. Since it would have been so explosive, I have little doubt that right wing outlets would have made a huge deal of it (and rightly so in that case, frankly) but there appears to be nothing.
I seems to me that you have accused her of a crime. I don’t think an honest person would let that statement stand, if they knew it to be false. Obviously I apologise in advance if you have retracted them already, or if you can substantiate your remarks.
Since @Cyclefree has turned up, I would like to know her answer to this.
On topic anyone and everyone is entitled to disagree with a SC decision. That’s called democracy. To give an example the SC made a terrible decision a few years ago now that completely screwed up our law on prescription. An Act of Parliament and several other SC decisions later the law is nowhere near as satisfactory as it had been for decades before that decision. I have no problem saying that as an advocate and officer of the court.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Come now, everyone's allowed to cherry pick these days: bad to to criticise the SC intemperately, good to ignore their exhortations to avoid triumphalism.
Yes, as usual my contribution was not particularly original. The judgment itself made the same point.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
Like this person you mean who was at the demo stating that he would continue to breach women's boundaries, regardless of their wishes?
Gosh - why might women and girls have an objection to having such a man who doesn't give a toss about their consent in with them?
What is not satisfactory is men standing up for blokes like this and showing fuck all sympathy for women who have had to put up with men like this forcing their way into women's spaces and abusing any who object, in the most vitriolic and violent tones. Men can make space for them in their own spaces, they can "be kind" and "inclusive" or they can create neutral spaces for them, to use. Though when this has been offered this has been refused because they want to force women to validate them. This is - bluntly - coercive behaviour and no women should be expected to tolerate it. It is not satisfactory to expect women to give up their needs and rights to solve the problem of men's violence against other men or men not being inclusive of other sorts of men. This is a problem for men to solve. Not women.
The Gender Recognition Certificate, if implemented correctly, would have provided a filter to weed out the mad, the bad and the sad as illustrated by your picture. But the granting of gender reassignment protections at the beginning of the process on Day 1, regardless of success or motive, plus the secrecy of a GRC (it's illegal to ask for it?) made that entirely unworkable. The public's patience snapped and now we have the present situation.
(Oh, thank you for the article btw, and for your reply in my DMs: I was on a train and could not write more)
Comments
The record-breaking tunnel being built from Denmark to Germany
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy70y2x3xj6o
Instead he's investing in what is traditionally seen as the 'safe' option when you expect a downturn, that happens to be historically undervalued too.
That doesn't seem to be a ringing endorsement of the US prospects. It may merely be that US Treasuries are the least-worst option and he has to put the $100bn somewhere.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s new harm reduction initiative is helping prevent needless deaths.
[LOADS of mildly technical stuff snipped to get to the politics]
... the ever-shifting chemical composition of the street-drug supply speaks to the futility of the “war on drugs.” They point out that a crackdown on heroin smuggling is what gave rise to fentanyl. And NIST’s data shows how in June 2024—the month after Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro signed a bill to make possession of xylazine [used in street fentanyl] illegal in his state—it was almost entirely replaced on the East Coast by the next veterinary drug, medetomidine.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/15/1114362/nist-harm-reduction-prevention-street-drugs?rdt_cid=4781608938884257607&utm_campaign=mid_trending2025&utm_content=socialbp&utm_medium=cpc
In high level sport it can be enforced, and in prisons too, but in mundane everyday places such as restaurants and bars? Much more difficult.
We need to be building a lot more roads etc in this country. Especially linking places that are unlinked directly, like that example, with bridges and tunnels.
Farage seems to think we should have no climate change targets at all. I don’t think he’s changed his mind at all, he’s just dishonestly pretending he’s not still a climate change denier.
What we often see when Labour are in Government is reduced turnout in local contests - in 1998 it was about 30% if memory serves. Labour voters at a General Election tend to stay at home when the job is done and register any discontent via abstention.
We also know in local contests the LDs, Greens and Independents of various forms become more of a factor. The exceptionally strong Conservative performance in 2021 leaves the party defending a lot of seats whereas Labour and LD are starting from much lower bases (as are Reform).
The Conservatives have gone into opposition with a strong residual councillor base (over 5,000) whereas in 1997 they had about 3,000. Labour have 6,325 and the LDs 3,011.
https://opencouncildata.co.uk/councillors2.php?y=0
The Conservatives are defending the majority of the seats being contested and we have the added complication of more seats with multiple candidates. With Reform contesting nearly every seat and Labour, the LDs and Greens contesting a higher proportion than has been the case in previous rounds (as well as the aforementioned Independents), we could well see some strange results once you factor in low turnout.
You don't often see parties losing more than half the seats they are defending in local elections (GEs are different as we saw last year) - even in 1995 when the Conservatives lost 2,018 seats in one night, they still won 2,069 so if they are starting from around 1,000 as well you'd be looking at 475-500 seats as the top of the losses - anything more and it's really poor for Badenoch.
See eg smoking in restaurants and bars, how often have you seen a Police Officer or similar enforce that regulation? Instead people tend to follow the law and it becomes habitual.
If it becomes the cultural norm that anyone can use the women's toilets, even if they're male, then that becomes the norm.
If it becomes the cultural norm that only women can use the women's toilets, and anyone who is non-binary can use the disabled as a private sex-neutral alternative, then that becomes the norm.
Enforcement is overrated in importance.
ETA: Sod it, for that money I can probably throw in renaming the university too
That said, I've yet to meet a voter who expressed any opinion about the trans controversy or Supreme Court ruling. They obviously exist, but are heavily outnumbered by people who want an improvement in their economic position and/or benefits.
I would even defend the right of people in general to ascribe hateful motives to the decision. I have no problem in doing that for Justice Thomas in the US SC, for
example. I am very far from being a defender of the fox killer but he has a right to express his views, however irrational, hypocritical or febrile.
Those whose duties to uphold the law as it has been established have to be much more measured in their comments and I do agree with the criticism of Maggie Chapman, at least in how she expressed it.
But, much though I admire and generally agree with @Cyclefree , there is an element of triumphalism about this piece that in my opinion goes too far.
Edit actually I need quite a few more 9s there.
Someone needs to revisit Archimedes' principle. And have mind blown by the mass of an aircraft carrier. I'm also not sure the ballast tanks are there for buoyancy!
Got to love having a rare doctor's appointment moved (both time and place) and being notified of it by message. Still, with any luck I'll be fine today and, if so, might just cancel it.
Tell us about the .01 !!!
He has denied human action as the cause, or a major cause, of climate change. That is totally different.
Similarly Wes Streeting seems to have "got it" over "gender affirming care" (sic) - when the penny dropped that this could be doing serious harm to young gay kids, as he once was himself.
With Starmer the "penny" seems to be the Supreme Court - if they'd said the moon was made of green cheese he'd have supported that too....
One thing that is missing from ASCII.
https://femern.com/the-construction/building-the-tunnel/
Personally I think this decision by the Supreme Court was a good decision. But if someone wants to say it was a crock, that's fine by me.
Absent a government default, he'll get back what he put in plus 4% or so in a years' time.
FWIW I respectfully disagree with them on their construction of the 2004 Act. In my opinion Parliament had, subject to very onerous conditions and third party authentication, stipulated that those with a GRC should be treated as members of the opposite sex.
My real problem with the Scottish GRR was that those safeguards were being removed without any consideration of the consequences for women.
I can’t help but feel that the argument has been distorted here by the sleight of hand by the Scottish government that @cyclefree sets out and by the realisation of the court that if they had decided that the 2004 Act had that effect it would make everything much, much more complicated.
But there are a number of genetically male people who have been taking various hormones, have developed busts and wear feminine clothing who now have to go into male toilets. I don’t think is entirely satisfactory.
This is one of my local anti-wheelchair barriers, installed iirc in about 1977-1980 to close a rat-run (I used to cycle down there on my RSW14 before we left the area in 1976, and it wasn't there) to get to my grandma's house.
Now it blocks anyone using a mobility aid from reaching their closest small supermarket. The throughway is 2ft wide. This is a signposted Public Footpath on the Definitive Map, so I think I can shift this one under S130A of the Highways Act..
Does anyone know of any such similar barriers outside Nottinghamshire? It is built from the kind of blocks they used to keep vehicles off verges and from cutting traffic islands. I know 3 or 4 in my town, and a few in Nottingham (eg to close the Rolleston Drive rat-run in Lenton - second link).
My photo quota. Ignore autoselfish White Van man who has parked on the public footpath, blocking it. He's just a normal vehicle driver not thinking beyond the end of his nose, or about other people.
This one:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/aDrpZi3Lfv1Kjv3u9
Similar in Nottingham:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/kH3UgizzV9r9AzmaA
But then, the US has never previously been run by a criminal lunatic bent on destroying its economy.
Robin Moira White was arguing on the BBC politics show yesterday that this judgement will lead to the end of men's and women's facilities and if anyone doesn't like it, they can queue up for the accessible toilet.
The real risk for Reform (beyond supposedly the NHS which I’m really not convinced about) is that they just come across as opposing without offering any real solutions.
To her credit in the last couple of weeks I do think Badenoch has found some actual differences in policy to Labour.
https://x.com/_ConnieShaw/status/1914790826359546268 [Video] - used the ladies loo at Waterloo, nobody complained.
I wonder why?
https://x.com/GirlScout27/status/1914956321201213552 [Photo]
Yes, there does need to be a solution, but not at the comfort of women.
- The default on the U.S. government’s demand notes in early 1862, caused by the Treasury’s financial difficulties trying to pay for the Civil War.
- The overt default by the U.S. government on its gold bonds in 1933, by refusing to honor its explicit promise to redeem its silver certificate paper dollars for silver dollars.
- The fourth default was the 1971 breaking of the U.S. government’s commitment to redeem dollars held by foreign governments for gold under the Bretton Woods Agreement.
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/575722-the-us-has-never-defaulted-on-its-debt-except-the-four-times-it-did/
The cost comes from trying to change the law to please some very vocal complainers because that would upset the other set of very vocal former complainers (who are currently happy) and a lot of people who want the whole issue is disappear as it’s an unsolvable quagmire best avoided by anyone sane
I don't know of many places without gender-neutral toilets.
The challenge for Kemi is whether she really can look like an alternative to Sir Keir. Jury very much out on that, but her recent performance in the House does show a capacity to rise to the occasion unlike, say, IDS.
The UK is one of the only major nations to have never defaulted.
He actually thinks tariffs work
He's going to crash the US economy by mistake
"Lord Ashcroft: My latest polling - Doubts over Trump's tariffs lasting, and Conservative voters' expectations for the local elections | Conservative Home" https://conservativehome.com/2025/04/22/lord-ashcroft-my-latest-polling-doubts-over-trumps-tariffs-lasting-and-conservative-voters-expectations-for-the-local-elections/
Its entirely possible that the next Prime Minister isn't currently an MP.
In 2016 the next Tory leader and PM was not an MP.
The latest Canadian polling continues to show a small tightening of the race between Carney's Liberals and Poilievre's Conservatives. The Liberal lead is around 1-5 points which is within margin of error but the unknown (and small sub samples from national polls aren't much use) is how the two parties are performing in each provinces.
Worth re-stating Ontario and Quebec have between them 199 of the 338 ridings so nearly two thirds. Alberta and Saskatchewan may look big but in seat terms they aren't. British Columbia is probably the key area but if the Liberals hold on in Ontario and Quebec it won't matter much what Poilievre does elsewhere as he will find it impossible to win a majority without doing well in those areas.
In Australia, the latest Roy Morgan poll (to be fair, fieldwork done before the third leaders' debate which seems to have been a score draw at worst for Dutton) puts Labor half a point ahead of the Coalition on the primary vote and eleven points up on the 2 party preferred (2PP) measure 55.5-44.5. That would be a comfortable Labor majority.
Plenty of media speculation and a note LNP gains in Victoria may be just 2-4 seats which wouldn't be enough as Labor is holding up well in NSW and the West. There's apparently a fourth Leaders' Debate on Sunday evening (Australia time).
However much of the former has gone LD and most of the latter Reform
He wasn't in 2014 and he was a potential successor to Cameron in 2016 though, even though he didn't go for it then.
Entirely possible the next Labour leader isn't an MP today. If Burnham were to stand for Parliament at the next election, and Starmer were to stand down after that election, that's a path.
This makes the tunnel segment pretty much like a submarine, and the tanks in a submarine are also called ballast tanks.
(From memory; one of my lecturers worked on the geo end aspects of the Medway Tunnel.)
edit: the following explains the process:
https://immontec.com/our-expertise/tunnels/
Or if you are really bored, this:
https://www.bscesjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/CEP-Vol-1-No-1-05.pdf
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm
Starts at 10.04
Net-Favourables Of NATO:
All: +23%
Democrats: +56%
Republicans: -8%
Pew Research / March 30, 2025
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1914806229819646065
Had it not been for Gove, then he might have won in 2016, and if he had then those who backed him in 2014 would have won their bets, despite betting on someone who was not [then] an MP.
Burnham could become PM through a similar process, if Starmer is not replaced before the next election. I don't think he will, but it's possible.
Arsenal fans launch ‘Visit Tottenham’ campaign in protest at Rwanda deal
Tongue-in-cheek campaign an attack on club’s Visit Rwanda deal, which is criticised because of country’s regime
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/04/22/arsenal-launch-visit-tottenham-campaign-rwanda-deal/
The former Fox News host wrote in a recent book that “women cannot physically meet the same standards as men” and that mothers were needed “but not in the military, especially in combat units”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/22/pete-hegseth-women-combat-army-fitness-test
Watch: Patrick Bamford conducts ‘Chris Wilder is a w-----’ chant
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/04/23/patrick-bamford-conducts-chris-wilder-chant-leeds-promotion/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SchVyPpM3qA
The Venezuelan man did not appear on a list of people sent to a prison in El Salvador, and his family and friends had no idea of his whereabouts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/us/venezuela-immigrant-disappear-deport-ice.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Bk8.kZP5.-qaBmaPOd8KS&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
...The failure to list his deportation and location on any publicly accessible records may have been a simple oversight, but the matter continues to raise alarm among immigrant advocates and legal scholars, who say Mr. Prada’s case suggests a new level of disarray in the immigration system, as officials face pressure to rapidly fulfill President Trump’s pledge of mass deportations. While hundreds of thousands of immigrants have been deported under various administrations in recent years, it is extraordinarily unusual for them to disappear without a legal record.
“I have not heard of a disappearance like this in my 40-plus years of practicing and teaching immigration law,” said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration scholar at Cornell Law School...
White is not a reliable guide to the law. Dreadful track record in the courts.
https://x.com/PTI_News/status/1914883160934080559
Pulwama 1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Pulwama_attack
We use democracy as information transfer, selecting the party we want to govern from defined parties who believe in things. It works, but it's a bit brutal and tends to veer from side to side. Autocracy can work better, because politicians who believe in nothing except their own power can choose policies that reflect the public mood and change overnight at need.
Starmer, as a politician who believes in nothing and is willing to lie about past positions, is a halfway house to autocracy. And has done very well.
Liberals: 182 seats (+25 notional change vs 2021)
Conservatives: 133 (+7)
NDP: 4 (-20)
Bloc Québécois: 23 (-11)
Greens: 1 (-1)
People's: 0 (=)
Results link in following tweets"
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1914982929257681303
The Cyclefree position is that this will make women safer. I think it will make women less safe with the added disadvantage of making trans people less safe as well. Are there any datasets we can look at over the next few years to determine which one of us is right?
If the tunnel sections themselves were not sealed with water-tight bulkheads then the ballast tanks, empty*, would actually be a buoyancy aid, otherwise surrounded by water. When otherwise surrounded by air, they are not.
*well, air-filled, of course but that's the terminology
I've used my picture allocation for the day, otherwise I'd post JK Rowling's response to Sturgeon's Easter selfie of herself in the gym.
Rowling captioned it "Pontius Pilates"
Gosh - why might women and girls have an objection to having such a man who doesn't give a toss about their consent in with them?
What is not satisfactory is men standing up for blokes like this and showing fuck all sympathy for women who have had to put up with men like this forcing their way into women's spaces and abusing any who object, in the most vitriolic and violent tones. Men can make space for them in their own spaces, they can "be kind" and "inclusive" or they can create neutral spaces for them, to use. Though when this has been offered this has been refused because they want to force women to validate them. This is - bluntly - coercive behaviour and no women should be expected to tolerate it. It is not satisfactory to expect women to give up their needs and rights to solve the problem of men's violence against other men or men not being inclusive of other sorts of men. This is a problem for men to solve. Not women.
"Subscribe to The Australian | Newspaper home delivery, website, iPad, iPhone & Android apps" https://www.theaustralian.com.au/subscribe/news/1/?sourceCode=TAWEB_MRE170_a&dest=https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/newspoll-peter-dutton-ahead-on-defence-economy-but-behind-on-health-and-costofliving-pressures/news-story/e45a5169db4ee7397f25fc3b591c117a&memtype=anonymous&mode=premium&v21=GROUPB-Segment-1-NOSCORE&V21spcbehaviour=append
When are single sex facilities required? Is it based on number of employees as presumably places with only one WC aren't expected to have them.
"... Part 6
* [61] “Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg speaks at the PopCon launch” (2024) Sir Jacob Rees Mogg at the PopCon Conference February 2024. See the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bfy08kxcPo
* [62] “We Are About To Elect A Government Nobody Wants. What went wrong?” (2024) David Starkey at The New Culture Forum Conference 2024. See the link at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClDrkcSfKjk ..."
See https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/09/28/the-blob/
https://x.com/timmyvoe/status/1914720495158649021?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
(Oh, thank you for the article btw, and for your reply in my DMs: I was on a train and could not write more)
@YouGov
🇨🇦/ Our first MRP of the 2025 Canadian general election projects a 21-seat majority for the Liberals (based on our central projection)
Liberals: 182 seats (+25 notional change vs 2021)
Conservatives: 133 (+7)
NDP: 4 (-20)
Bloc Québécois: 23 (-11)
Greens: 1 (-1)
People's: 0 (=)
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1914982929257681303