With so much real politics going on, in both UK and US (and myriad countries inside the EU), and we’re discussing trans women, again?
Some people have a demented obsession with punishing already marginalised members of society.
Its not about that, FFS. Its about preventing men, who have had no surgery, no hormone treatment, claiming to be a woman, changing in a single sex space and allegedly asking women in that space why that aren't getting changed in front of him.
You may think it punishing trans people, but its actually about protecting the rights of half the species.
Yes but what about the ones who have had the surgery and the hormone treatment? The world is not binary and never has been. That is why athletics has for decades tested hormone levels, not cervixes. This is partly why the whole area is a mess.
As an aside, A Boy Named Mary has just lost the 4.10 race at Newcastle. It always pays to follow Cyclefree's tips in Safer Gambling Week! Boy Named Sioux runs in the 4.40.
The area is a mess because of the bad faith trans actors. There is an interesting theory about the rise of trans and social contagion.
As I understand it no cases have been brought against men who have had surgery and are actively on hormone treatment. Its always when men maskerade as women that causes issues.
As a rule lots of people who will happily disrobe in front of members of their own sex, do not like to do so in front of the opposite sex. A few months ago at my son's swimming one of the dads met a woman that he clearly knew, and for some unknown reason she came into the men's changing room for a chat. So the other six dads very carefully dried bits off, or chatted, or did anything else but drop our swimming trunks to get our tackle out. (She eventually realised).
Why should women have a man with a penis in tatty boxer shorts in their changing rooms simply because he says he is trans?
There are also bad faith people on the other side too, @turbotubbs.
My view is that you should -as much as possible- treat people as they wish to be treated, or not demonise other groups for having different views to us. If a friend of mine wished to identify as 'they' or 'she', I would obviously accede to their wishes and would hope other people would do, irrespective of their personal beliefs, because that is common human courtesy.
All too often people on the gender critical side of the debate drop into outright rudeness. Sure, you may believe that only biological sex exists, but that doesn't give you the right to be a dick (so to speak). I don't believe in God, but I wouldn't think for a moment about ridiculing another person't belief system.
I would never suggest otherwise. The outer edges of the debate are massively toxic on both sides, amplified and fuelled by likes on social media. In my personal life I have met several trans people and what they call themselves etc is their own affair. But we have reached this point because of some bad actors and then the system penalising those who complained (Peggie vs NHS Fife, Darlington nurses vs their employers). In both cases those complaining were the problem, not the man in the single sex space. The Darlington is egregious. A fully intact man, allegedly either trying to impregnate his partner or at least conserve the possibility of using his sperm to do so, wandering round the womens changing room in boxer shorts with holes in, asking women why they weren’t undressing in front of him. And the employers wanted to ‘educate’ the nurses…
A bit like Trumpmand the BBC, toilets has derailed this a bit on here. While toilets can be an issue, most (all?) women’s toilets are cubicles. The real problem is changing rooms, women’s refuges etc.
The reason women’s refuges are required is to protect women from men who have injured or assaulted them. No sane person or organisation should believe that biological men should ever be allowed in such refuges. We need to accept that all men are capable of predatory behaviour, and prevent their behaviour, especially against vulnerable women.
All men are not capable of predatory behaviour. But all women have the right to be fearful and that fear needs to be respected and assuaged.
I remember a quote - maybe from Margaret Atwood - along the lines of "Men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them."
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
The MC white people on BlueSky are the nouveau poor, they can't afford nannies, they're mostly still kidding themselves that they are 'writers' or 'content creators'.
Judging by my youtube homepage, you can get quite a lot of content based on 'why my books never get published - THE TRUTH'. Quite often followed by 'Why I'm quitting Youtube!'. Which is quite often followed by "Why I'm back on Youtube - My featured Guardian article on 'why my books don't get published and why I quit Youtube' saved me!"
You missed 'Setting the record straight!' with an angry looking thumbnail picture.
Honestly, some of the BlueSky MC people I know are still doing the vague reviewing/blogging stuff that we used to do in the summer as students and then kidding themselves that is their job (and not that they are subsidised by their capitalist running dog parents, or their spouse/partner).
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
I remember the BBC R4 show "Clare in the Community" ("She is white, middle class and heterosexual, but does not like to be reminded of it."). Sometimes quite biting. I can't remember the exact dialogue, but it was something like :
Clare: Oh no! Mike and Janine are moving away!
Husband: Oh, that's sad. I liked them!
Clare: No, I mean.. It took me ages to get some black friends. Now what will I do?
Based on a long-running Harry Venning cartoon strip in the Guardian. Who says Guardianistas can't laugh at themselves?
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
I guess I just have to accept that trans, like trains, is a PB topic of special interest.
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
The MC white people on BlueSky are the nouveau poor, they can't afford nannies, they're mostly still kidding themselves that they are 'writers' or 'content creators'.
I post bollocks on PB. Does that make me a content creator?
I've got no idea if what the Home Secretary has proposed will work, but that sure as hell is a change of direction, and at least to my ears it sounded like some thought had gone into the proposals. It will be interesting to see how the public receives these plans.
It's going to need opposition votes to pass IMO but it will get through. The Tories can't be seen to oppose this and neutralising Reform on immigration helps them as much as it does Labour.
Realistically for this to work I think some kind of HRA reform will need to be enacted to dissapply the ECHR on matters of immigration and asylum and dare the judges to overrule Parliament.
It's interesting that Labour are willing to risk tearing themselves apart like this. Is it because they think it is the right thing to do or because they are terrified of Farage and his brownshirts? Maybe both.
Most of the MPs in the north and midlands must be aware that they are likely to be booted out at the next GE, the public mood has shifted heavily on this issue in the last 12-18 months.
Even the leafy suburbs now have a smattering of recent arrivals hanging about, so it should make for some interesting local election results.
By the way the “brownshirts” characterisation is a strong contender for most hyperbolic bollocks of the year.
Indeed. It is important to not over blow things with bollocks historical references that don't stand up. It doesn't help. We are some way away from 1920/30s Germany.
1920s Germany was some way from 1930s Germany. I’d say the one bright spot is Trump is a narcissistic old fool stumbling towards senility who has no ideology except Trumpism. No evil genius he.
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
Middle class people don't have nannies; only those in the top 0.1% have nannies. There are 8.5m families in the UK with dependent children and 7,000 nannies. The maths is straightforward.
I hired a nanny.
I was very disappointed, a certain genre of film gave me an unrealistic expectation of what that nanny would do for me.
I am talking about Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee, obviously.
Most people hire a nanny to look after their children, though.
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
The MC white people on BlueSky are the nouveau poor, they can't afford nannies, they're mostly still kidding themselves that they are 'writers' or 'content creators'.
I post bollocks on PB. Does that make me a content creator?
Do you do this for free, whilst looking down on people who have proper jobs? Then yes!
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
That’s another human reaction to an evil act, to divert thought from it.
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
The MC white people on BlueSky are the nouveau poor, they can't afford nannies, they're mostly still kidding themselves that they are 'writers' or 'content creators'.
I post bollocks on PB. Does that make me a content creator?
Do you do this for free, whilst looking down on people who have proper jobs? Then yes!
I don’t look down on people with proper jobs. They’re paying for my triple-locked pension!
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
The MC white people on BlueSky are the nouveau poor, they can't afford nannies, they're mostly still kidding themselves that they are 'writers' or 'content creators'.
I post bollocks on PB. Does that make me a content creator?
Do you do this for free, whilst looking down on people who have proper jobs? Then yes!
I don’t look down on people with proper jobs. They’re paying for my triple-locked pension!
A pension? Financial security is the enemy of the content creator.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
The trans issue is important imo but it's of a different nature to the ones you cite there. Something I always wonder about (but can't find an answer to) is how it's handled in other countries. Have some of them managed to get to a position that works for the minority in question and for society as a whole? If so, what is it? Why is this aspect never covered in the debate? Perhaps we in the UK are making rather a meal of all this for whatever reason.
The "UK" unionists get upset when Scotland does things differently. And some of them get evenj more upset when the "UK" ends up doing exactly the same thing, and the rest pretend it was their idea all along.
As for proper furriners, not ones who can be dismissed with jokes about kilts ...
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
I guess I just have to accept that trans, like trains, is a PB topic of special interest.
There are quite a few others too.
Is trans brought up that often? And it IS in the news right now, with a feeling that transactivism has peaked and may be a bit in retreat.
I suspect that like a lot of topics many won't care (like your good self) while others will. PB is great as the discussion is pretty civil.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
Forgive the foray into toilet use which I know gets rather too much attention sometimes but what does 'implementing the law' look like at, say, John Lewis? They have three types, signed Men, Women, Disabled. There is no additional wording relating to transgender and no policing on the door of what people's birth sex (or disability) is as they enter whichever one they decide is right for them. What (if anything) do JL need to change as a consequence of the Supreme Court clarifying what 'sex' in the Equality Act means? Do we know?
The disabled ones are sex neutral. Those who do not identify as their sex can use them.
Problem solved. Not rocket science.
I'm not really asking whether it's a problem. I'm just wondering what has changed (in this example) due to the SC ruling.
Eg is it that you now commit an offence if you use the 'wrong' toilets? Or is it this was always an offence but now it has to be policed and enforced?
I genuinely don't know, do you?
I do not believe it is an offence, but do believe it is the law. Some things are laws without being offences.
Eg planning regulations require non domestic properties to have single sex facilities or universal ones. Universal ones have different standards, requiring an individual wash basin behind the lock, whereas single sex ones can have communal wash basins.
Facilties can choose single sex or choose universal, AFAIK, but if they make it universal it needs to meet the requirements. If its single sex, well that means women-only in women's facilities.
I don't quite follow your 1st para. Isn't breaking the law always by definition an offence of some sort?
I suspect like me the minutiae and the politics of public lavatories just washed over you and you lost the will to live.
My only understanding of public conveniences is that the male versions all look like the aftermath of a H block dirty protest. No wonder ladies don't want a c*ck in a frock sharing their space.
I used to think this was an issue when it was suggested at a previous workplace that all the toilets be made unisex (they all had sinks in each cubicle), but I have since been disabused of this notion. Apparently, according to those who clean them, women's public toilets are worse than men's. Something to do with using them while "hovering", due to a fear of picking up STIs if sitting on the toilet seat. You can find further evidence for this assertion on mumsnet if you care to do further research on the matter.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
It's a verb.
You can tell I am tired and distracted writing the morning thread, good news, it'll be about a PB favourite, North Britain secessionists.
I've got no idea if what the Home Secretary has proposed will work, but that sure as hell is a change of direction, and at least to my ears it sounded like some thought had gone into the proposals. It will be interesting to see how the public receives these plans.
It's going to need opposition votes to pass IMO but it will get through. The Tories can't be seen to oppose this and neutralising Reform on immigration helps them as much as it does Labour.
Realistically for this to work I think some kind of HRA reform will need to be enacted to dissapply the ECHR on matters of immigration and asylum and dare the judges to overrule Parliament.
It's interesting that Labour are willing to risk tearing themselves apart like this. Is it because they think it is the right thing to do or because they are terrified of Farage and his brownshirts? Maybe both.
Most of the MPs in the north and midlands must be aware that they are likely to be booted out at the next GE, the public mood has shifted heavily on this issue in the last 12-18 months.
Even the leafy suburbs now have a smattering of recent arrivals hanging about, so it should make for some interesting local election results.
By the way the “brownshirts” characterisation is a strong contender for most hyperbolic bollocks of the year.
Indeed. It is important to not over blow things with bollocks historical references that don't stand up. It doesn't help. We are some way away from 1920/30s Germany.
1920s Germany was some way from 1930s Germany. I’d say the one bright spot is Trump is a narcissistic old fool stumbling towards senility who has no ideology except Trumpism. No evil genius he.
6th of January 2021 was the Beer Hall Putsch.
2027 we may well see the Keir Hall Putsch.
Why 2027?
I was generously assuming he'll last mire than a full year.
Trump says that tariff checks will 'probably come in the middle of next year' The president has doubled down on his promise that the revenue raised from his sweeping tariffs will result in $2,000 checks for American families. “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, some somewhere prior to probably in the middle of next year,” he said. “We have a lot of money from tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, this nation would be in serious trouble.”
I've got no idea if what the Home Secretary has proposed will work, but that sure as hell is a change of direction, and at least to my ears it sounded like some thought had gone into the proposals. It will be interesting to see how the public receives these plans.
It's going to need opposition votes to pass IMO but it will get through. The Tories can't be seen to oppose this and neutralising Reform on immigration helps them as much as it does Labour.
Realistically for this to work I think some kind of HRA reform will need to be enacted to dissapply the ECHR on matters of immigration and asylum and dare the judges to overrule Parliament.
It's interesting that Labour are willing to risk tearing themselves apart like this. Is it because they think it is the right thing to do or because they are terrified of Farage and his brownshirts? Maybe both.
Most of the MPs in the north and midlands must be aware that they are likely to be booted out at the next GE, the public mood has shifted heavily on this issue in the last 12-18 months.
Even the leafy suburbs now have a smattering of recent arrivals hanging about, so it should make for some interesting local election results.
By the way the “brownshirts” characterisation is a strong contender for most hyperbolic bollocks of the year.
Indeed. It is important to not over blow things with bollocks historical references that don't stand up. It doesn't help. We are some way away from 1920/30s Germany.
1920s Germany was some way from 1930s Germany. I’d say the one bright spot is Trump is a narcissistic old fool stumbling towards senility who has no ideology except Trumpism. No evil genius he.
6th of January 2021 was the Beer Hall Putsch.
2027 we may well see the Keir Hall Putsch.
Why 2027?
I was generously assuming he'll last mire than a full year.
I thought the IMF were supposed to have sacked him before then?
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
It's a verb.
Tbf, TSE missed out on a proper Grammar School education.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
It's a verb.
You can tell I am tired and distracted writing the morning thread, good news, it'll be about a PB favourite, North Britain secessionists.
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
Middle class people don't have nannies; only those in the top 0.1% have nannies. There are 8.5m families in the UK with dependent children and 7,000 nannies. The maths is straightforward.
There are lots of people who don't have nannies but have people who occasionally cosplay as nannies: so it's that girl around the corner who works with about a dozen different families, and does babysitting, picking up from school, homework help, etc.
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
Middle class people don't have nannies; only those in the top 0.1% have nannies. There are 8.5m families in the UK with dependent children and 7,000 nannies. The maths is straightforward.
I hired a nanny.
I was very disappointed, a certain genre of film gave me an unrealistic expectation of what that nanny would do for me.
I am talking about Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee, obviously.
I've got no idea if what the Home Secretary has proposed will work, but that sure as hell is a change of direction, and at least to my ears it sounded like some thought had gone into the proposals. It will be interesting to see how the public receives these plans.
It's going to need opposition votes to pass IMO but it will get through. The Tories can't be seen to oppose this and neutralising Reform on immigration helps them as much as it does Labour.
Realistically for this to work I think some kind of HRA reform will need to be enacted to dissapply the ECHR on matters of immigration and asylum and dare the judges to overrule Parliament.
It's interesting that Labour are willing to risk tearing themselves apart like this. Is it because they think it is the right thing to do or because they are terrified of Farage and his brownshirts? Maybe both.
Most of the MPs in the north and midlands must be aware that they are likely to be booted out at the next GE, the public mood has shifted heavily on this issue in the last 12-18 months.
Even the leafy suburbs now have a smattering of recent arrivals hanging about, so it should make for some interesting local election results.
By the way the “brownshirts” characterisation is a strong contender for most hyperbolic bollocks of the year.
Indeed. It is important to not over blow things with bollocks historical references that don't stand up. It doesn't help. We are some way away from 1920/30s Germany.
1920s Germany was some way from 1930s Germany. I’d say the one bright spot is Trump is a narcissistic old fool stumbling towards senility who has no ideology except Trumpism. No evil genius he.
6th of January 2021 was the Beer Hall Putsch.
2027 we may well see the Keir Hall Putsch.
Why 2027?
I was generously assuming he'll last mire than a full year.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
The reason it came up today is due to the scandal that despite the Supreme Court ruling on this issue, its not being implemented properly.
If that wasn't the case, it wouldn't have come up.
So who is behind the 'culture war'? Those like Cyclefree who want the law implementing, or those who are pushing an agenda to breach it?
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Personally, I find that employing the best people - irrespective of their political views - tends to lead to the best outcomes.
Firms who hire based on other factors are likely to rapidly find themselves out of business.
By which means to say... usually when I know someone has been let go over some social media breach, it was actually someone they'd wanted to get rid of for a while, and this provided the excuse.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
It's a verb.
You can tell I am tired and distracted writing the morning thread, good news, it'll be about a PB favourite, North Britain secessionists.
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
Middle class people don't have nannies; only those in the top 0.1% have nannies. There are 8.5m families in the UK with dependent children and 7,000 nannies. The maths is straightforward.
I hired a nanny.
I was very disappointed, a certain genre of film gave me an unrealistic expectation of what that nanny would do for me.
I am talking about Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee, obviously.
Most people hire a nanny to look after their children, though.
Mahmood has made herself a 2nd front runner in one afternoon.
I find it interesting just how far labour have moved on immigration. For all Farages flaws, and basically he is a massive arse with no real plan, he hasn’t half had an effect on the nation these last 15 years.
Perhaps he is the Leon of politics - spotting the future problems ahead of everyone else and then using them. Whether people think that Brexit was a massive mistake or not, I think most people realise that something needed to change. If remain had one then at least ‘you had your shot’ could have been deployed.* And now it’s immigration. Well we are not alone in having issues, real and perceived, with immigration. As with Brexit, something needs to change. Arguably the biggest issue was the last government somehowvletting in millions when claiming it would be thousands. In this context, the boat crossings are the distractor. Against a backdrop of limited overall immigration, 50,000 claiming asylum (or trying to flee into the black economy) would less toxic. Being ‘full’ isn’t down to illegal crossings. And now the other main parties are moving towards Reform. Probably had too, but with the Tories people say that why have Reform lite when you can have Reform? And the labour grass roots will probably be up in arms tonight.
*See Scotland, where it can be used for a generation.**
Trump says that tariff checks will 'probably come in the middle of next year' The president has doubled down on his promise that the revenue raised from his sweeping tariffs will result in $2,000 checks for American families. “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, some somewhere prior to probably in the middle of next year,” he said. “We have a lot of money from tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, this nation would be in serious trouble.”
Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will tomorrow say that foreign nationals must 'bear the brunt' of filling the black hole in Britain's finances as they announce £25bn worth of cuts
* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%
Trump says that tariff checks will 'probably come in the middle of next year' The president has doubled down on his promise that the revenue raised from his sweeping tariffs will result in $2,000 checks for American families. “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, some somewhere prior to probably in the middle of next year,” he said. “We have a lot of money from tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, this nation would be in serious trouble.”
Surely he ought to delay the bribe until after the mid-terms: "Vote Republican to get your $2,000 Tariff Check"?
Ah yes, $2,000 cheques from the government on the eve of an election. Real subtle.
This year, the US fiscal deficit will be 5.9% of GDP, down very slightly from 6.1% last year. (It is worth noting, of course, that the absolute deficit is going to be higher, it just looks slightly less as a percentage of GDP because of the inflation caused by tariffs...)
A roughly 6% budget deficit, in peacetime, when not saddled with a financial crisis or a pandemic, is not a great place to be. It is also somewhat worse than the budget deficit the UK government is currently having kittens over.
Handing out $2,000 cheques to people as some kind of tariff 'bonus' when you can't even balance the books is the kind of thing that would have driven Republicans to apoplexy... when they weren't in government.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Personally, I find that employing the best people - irrespective of their political views - tends to lead to the best outcomes.
Firms who hire based on other factors are likely to rapidly find themselves out of business.
By which means to say... usually when I know someone has been let go over some social media breach, it was actually someone they'd wanted to get rid of for a while, and this provided the excuse.
That is only true where there is an open market. Where government pays all sorts of other factors come into play. As a bystander I have been witness to competative tendering in action. Strong market driving down payments for heavy manual work but the same employer all touchy feely about arty crafty stuff and so called outsourced legal and planning stuff where they will always pay over the odds. I doubt some of the manual workers will actually be getting the Minimum Wage when they take out their costs.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
Trump says that tariff checks will 'probably come in the middle of next year' The president has doubled down on his promise that the revenue raised from his sweeping tariffs will result in $2,000 checks for American families. “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, some somewhere prior to probably in the middle of next year,” he said. “We have a lot of money from tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, this nation would be in serious trouble.”
Surely he ought to delay the bribe until after the mid-terms: "Vote Republican to get your $2,000 Tariff Check"?
Ah yes, $2,000 cheques from the government on the eve of an election. Real subtle.
This year, the US fiscal deficit will be 5.9% of GDP, down very slightly from 6.1% last year. (It is worth noting, of course, that the absolute deficit is going to be higher, it just looks slightly less as a percentage of GDP because of the inflation caused by tariffs...)
A roughly 6% budget deficit, in peacetime, when not saddled with a financial crisis or a pandemic, is not a great place to be. It is also somewhat worse than the budget deficit the UK government is currently having kittens over.
Handing out $2,000 cheques to people as some kind of tariff 'bonus' when you can't even balance the books is the kind of thing that would have driven Republicans to apoplexy... when they weren't in government.
The destruction in a very short time of the conservative GOP is truly a wonder and a warning.
Basically none of them believed a single thing they ever said or thought about public policy.
It's mind blowing frankly and makes one despair of humans.
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
Just taken the temperature on BlueSky, where lots of white middle class people are upset that a brown person isn't that keen on illegal immigration.
They'd have been shocked to meet my 2nd gen Uber driver last week, who was appalled at the town being 'full' of recent arrivals being put up in a hotel, when his Dad arrived here legally with literally nothing to work in a textile mill, and eventually started a business that now employs scores of people.
Of course the middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask, so they just project their own wishes and thoughts onto them.
"middle class white people don't know any working class brown people to ask"
They could ask their nannies?
I remember the BBC R4 show "Clare in the Community" ("She is white, middle class and heterosexual, but does not like to be reminded of it."). Sometimes quite biting. I can't remember the exact dialogue, but it was something like :
Clare: Oh no! Mike and Janine are moving away!
Husband: Oh, that's sad. I liked them!
Clare: No, I mean.. It took me ages to get some black friends. Now what will I do?
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
The new first class menu on LNER is so poor I didn’t even bother to upgrade last week. Just bought some Sushi from Waitrose and saved myself £50
Mahmood has made herself a 2nd front runner in one afternoon.
I find it interesting just how far labour have moved on immigration. For all Farages flaws, and basically he is a massive arse with no real plan, he hasn’t half had an effect on the nation these last 15 years.
Perhaps he is the Leon of politics - spotting the future problems ahead of everyone else and then using them. Whether people think that Brexit was a massive mistake or not, I think most people realise that something needed to change. If remain had one then at least ‘you had your shot’ could have been deployed.* And now it’s immigration. Well we are not alone in having issues, real and perceived, with immigration. As with Brexit, something needs to change. Arguably the biggest issue was the last government somehowvletting in millions when claiming it would be thousands. In this context, the boat crossings are the distractor. Against a backdrop of limited overall immigration, 50,000 claiming asylum (or trying to flee into the black economy) would less toxic. Being ‘full’ isn’t down to illegal crossings. And now the other main parties are moving towards Reform. Probably had too, but with the Tories people say that why have Reform lite when you can have Reform? And the labour grass roots will probably be up in arms tonight.
*See Scotland, where it can be used for a generation.**
**About 7 years
One reason for preferring a Conservative version of Reform-lite is the horrible example set by Mr Trump & the Republican party. Less likely to go down that route.
Trump says that tariff checks will 'probably come in the middle of next year' The president has doubled down on his promise that the revenue raised from his sweeping tariffs will result in $2,000 checks for American families. “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, some somewhere prior to probably in the middle of next year,” he said. “We have a lot of money from tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, this nation would be in serious trouble.”
Surely he ought to delay the bribe until after the mid-terms: "Vote Republican to get your $2,000 Tariff Check"?
Ah yes, $2,000 cheques from the government on the eve of an election. Real subtle.
This year, the US fiscal deficit will be 5.9% of GDP, down very slightly from 6.1% last year. (It is worth noting, of course, that the absolute deficit is going to be higher, it just looks slightly less as a percentage of GDP because of the inflation caused by tariffs...)
A roughly 6% budget deficit, in peacetime, when not saddled with a financial crisis or a pandemic, is not a great place to be. It is also somewhat worse than the budget deficit the UK government is currently having kittens over.
Handing out $2,000 cheques to people as some kind of tariff 'bonus' when you can't even balance the books is the kind of thing that would have driven Republicans to apoplexy... when they weren't in government.
Probably all ruined anyway when the government employees supposed to mail out the cheques are on a month-long shutdown.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
The new first class menu on LNER is so poor I didn’t even bother to upgrade last week. Just bought some Sushi from Waitrose and saved myself £50
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
The new first class menu on LNER is so poor I didn’t even bother to upgrade last week. Just bought some Sushi from Waitrose and saved myself £50
Sushi from Waitrose? Was Greggs shut?
Kings Cross - best of a not great set of options when you've messed up and only got 10 minutes until the train leaves.
Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will tomorrow say that foreign nationals must 'bear the brunt' of filling the black hole in Britain's finances as they announce £25bn worth of cuts
* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%
It really is a race to the bottom . And stripping benefits from EU nationals that come under the EU UK agreement would breach that .
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
I'm not sure there are that many parts which are 75% or more Muslim. Using the Muslim Council of Great Britain's own numbers, I live in the constituency with the third highest proportion of Muslims of voting age (East Ham and 34.3% I believe). There are Wards within Newham with a higher proportion of Muslims but, odd streets excepting, none has 75% Muslim population.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
The new first class menu on LNER is so poor I didn’t even bother to upgrade last week. Just bought some Sushi from Waitrose and saved myself £50
Isn't it free if you are travelling in First Class ?
Certainly looks better than the uninspiring offering from Great Western.
Mahmood has made herself a 2nd front runner in one afternoon.
Front runner for Reform perhaps but that would only encourage (including her LGBTQ stance) the left to centre-left to drift to Lib Dem and Green. It's a packed house on the Right. I can't see why Greens or Lib Dems would lend their vote as they usually do, or believe Reform voters would switch to Labour. So, it seems reliant on non-Reform minded Tories moving across to Labour. Not sure there's a great market in that.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
The new first class menu on LNER is so poor I didn’t even bother to upgrade last week. Just bought some Sushi from Waitrose and saved myself £50
Isn't it free if you are travelling in First Class ?
£50 is the full cost of an upgrade from standard (well £47).
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
The new first class menu on LNER is so poor I didn’t even bother to upgrade last week. Just bought some Sushi from Waitrose and saved myself £50
Sushi from Waitrose? Was Greggs shut?
Kings Cross - best of a not great set of options when you've messed up and only got 10 minutes until the train leaves.
Greggs Wasabi Leon Cornish Pasty Co. Boots Giraffe Pret Starbucks Upper Crust
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
It's a verb.
You can tell I am tired and distracted writing the morning thread, good news, it'll be about a PB favourite, North Britain secessionists.
Trump says that tariff checks will 'probably come in the middle of next year' The president has doubled down on his promise that the revenue raised from his sweeping tariffs will result in $2,000 checks for American families. “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, some somewhere prior to probably in the middle of next year,” he said. “We have a lot of money from tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, this nation would be in serious trouble.”
Surely he ought to delay the bribe until after the mid-terms: "Vote Republican to get your $2,000 Tariff Check"?
Ah yes, $2,000 cheques from the government on the eve of an election. Real subtle.
This year, the US fiscal deficit will be 5.9% of GDP, down very slightly from 6.1% last year. (It is worth noting, of course, that the absolute deficit is going to be higher, it just looks slightly less as a percentage of GDP because of the inflation caused by tariffs...)
A roughly 6% budget deficit, in peacetime, when not saddled with a financial crisis or a pandemic, is not a great place to be. It is also somewhat worse than the budget deficit the UK government is currently having kittens over.
Handing out $2,000 cheques to people as some kind of tariff 'bonus' when you can't even balance the books is the kind of thing that would have driven Republicans to apoplexy... when they weren't in government.
Thats quite some injection of money into the economy. A sugar rush of short term "growth".
Its going to be a hell of a crash when it comes, undoubtably somehow rhe Democrats fault.
I struggle to understand why we devote so much PB time to the trans issue. I'd guess that 99% of the UK public don't give it much thought at all.
Immigration; the economy; spending/taxation/deficit; the threat to European order from Russia; our dependence on China; the perils facing US democracy; climate change; the mental health crisis...
All these are far more significant than 'trans' imo.
This impacted it though see it as important. A good friend of mine almost lost her job for retweeting a post by j k Rowling, went through a safeguarding investigation and told not to come to work. The complaint was manufactured by an lgbt youth activist charity.
Sure, it's important to those impacted by it. I've known two people who have transitioned, and had to overcome tremendous stigma and prejudice in so doing. It's important to them, of course.
But should we devote numerous threads to something that is very important only to a small proportion of the population? We might as well discuss the challenges of being a paraplegic*, but that again would be a very minority interest.
(*Substitute with your preferred "topic very important to those impacted but of f*ck-all interest to the vast majority".)
The only reason trans comes up again and again imo is because some want to manufacture a 'culture war'.
Are trans activists prosecuting a culture war?
Are trans activists continually raising 'trans' on PB?
I like trains.
I find PB train posts (relatively) much more interesting than PB trans posts.
It amused* me that as the Huntingdon train stabbing news broke PBers were discussing what train/route it was on and led to a discussion about the East Coast Mainline and the fact LNER aren't as good as they used to be.
*Might not be the right adjective.
It's a verb.
You can tell I am tired and distracted writing the morning thread, good news, it'll be about a PB favourite, North Britain secessionists.
It's funny it opens with wages - we've actually had decent real terms wage growth over the last couple of years. Nothing spectacular, but back to what we had in the years preceding 2008.
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
I'm not sure there are that many parts which are 75% or more Muslim. Using the Muslim Council of Great Britain's own numbers, I live in the constituency with the third highest proportion of Muslims of voting age (East Ham and 34.3% I believe). There are Wards within Newham with a higher proportion of Muslims but, odd streets excepting, none has 75% Muslim population.
The Danish legislation in question is something like this -
Criteria for a "Ghetto"
An area is designated a "ghetto" if over 50% of residents are from "non-Western" backgrounds and it meets at least two of four criteria:
- Unemployment: Over 40% of residents aged 18-64 are neither employed nor in education.
- Crime: Crime rates are at least three times the national average.
- Education: Over 60% of residents aged 30-59 have only basic education.
- Income: Average gross income is less than 55% of the regional average.
An area can be quite small, I believe. A few streets.
It may be best for Trump if the case does collapse now. When it's all based on legal arguments, he can fulminate about technicalities and liberal judges. Whereas Comey would be able to call witnesses at trial.
Trump says that tariff checks will 'probably come in the middle of next year' The president has doubled down on his promise that the revenue raised from his sweeping tariffs will result in $2,000 checks for American families. “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, some somewhere prior to probably in the middle of next year,” he said. “We have a lot of money from tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, this nation would be in serious trouble.”
Surely he ought to delay the bribe until after the mid-terms: "Vote Republican to get your $2,000 Tariff Check"?
Ah yes, $2,000 cheques from the government on the eve of an election. Real subtle.
This year, the US fiscal deficit will be 5.9% of GDP, down very slightly from 6.1% last year. (It is worth noting, of course, that the absolute deficit is going to be higher, it just looks slightly less as a percentage of GDP because of the inflation caused by tariffs...)
A roughly 6% budget deficit, in peacetime, when not saddled with a financial crisis or a pandemic, is not a great place to be. It is also somewhat worse than the budget deficit the UK government is currently having kittens over.
Handing out $2,000 cheques to people as some kind of tariff 'bonus' when you can't even balance the books is the kind of thing that would have driven Republicans to apoplexy... when they weren't in government.
Thats quite some injection of money into the economy. A sugar rush of short term "growth".
Its going to be a hell of a crash when it comes, undoubtably somehow rhe Democrats fault.
when it comes? the small business owner friends I hear from in the US are having a terrible year
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
I'm not sure there are that many parts which are 75% or more Muslim. Using the Muslim Council of Great Britain's own numbers, I live in the constituency with the third highest proportion of Muslims of voting age (East Ham and 34.3% I believe). There are Wards within Newham with a higher proportion of Muslims but, odd streets excepting, none has 75% Muslim population.
The Danish legislation in question is something like this -
Criteria for a "Ghetto"
An area is designated a "ghetto" if over 50% of residents are from "non-Western" backgrounds and it meets at least two of four criteria:
- Unemployment: Over 40% of residents aged 18-64 are neither employed nor in education.
- Crime: Crime rates are at least three times the national average.
- Education: Over 60% of residents aged 30-59 have only basic education.
- Income: Average gross income is less than 55% of the regional average.
An area can be quite small, I believe. A few streets.
If you drop the non-Western bit, it's an index of multiple deprivation. I reckon I could support such a policy if applied without a racial bias - indeed we have a long history of slum clearance in the UK. Knock them down, break those toxic "communities" up, build medium-density European-style estates with heat pumps, insulation and cycle infrastructure, jobs a good 'un.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
I'm not sure there are that many parts which are 75% or more Muslim. Using the Muslim Council of Great Britain's own numbers, I live in the constituency with the third highest proportion of Muslims of voting age (East Ham and 34.3% I believe). There are Wards within Newham with a higher proportion of Muslims but, odd streets excepting, none has 75% Muslim population.
The Danish legislation in question is something like this -
Criteria for a "Ghetto"
An area is designated a "ghetto" if over 50% of residents are from "non-Western" backgrounds and it meets at least two of four criteria:
- Unemployment: Over 40% of residents aged 18-64 are neither employed nor in education.
- Crime: Crime rates are at least three times the national average.
- Education: Over 60% of residents aged 30-59 have only basic education.
- Income: Average gross income is less than 55% of the regional average.
An area can be quite small, I believe. A few streets.
If you drop the non-Western bit, it's an index of multiple deprivation. I reckon I could support such a policy if applied without a racial bias - indeed we have a long history of slum clearance in the UK. Knock them down, break those toxic "communities" up, build medium-density European-style estates with heat pumps, insulation and cycle infrastructure, jobs a good 'un.
It's funny it opens with wages - we've actually had decent real terms wage growth over the last couple of years. Nothing spectacular, but back to what we had in the years preceding 2008.
I put my wage rise vs. inflation figures into a calculator recent and found I'd need an 18% pay rise to get back to my effective wages in ~2010. Pay offer this year is 1.4%. I fear it isn't going to end well.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
I keep thinking of the vision of "A Clockwork Orange" and recently tinged with a bit of "1990". It's not filling me with cheer.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
She’s certainly got something about her . Whether her new proposals get through the Commons and if they even succeed only time will tell but she certainly comes across as confident and she won’t be pushed around.
It's funny it opens with wages - we've actually had decent real terms wage growth over the last couple of years. Nothing spectacular, but back to what we had in the years preceding 2008.
I put my wage rise vs. inflation figures into a calculator recent and found I'd need an 18% pay rise to get back to my effective wages in ~2010. Pay offer this year is 1.4%. I fear it isn't going to end well.
I agree, we're still miles behind. I'm just pointing out we're in a rare rosy patch - best demonstrated by NHS pay rises which are decent but still have them nowhere near wages pre-2008.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h The reality is Tommy Robinson and Reform feel cheered by Labour MPs like Nadia Whittome. What scares them are Labour MPs like Shabana Mahmood.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
I keep thinking of the vision of "A Clockwork Orange" and recently tinged with a bit of "1990". It's not filling me with cheer.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
She’s certainly got something about her . Whether her new proposals get through the Commons and if they even succeed only time will tell but she certainly comes across as confident and she won’t be pushed around.
Katie Lam vs Mahmood will be an election campaign for the ages!!!
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn “He can sod off,” Shabana Mahmood tells Sky News in a sit down TV interview, on top of her very powerful Commons performance today - revealing there IS a Labour Cabinet minister who speaks fluent normal person after all, AND can command the nation’s attention. Buy, buy, buy.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
I keep thinking of the vision of "A Clockwork Orange" and recently tinged with a bit of "1990". It's not filling me with cheer.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
I keep thinking of the vision of "A Clockwork Orange" and recently tinged with a bit of "1990". It's not filling me with cheer.
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn “He can sod off,” Shabana Mahmood tells Sky News in a sit down TV interview, on top of her very powerful Commons performance today - revealing there IS a Labour Cabinet minister who speaks fluent normal person after all, AND can command the nation’s attention. Buy, buy, buy.
Wow. Feel this might need to be tomorrow's header:
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
She’s certainly got something about her . Whether her new proposals get through the Commons and if they even succeed only time will tell but she certainly comes across as confident and she won’t be pushed around.
What's impressive about her as a politician is that she actually seems to want to do things instead of looking for ways to kick the can.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h The reality is Tommy Robinson and Reform feel cheered by Labour MPs like Nadia Whittome. What scares them are Labour MPs like Shabana Mahmood.
Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn “He can sod off,” Shabana Mahmood tells Sky News in a sit down TV interview, on top of her very powerful Commons performance today - revealing there IS a Labour Cabinet minister who speaks fluent normal person after all, AND can command the nation’s attention. Buy, buy, buy.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 1h The reality is Tommy Robinson and Reform feel cheered by Labour MPs like Nadia Whittome. What scares them are Labour MPs like Shabana Mahmood.
Kitty Donaldson @kitty_donaldson · 5h For Labour to stand even a chance come 2029, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to ignore her internal Labour critics on migration policy. It worked in Denmark.
Comments
Honestly, some of the BlueSky MC people I know are still doing the vague reviewing/blogging stuff that we used to do in the summer as students and then kidding themselves that is their job (and not that they are subsidised by their capitalist running dog parents, or their spouse/partner).
*Might not be the right adjective.
There are quite a few others too.
https://x.com/AntiTrumpCanada/status/1990432895467397309
As for proper furriners, not ones who can be dismissed with jokes about kilts ...
I suspect that like a lot of topics many won't care (like your good self) while others will. PB is great as the discussion is pretty civil.
Apart from on deltics, of course.
The president has doubled down on his promise that the revenue raised from his sweeping tariffs will result in $2,000 checks for American families. “We’re going to be issuing dividends later on, some somewhere prior to probably in the middle of next year,” he said. “We have a lot of money from tariffs. If we didn’t have tariffs, this nation would be in serious trouble.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/nov/17/donald-trump-jeffrey-epstein-files-republicans-democrats-world-cup-us-politics-live-news-updates
Surely he ought to delay the bribe until after the mid-terms: "Vote Republican to get your $2,000 Tariff Check"?
Mahmood has made herself a 2nd front runner in one afternoon.
And who is almost always paid under the table.
JUST IN - UK roads to be made narrower to reduce the safety risk posed to cyclists — Daily Mail"
https://x.com/disclosetv/status/1989829829181804639
If that wasn't the case, it wouldn't have come up.
So who is behind the 'culture war'? Those like Cyclefree who want the law implementing, or those who are pushing an agenda to breach it?
Firms who hire based on other factors are likely to rapidly find themselves out of business.
By which means to say... usually when I know someone has been let go over some social media breach, it was actually someone they'd wanted to get rid of for a while, and this provided the excuse.
@GoodwinMJ
Denmark has a policy where the state forcibly disrupts highly segregated "ghetto" neighbourhoods
Does this mean Labour will be forcibly disrupting parts of Blackburn, Bradford, Birmingham, Kirklees, Luton, Manchester, and Oldham that are 75%+ Muslim?"
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1990514717614633383
Perhaps he is the Leon of politics - spotting the future problems ahead of everyone else and then using them. Whether people think that Brexit was a massive mistake or not, I think most people realise that something needed to change. If remain had one then at least ‘you had your shot’ could have been deployed.*
And now it’s immigration. Well we are not alone in having issues, real and perceived, with immigration. As with Brexit, something needs to change. Arguably the biggest issue was the last government somehowvletting in millions when claiming it would be thousands. In this context, the boat crossings are the distractor. Against a backdrop of limited overall immigration, 50,000 claiming asylum (or trying to flee into the black economy) would less toxic. Being ‘full’ isn’t down to illegal crossings.
And now the other main parties are moving towards Reform. Probably had too, but with the Tories people say that why have Reform lite when you can have Reform? And the labour grass roots will probably be up in arms tonight.
*See Scotland, where it can be used for a generation.**
**About 7 years
The deficit has been eliminated, right?
Insert Padme and Anakin meme.
Steven Swinford
@Steven_Swinford
Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will tomorrow say that foreign nationals must 'bear the brunt' of filling the black hole in Britain's finances as they announce £25bn worth of cuts
* Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf will announce plans to strip EU nationals of benefits, more than double the cost of the NHS surcharge and cut foreign aid spending by more than 70%
This year, the US fiscal deficit will be 5.9% of GDP, down very slightly from 6.1% last year. (It is worth noting, of course, that the absolute deficit is going to be higher, it just looks slightly less as a percentage of GDP because of the inflation caused by tariffs...)
A roughly 6% budget deficit, in peacetime, when not saddled with a financial crisis or a pandemic, is not a great place to be. It is also somewhat worse than the budget deficit the UK government is currently having kittens over.
Handing out $2,000 cheques to people as some kind of tariff 'bonus' when you can't even balance the books is the kind of thing that would have driven Republicans to apoplexy... when they weren't in government.
Lots of cyclists murdered by angry drivers unable to overtake is bad.
Basically none of them believed a single thing they ever said or thought about public policy.
It's mind blowing frankly and makes one despair of humans.
Certainly looks better than the uninspiring offering from Great Western.
Wasabi
Leon
Cornish Pasty Co.
Boots
Giraffe
Pret
Starbucks
Upper Crust
Its going to be a hell of a crash when it comes, undoubtably somehow rhe Democrats fault.
Appealing to Tommy Robinson and the Daily Mail is not how to win either Labour MPs or membership, and they hold the keys.
PBers won't agree with all of it - some more than others, but I think it merits a read.
Getting Britain out of the hole
A plan for the economy
An essay by Andrew Sissons and John Springford, November 2025
https://getting-out-of-the-hole.uk/
The “contest” offers cryptocurrency rewards to fighters who send Rusich photos of Ukrainian POWs murdered via extrajudicial execution.
https://x.com/InsiderEng/status/1990523048747995266
Criteria for a "Ghetto"
An area is designated a "ghetto" if over 50% of residents are from "non-Western" backgrounds and it meets at least two of four criteria:
- Unemployment: Over 40% of residents aged 18-64 are neither employed nor in education.
- Crime: Crime rates are at least three times the national average.
- Education: Over 60% of residents aged 30-59 have only basic education.
- Income: Average gross income is less than 55% of the regional average.
An area can be quite small, I believe. A few streets.
If she pulls it off then who knows how the Lab membership will swing in a leader vote in 2027/28.
https://simd.scot/
S Mahmood: “Well, firstly, Nigel Farage can keep his opinions to himself. He can frankly sod off . I'm not interested in anything that he has to say. And let me just say to people of all political persuasions who are watching, I'm not making a political calculation here. I'm not making an election calculation here. It is my responsibility as the home secretary of this country who can see a broken system, to work out how to fix that broken system and to work out what is the right thing to do and then to go out there and make the argument for why these changes are the right thing to do for the right reasons. Because they will fix the problems that people genuinely see and genuinely are occurring, and in doing so, to retain support for having an asylum system at all. Everything else, that's politics, that’s downstream of all of the main choices that I'm making. My responsibility is to deliver a system that the whole of the country can have faith in.”
https://x.com/Peston/status/1990543713852907660
Finally. Someone in Labour is coming out of the traps and fighting for the future.*
* doesn't matter if you agree with her or not but this endless wishwashy, hand wringing, Reeves and Starmer marching up hills and then back down again is over.
All diverse like a John Lewis Christmas ad.
Strangely, one ethnic community kinda disappeared.
MP: Blimey, don't agree with any of this. Appalling. Right wing. No way I can support it.
Other MP: She might stop us losing our seats.
MP: Oh, well, erm... I suppose I could abstain on the motion?
(((Dan Hodges)))
@DPJHodges
·
1h
The reality is Tommy Robinson and Reform feel cheered by Labour MPs like Nadia Whittome. What scares them are Labour MPs like Shabana Mahmood.
https://x.com/DPJHodges
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJr72PvqbS6yR3cQv3wDcfOGROZlOaPgB
You read it here first!!
Tom Newton Dunn
@tnewtondunn
“He can sod off,” Shabana Mahmood tells Sky News in a sit down TV interview, on top of her very powerful Commons performance today - revealing there IS a Labour Cabinet minister who speaks fluent normal person after all, AND can command the nation’s attention. Buy, buy, buy.
Labour's best day in months.
Kitty Donaldson
@kitty_donaldson
·
5h
For Labour to stand even a chance come 2029, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood needs to ignore her internal Labour critics on migration policy. It worked in Denmark.
My opinion column this evening:
https://x.com/kitty_donaldson/status/1990484523511865840