Domestic violence suicides are already growing at such a rate that a woman in an abusive relationship is now more likely to take her own life than be killed by a partner.
But research into the number of women who take their own life in such circumstances has suggested official statistics could track as few as 6.5% of the true number of cases.
According to the Domestic Homicide Project, a programme led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), there were 98 suspected suicides following domestic abuse in 2024, compared with 80 intimate partner homicides.
But research by a suicide prevention programme in Kent found that about a third of all suspected suicides in the region between 2018 and 2024 were affected by domestic abuse.
If the numbers in Kent reflect the national picture, it could mean as many as 1,500 victims of domestic abuse are taking their own lives every year – up to 15 times as many as previously thought.
Tim Woodhouse, the programme manager and a University of Kent academic, who led the research, said: “We need some sort of national taskforce to get a grip on this.” He added that it was “bonkers that we are basing national estimates on one researcher’s evidence”...
I don’t want to engage in any whataboutery as this is tragic that these women feel there is no other option however stats for England and Wales for 2024 show over 4300 men killed themselves - one every two hours. In the mainstream it feels it’s somehow not important - I know two men in their 40s/50s who killed themselves last year, others over previous years.
Whilst this issue of abuse by men leading to suicide by women needs fixing so does the crazy level of suicide amongst middle aged men. Do they get a national task force set up?
It doesn't sound much like a task force has been set up; more that someone has had a look at the numbers and decided more research is necessary.
In any event, we're talking about two quite different things.
Regarding male suicide, the government did do something last year (also not a task force).
I think one tragedy here are the ideologies that are being presented as solutions, around ultra-traditionalist views, "masculinity", "manliness", "warrior ethos" and so on - a public example being Pete Hegseth. I've been having a look a bit this week at some of the ideas behind his Christian Nationalism, and some of the stuff about women is beyond frightening. That is a recipe for encouraging violence.
Before long we will be seeing a rhetoric that women have a duty to provide sex to men, building on the current "more babies" demands, and as a component of anti-feminism.
Here's one example (Youtuber Richard the Fourth" of someone linking in the new female Archbishop as proof of the continuing degradation of modern society, for "liberal modernist consensus". He reaches for "Traditionalism" and "Hierarchy as we saw in our martial traditions", based around ideas such as those of Robert Bly, and also various others from 1st half 20C and before. Ideologically, for me this is running away from the issue based on a tissue of nonsense, rather than addressing the question.
One problem with the Archbishop stuff: there is a female Apostle (the model for Bishops in RC, Anglican, Orthodox etc) in the New Testament in good standing, which means the whole idea of "NEVER women in authority in the church" is simply baloney.
Domestic violence suicides are already growing at such a rate that a woman in an abusive relationship is now more likely to take her own life than be killed by a partner.
But research into the number of women who take their own life in such circumstances has suggested official statistics could track as few as 6.5% of the true number of cases.
According to the Domestic Homicide Project, a programme led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), there were 98 suspected suicides following domestic abuse in 2024, compared with 80 intimate partner homicides.
But research by a suicide prevention programme in Kent found that about a third of all suspected suicides in the region between 2018 and 2024 were affected by domestic abuse.
If the numbers in Kent reflect the national picture, it could mean as many as 1,500 victims of domestic abuse are taking their own lives every year – up to 15 times as many as previously thought.
Tim Woodhouse, the programme manager and a University of Kent academic, who led the research, said: “We need some sort of national taskforce to get a grip on this.” He added that it was “bonkers that we are basing national estimates on one researcher’s evidence”...
Initial thoughts
What are the databases being interrogated? (check the sample and the sample frame)
Are there deaths taking place outside the UK that may be omitted from the total? (check for omissions)
Can a dedicated task force be set up to examine (a subset of) female non-DV suicides to check retrospectively if domestic abuse was a contributing factor? (ie check for false negatives)
Is there a set of female deaths initially classified as "open" but which, on re-examination, may be better/plausibly classified as "suicide" (check for underreporting)
This strikes me as the kind of thing where a small, dedicated team could make a disproportionately large difference
The only class war being waged right now is by billionaires on the rest of us.
In what sense? Billionaires create jobs, products and services. It is elected governments that set tax and spending rates and make laws not them
Oh. The incessant propaganda they fund to influence those governments and laws. It isn't kindness or altruism towards the less fortunate that motivates them.
Domestic violence suicides are already growing at such a rate that a woman in an abusive relationship is now more likely to take her own life than be killed by a partner.
But research into the number of women who take their own life in such circumstances has suggested official statistics could track as few as 6.5% of the true number of cases.
According to the Domestic Homicide Project, a programme led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), there were 98 suspected suicides following domestic abuse in 2024, compared with 80 intimate partner homicides.
But research by a suicide prevention programme in Kent found that about a third of all suspected suicides in the region between 2018 and 2024 were affected by domestic abuse.
If the numbers in Kent reflect the national picture, it could mean as many as 1,500 victims of domestic abuse are taking their own lives every year – up to 15 times as many as previously thought.
Tim Woodhouse, the programme manager and a University of Kent academic, who led the research, said: “We need some sort of national taskforce to get a grip on this.” He added that it was “bonkers that we are basing national estimates on one researcher’s evidence”...
I don’t want to engage in any whataboutery as this is tragic that these women feel there is no other option however stats for England and Wales for 2024 show over 4300 men killed themselves - one every two hours. In the mainstream it feels it’s somehow not important - I know two men in their 40s/50s who killed themselves last year, others over previous years.
Whilst this issue of abuse by men leading to suicide by women needs fixing so does the crazy level of suicide amongst middle aged men. Do they get a national task force set up?
It doesn't sound much like a task force has been set up; more that someone has had a look at the numbers and decided more research is necessary.
In any event, we're talking about two quite different things.
Regarding male suicide, the government did do something last year (also not a task force).
I think one tragedy here are the ideologies that are being presented as solutions, around ultra-traditionalist views, "masculinity", "manliness", "warrior ethos" and so on - a public example being Pete Hegseth. I've been having a look a bit this week at some of the ideas behind his Christian Nationalism, and some of the stuff about women is beyond frightening. That is a recipe for encouraging violence.
Before long we will be seeing a rhetoric that women have a duty to provide sex to men, building on the current "more babies" demands, and as a component of anti-feminism.
Here's one example (Youtuber Richard the Fourth" of someone linking in the new female Archbishop as proof of the continuing degradation of modern society, for "liberal modernist consensus". He reaches for "Traditionalism" and "Hierarchy as we saw in our martial traditions", based around ideas such as those of Robert Bly, and also various others from 1st half 20C and before. Ideologically, for me this is running away from the issue based on a tissue of nonsense, rather than addressing the question.
One problem with the Archbishop stuff: there is a female Apostle (the model for Bishops in RC, Anglican, Orthodox etc) in the New Testament in good standing, which means the whole idea of "NEVER women in authority in the church" is simply baloney.
Go on - who do you reckon was a female apostle? I thought conventional reckoning was there were a total of 13 - the 12 disciples less Judas, plus Judas's replacement, and Paul. I'm not aware of any others claiming to be Apostles in the NY?
The model for Elders/Overseers/Bishops is more like Timothy (who nowhere claims to be an apostle), and Paul's instructions in his letters to Timothy are very clear that women should not be church leaders. 1 Timothy 2:12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." (ESV translation).
There's a whole load of revisionist rubbish talked about this (my local CofE bishop spouts pompous nonsense about how "her hermeneutic is different to other people's") but it's quite hard to get away from the actual words written in the Bible. You can of course not belive it or disagree with it, or think that Paul was a raging misogynist and his letters shouldn't count - those are logically coherent positions. But trying to claim the Bible is OK with women in senior church leadership is a nonsense position as the text explicitly and clearly says the opposite in a number of places.
Domestic violence suicides are already growing at such a rate that a woman in an abusive relationship is now more likely to take her own life than be killed by a partner.
But research into the number of women who take their own life in such circumstances has suggested official statistics could track as few as 6.5% of the true number of cases.
According to the Domestic Homicide Project, a programme led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), there were 98 suspected suicides following domestic abuse in 2024, compared with 80 intimate partner homicides.
But research by a suicide prevention programme in Kent found that about a third of all suspected suicides in the region between 2018 and 2024 were affected by domestic abuse.
If the numbers in Kent reflect the national picture, it could mean as many as 1,500 victims of domestic abuse are taking their own lives every year – up to 15 times as many as previously thought.
Tim Woodhouse, the programme manager and a University of Kent academic, who led the research, said: “We need some sort of national taskforce to get a grip on this.” He added that it was “bonkers that we are basing national estimates on one researcher’s evidence”...
I don’t want to engage in any whataboutery as this is tragic that these women feel there is no other option however stats for England and Wales for 2024 show over 4300 men killed themselves - one every two hours. In the mainstream it feels it’s somehow not important - I know two men in their 40s/50s who killed themselves last year, others over previous years.
Whilst this issue of abuse by men leading to suicide by women needs fixing so does the crazy level of suicide amongst middle aged men. Do they get a national task force set up?
It doesn't sound much like a task force has been set up; more that someone has had a look at the numbers and decided more research is necessary.
In any event, we're talking about two quite different things.
Regarding male suicide, the government did do something last year (also not a task force).
I think one tragedy here are the ideologies that are being presented as solutions, around ultra-traditionalist views, "masculinity", "manliness", "warrior ethos" and so on - a public example being Pete Hegseth. I've been having a look a bit this week at some of the ideas behind his Christian Nationalism, and some of the stuff about women is beyond frightening. That is a recipe for encouraging violence.
Before long we will be seeing a rhetoric that women have a duty to provide sex to men, building on the current "more babies" demands, and as a component of anti-feminism.
Here's one example (Youtuber Richard the Fourth" of someone linking in the new female Archbishop as proof of the continuing degradation of modern society, for "liberal modernist consensus". He reaches for "Traditionalism" and "Hierarchy as we saw in our martial traditions", based around ideas such as those of Robert Bly, and also various others from 1st half 20C and before. Ideologically, for me this is running away from the issue based on a tissue of nonsense, rather than addressing the question.
One problem with the Archbishop stuff: there is a female Apostle (the model for Bishops in RC, Anglican, Orthodox etc) in the New Testament in good standing, which means the whole idea of "NEVER women in authority in the church" is simply baloney.
It's fascism, pure and simple. It's an empty ideology designed to gull the weak and ignorant and deliver power to people who will never willingly surrender it. And it's the same story it's always been - you fight fascism with everything you've got, if you value your freedom and your life.
In the professional era, sheer size of population and potential player pool is beginning to dominate, in rugby
For decades much smaller countries could, in various ways, punch above their weight
All blacks were the obvious example, but also wales and latterly Ireland
But now the biggest teams are the biggest countries. South Africa, France, England,
Italy rising. Argentina. Japan too
Australia somewhere in the middle
It’s a shame, as rugby was an exception to the law of bigness
I recall being in Jamaica on late 90s.
Not long after Reggae Boyz got to WC98
A few locals told me it would kill Cricket as young lads who were already starting to go to US Colleges for Track and Field scholarships would play soccer too.
The great Welsh teams were honed in the Mines and Steel works.
Gatland fused a side for a decade that punched way above their weight
Maladministration hasn't helped.
So who are all these top level Caribbean athletes and footballers who would have been international cricketers ?
Actual names.
Given how specialised top level sport is now plus how much more money there is in cricket compared with the last century the numbers lost is more probably minimal to zero.
I think the problem is that a lot of good West Indian athletes/sportsmen get picked up for sports scholarships in the US. It’s attractive to them as they get a good uni place and the potential for top class coaching on track and often get sidelined into American football.
Now they might not “make it” but if they have been focussed away from cricket from 16 to early 20s even if they were good cricketers that’s a lot of lost development time and very hard to switch back.
If you can run a crazy 100m time and you are well built run the potential to earn millions a year in American football is probably more a temptation than taking a risk on cricket where the pay and sponsorship will never come close and the employment numbers are lower in cricket.
But I’m not sure this is true. You can make millions in T20 cricket. Indeed it’s probably easier to do it in cricket than in ultra competitive NFL -or basketball where you need to be a physical freak in size
True, but for a lot of 16 year olds, when they have to really start specialising and considering future options if someone from UCLA is scouting you for a track scholarship where you will end up with a good step up the ladder or you have to hope you are one of the cricketers who will be great enough to get the big contracts, a lot will choose the former - totally understandably.
I had friends at school who were scouted by top division football clubs and asked to join but turned it down because their plans were becoming lawyers or bankers etc because it was something they knew they would do well in and benefit financially long term whereas lots of young players disappear and then you’ve thrown away a life career. I know it’s not the same situation but it’s a major consideration for young people and parents.
I think the number of Premier League footballers who might have been top lawyers or bankers is a select band
of ZERO
ISTR Martin O Neil studied law at university
Pat Nevin has a degree and is clearly highly intelligent. Then there's Graham Le Saux who went to uni and would have graduated if it weren't for needing to get going with the pro football. He reads the Guardian and visits museums.
Nevin is a truly outstanding football commentator and is also worth listening to on subjects far removed from football. He doesn't actually do the main play commentaries though. He provides the supplementary comments brilliantly, but not the main description of the play which is given to others. I think this is a pity because he would probably be brilliant at that too, and certainly better than the usual main commentators, who are mostly moderate to poor.
It has often puzzled me that football has never had a great commentator (radio or tv). Every other main sport I can think of has its legends - Peter O'Sullivan, Bill McClaren, Richie Benaud, Murray Walker, Ted Lowe, Sid Waddell, Eammon Andrews and so on. Football? Nothing.
Maybe it's harder than I imagine, but I suspect the explanation is more mundane than that.
Dont forget perhaps the best in any sport - Buncey in boxing.
My list is by no means exhaustive, and I would certainly agree on Steve Bunce, who incidentally is good on other sports too. For example, he commentated brilliantly on Judo at the Olympics.
My point is (and it really baffles me) that I cannot name a single outstanding football commentator. (I'm not counting expert assistant commentators, such as Nevin, of which there are many who are very good.)
At a bit of a tangent, the worst anchorman was Bob Wilson. So bad that Half Man, Half Biscuit wrote a song about it.
Lord, I'm trying the best i can I lost everybody in Khazakhstan But I still don't understand Bob Wilson, anchorman
I've been to Kent, Gwent, Senegal I've even been to look for Jim Rosenthal Found him on his knees at the wailing wall crying "Bob Wilson, anchorman"
Well I marvel at the things we find beneath the ground And that man can go faster than the speed of sound But I still can't get my head around Bob Wilson, anchorman
Well I'd like to meet Stevenson the engineer And I'd like to meet Faraday and buy him a beer And I'd love to meet the bloke who had the bright idea of Bob Wilson, anchorman
The BBC had a habit of persisting with bad anchormen. Do you remember Peter West?
They now get rid of the good ones because of their "policies"
The voters in Gorton and Denton are not imprisoned within the constituency boundaries, and it's just possible that some of them might venture into the centre of Manchester on a weekend.
Oh, entirely possible. However it does raise the question about why didn't he know he was in the wrong place...
What Lostpassword was implying was that it might not have been the wrong place.
Domestic violence suicides are already growing at such a rate that a woman in an abusive relationship is now more likely to take her own life than be killed by a partner.
But research into the number of women who take their own life in such circumstances has suggested official statistics could track as few as 6.5% of the true number of cases.
According to the Domestic Homicide Project, a programme led by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), there were 98 suspected suicides following domestic abuse in 2024, compared with 80 intimate partner homicides.
But research by a suicide prevention programme in Kent found that about a third of all suspected suicides in the region between 2018 and 2024 were affected by domestic abuse.
If the numbers in Kent reflect the national picture, it could mean as many as 1,500 victims of domestic abuse are taking their own lives every year – up to 15 times as many as previously thought.
Tim Woodhouse, the programme manager and a University of Kent academic, who led the research, said: “We need some sort of national taskforce to get a grip on this.” He added that it was “bonkers that we are basing national estimates on one researcher’s evidence”...
I don’t want to engage in any whataboutery as this is tragic that these women feel there is no other option however stats for England and Wales for 2024 show over 4300 men killed themselves - one every two hours. In the mainstream it feels it’s somehow not important - I know two men in their 40s/50s who killed themselves last year, others over previous years.
Whilst this issue of abuse by men leading to suicide by women needs fixing so does the crazy level of suicide amongst middle aged men. Do they get a national task force set up?
It doesn't sound much like a task force has been set up; more that someone has had a look at the numbers and decided more research is necessary.
In any event, we're talking about two quite different things.
Regarding male suicide, the government did do something last year (also not a task force).
I think one tragedy here are the ideologies that are being presented as solutions, around ultra-traditionalist views, "masculinity", "manliness", "warrior ethos" and so on - a public example being Pete Hegseth. I've been having a look a bit this week at some of the ideas behind his Christian Nationalism, and some of the stuff about women is beyond frightening. That is a recipe for encouraging violence.
Before long we will be seeing a rhetoric that women have a duty to provide sex to men, building on the current "more babies" demands, and as a component of anti-feminism.
Here's one example (Youtuber Richard the Fourth" of someone linking in the new female Archbishop as proof of the continuing degradation of modern society, for "liberal modernist consensus". He reaches for "Traditionalism" and "Hierarchy as we saw in our martial traditions", based around ideas such as those of Robert Bly, and also various others from 1st half 20C and before. Ideologically, for me this is running away from the issue based on a tissue of nonsense, rather than addressing the question.
One problem with the Archbishop stuff: there is a female Apostle (the model for Bishops in RC, Anglican, Orthodox etc) in the New Testament in good standing, which means the whole idea of "NEVER women in authority in the church" is simply baloney.
Go on - who do you reckon was a female apostle? I thought conventional reckoning was there were a total of 13 - the 12 disciples less Judas, plus Judas's replacement, and Paul. I'm not aware of any others claiming to be Apostles in the NY?
The model for Elders/Overseers/Bishops is more like Timothy (who nowhere claims to be an apostle), and Paul's instructions in his letters to Timothy are very clear that women should not be church leaders. 1 Timothy 2:12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." (ESV translation).
There's a whole load of revisionist rubbish talked about this (my local CofE bishop spouts pompous nonsense about how "her hermeneutic is different to other people's") but it's quite hard to get away from the actual words written in the Bible. You can of course not belive it or disagree with it, or think that Paul was a raging misogynist and his letters shouldn't count - those are logically coherent positions. But trying to claim the Bible is OK with women in senior church leadership is a nonsense position as the text explicitly and clearly says the opposite in a number of places.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/barack-obama-no-evidence-aliens-real-interview-podcast ..“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”..
The voters in Gorton and Denton are not imprisoned within the constituency boundaries, and it's just possible that some of them might venture into the centre of Manchester on a weekend.
Oh, entirely possible. However it does raise the question about why didn't he know he was in the wrong place...
What Lostpassword was implying was that it might not have been the wrong place.
It probably wasn't an efficient use of the time though...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/barack-obama-no-evidence-aliens-real-interview-podcast ..“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”..
Good morning, everyone.
I wonder what Obama's view on the Fermi Paradox is.
The voters in Gorton and Denton are not imprisoned within the constituency boundaries, and it's just possible that some of them might venture into the centre of Manchester on a weekend.
Oh, entirely possible. However it does raise the question about why didn't he know he was in the wrong place...
What Lostpassword was implying was that it might not have been the wrong place.
Campaigning in the centre of Manchester on the off chance some voters might be there is marginally less ill conceived than many of Reform's policies, true.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/barack-obama-no-evidence-aliens-real-interview-podcast ..“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”..
Good morning, everyone.
I wonder what Obama's view on the Fermi Paradox is.
That it's not so much a paradox as a conundrum - what variables was Fermi missing ?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/barack-obama-no-evidence-aliens-real-interview-podcast ..“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”..
Good morning, everyone.
I wonder what Obama's view on the Fermi Paradox is.
That Jean-Luc Picard should have kept his mouth shut?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/barack-obama-no-evidence-aliens-real-interview-podcast ..“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”..
So if we take out extraneous words, Obama literally said, "there’s life out there... we’ve been visited by aliens... extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!"
The voters in Gorton and Denton are not imprisoned within the constituency boundaries, and it's just possible that some of them might venture into the centre of Manchester on a weekend.
Oh, entirely possible. However it does raise the question about why didn't he know he was in the wrong place...
What Lostpassword was implying was that it might not have been the wrong place.
Campaigning in the centre of Manchester on the off chance some voters might be there is marginally less ill conceived than many of Reform's policies, true.
To be fair Goodwin's Partridge style open car tour of an industrial estate has had more publicity than knocking on a few doors.
The only pity is that the video failed to show the Nuremburg rally sized crowds hanging on his every word.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/barack-obama-no-evidence-aliens-real-interview-podcast ..“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”..
Big UFO has clearly gotten at Obama, forcing him to “add context”
The voters in Gorton and Denton are not imprisoned within the constituency boundaries, and it's just possible that some of them might venture into the centre of Manchester on a weekend.
Oh, entirely possible. However it does raise the question about why didn't he know he was in the wrong place...
What Lostpassword was implying was that it might not have been the wrong place.
Campaigning in the centre of Manchester on the off chance some voters might be there is marginally less ill conceived than many of Reform's policies, true.
Perhaps the campaign thought he'd reach more Gortonites and Dentonites on the streets of Central Manchester than he would driving down Denton High Street.
I think it's a marginally less likely explanation than that they don't know the boundaries of the constituency, given that they've been canvassing there for a couple of weeks.
You know, as soon as Matt Goodwin wins, he'll be instantly transformed into a Machiavellian genius conducting a devastating psy op combining digital messaging and racist dog whistles - how else could he possibly beat the plumber?
Until then, he can carry on being an Alan Partridgesque buffon.
Comments
Before long we will be seeing a rhetoric that women have a duty to provide sex to men, building on the current "more babies" demands, and as a component of anti-feminism.
Here's one example (Youtuber Richard the Fourth" of someone linking in the new female Archbishop as proof of the continuing degradation of modern society, for "liberal modernist consensus". He reaches for "Traditionalism" and "Hierarchy as we saw in our martial traditions", based around ideas such as those of Robert Bly, and also various others from 1st half 20C and before. Ideologically, for me this is running away from the issue based on a tissue of nonsense, rather than addressing the question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGTehcyk1qw
One problem with the Archbishop stuff: there is a female Apostle (the model for Bishops in RC, Anglican, Orthodox etc) in the New Testament in good standing, which means the whole idea of "NEVER women in authority in the church" is simply baloney.
- What are the databases being interrogated? (check the sample and the sample frame)
- Are there deaths taking place outside the UK that may be omitted from the total? (check for omissions)
- Can a dedicated task force be set up to examine (a subset of) female non-DV suicides to check retrospectively if domestic abuse was a contributing factor? (ie check for false negatives)
- Is there a set of female deaths initially classified as "open" but which, on re-examination, may be better/plausibly classified as "suicide" (check for underreporting)
This strikes me as the kind of thing where a small, dedicated team could make a disproportionately large differencehttps://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/10/30/kamala-harris-has-more-billionaires-prominently-backing-her-than-trump-bezos-and-griffin-weigh-in-updated/
The model for Elders/Overseers/Bishops is more like Timothy (who nowhere claims to be an apostle), and Paul's instructions in his letters to Timothy are very clear that women should not be church leaders. 1 Timothy 2:12 "I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet." (ESV translation).
There's a whole load of revisionist rubbish talked about this (my local CofE bishop spouts pompous nonsense about how "her hermeneutic is different to other people's") but it's quite hard to get away from the actual words written in the Bible. You can of course not belive it or disagree with it, or think that Paul was a raging misogynist and his letters shouldn't count - those are logically coherent positions. But trying to claim the Bible is OK with women in senior church leadership is a nonsense position as the text explicitly and clearly says the opposite in a number of places.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paU0k_u6NO8
Guardian journalist not happy with Starmer
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/16/keir-starmer-prime-minister-left-right-centre-polls?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
No evidence aliens have made contact, says Obama
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/16/barack-obama-no-evidence-aliens-real-interview-podcast
..“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he said. “But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chances we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”..
I wonder what Obama's view on the Fermi Paradox is.
Oh sorry, the *Fermi* paradox?
The only pity is that the video failed to show the Nuremburg rally sized crowds hanging on his every word.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2k23mlkzlo
NEW THREAD
I think it's a marginally less likely explanation than that they don't know the boundaries of the constituency, given that they've been canvassing there for a couple of weeks.
You know, as soon as Matt Goodwin wins, he'll be instantly transformed into a Machiavellian genius conducting a devastating psy op combining digital messaging and racist dog whistles - how else could he possibly beat the plumber?
Until then, he can carry on being an Alan Partridgesque buffon.