In the news

Due to unification?

Pleased to see the back of Geoffrey Cox.
I struggle to imagine he could be replaced by a bigger tosser but no doubt they've done their best to that end

You've seen who it is, right?

No I hadn't realised.

Bloody hell they've surpassed themselves

Yup. This looks like one part of the attack on the independence of the judiciary, having the chief legal officer against them:

https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2020/01/suella-braverman-people-we-elect-must-take-back-control-from-people-we-dont-who-include-the-judges.html

Wow

Sunak’s rise up the ranks has been extraordinary. He has been chief secretary to the Treasury since last summer, but technically he was not even a member of the cabinet; he was just a minister with the right to attend. Being chancellor is his first full cabinet job.

Sounds very much like a puppet to me

"At least he has some relevant experience, even if that is just knowing what a pound is" - my Mum's political commentary today

just knowing what a pound is

As a billionaire (in law) ex Goldman's banker, I guess that's definitely true!

fucking hell

The chancellor is a very powerful position, they couldn't sack another one in the near future so whoever was chosen would have a degree of immunity, so they chose Sunak as he's a lickspittle who will do exactly what Cummings tells him.

Boris Johnson engaged in a call and response with Cabinet this
morning:

PM: How many hospitals are we going to build?

Cabinet in unison: 40

PM: Well done. How many more police officers?

Cabinet: 20,000

PM: That's right. How many more nurses?

Cabinet: 50,000

PM: Exactly

https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1228264706395267072?s=20

Thought you were joking...

Ffs

I so much wish he was.

Eric Pickles good, Father Ted bad? We live in very strange times. https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/02/14/lord-eric-pickles-graham-linehan-doctors-transgender-kids-nazi-holocaust/

Linehan has previous on this matter

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB888GB888&sxsrf=ACYBGNQWwZ3kzWQhsnBBhjR2jBOg9jjU2A%3A1581693999722&ei=L7xGXrPbK9Ge1fAPi8Gu2A0&q=graham+linehan+trans&oq=graham+linehan+trans&gs_l=psy-ab.3...10755.11704..11856...0.0..0.53.383.8......0....1..gws-wiz.......35i39j0i131i20i263j0i3j0i67j0i7i30j0i131j0j0i20i263.O_LfpeIOAEs&ved=0ahUKEwjzrvynrdHnAhVRTxUIHYugC9sQ4dUDCAs&uact=5

It is utterly bizarre as in other areas he's pretty socially liberal, he helped the pro-choice campaign in Ireland for example.

But when it comes to a discussion on the topic of transgender rights/people he just cannot use reasonable terms.

I don't know enough about the whole topic to judge him/not judge him, and there is a lot of discussion on my FB wall around it, and there is SO much to unpick...

But wow, this is definitely not on.

I often rewatch the IT Crowd, and the trans episode in there hasn't aged well at all. As far as I can recall the rest of his writing is pretty liberal / tolerant.

It's a really odd and unexpected hill he's chosen to die on - all I've heard from him for a number of years is related to this subject.

Yeah, I think he’ll be known in time as “the bloke who rants about trans people who used to write comedy for TV”

It's weird, all he seems to do these days is go online and shout extremely TERFy stuff. I guess the money from Father Ted and the IT crowd means he doesn't have to work and he got radicalised by watching youtoob videos about evil trans people.

There is nuance to issues around transgender rights and sometimes clashing interests of different groups, e.g the temporary ban on drag queens in Glasgow Pride a few years back (Trans activists: "Drag queens are transphobic!", gay men: "Important part of cultural history!", some feminists: "Excuse me, we've always had some issues with misogyny in drag acts and nobody listened to us."). But glinner doesn't do nuance, he does shouting crude absolutes at the top of his voice. Doesn't help anybody.

The worst behaviour from all angles of that debate is coming from shouty men. You have glinner, you have the unsurprisingly everything-phobic alt-right, there's a nasty segment of antifa bros who are loving the opportunity for a "woke" excuse to attack some women... bit of a shitshow.

There was a spat recently about George, the tomboy from the Famous Five, being claimed as transgender. It's reasonable for transgender people to look back through literature for evidence of their erasure. It's also reasonable for feminists to say "Hang on, are there no tomboys any more? Aren't you reinforcing gender stereotypes by saying some behaviours aren't natural to girds or women?". It's not reasonable that some of the feminists who said so have aligned themselves with the alt-right, with islamophobes and advocates of conversion therapy. It's also not reasonable that all the feminists who asked that question were labelled as TERFs and had death threats from the antifa bros.

Eric Pickles isn't the good guy in that debate. He doesn't give a shit about transgender issues, which wasn't his concern here. He had a shitty record on gay rights issues when he was in actual power. But he has moderated over time, while glinner seems to have gone right off the charts.

Johnson's eugenicist mate:

https://mobile.twitter.com/miqdaad/status/1228803670000750593

Can't stop saying 'I got you all in check' every time someone mentions 'Wuhan'.

Wait till you see Richard Dawkins tweet.

Lie, holy fucking shit, what a hill to die on.

"I am always straight up in saying that women’s sport is more
comparable to the Paralympics than it is to men’s.”

He was home schooled by his parents. Never got bullied, no empathy.

All of Dawkins’ tweets make more sense if you add “... Mr Bond” at the
end of them.

https://twitter.com/NedHartley/status/1228968325994156032