That Starmer fella...

They do!

support is welcome from all quarters

Other than being a very wordy statement isn't that what he said?

I didn't realise he was one of the original members of Doughty Street. Or as left wing at heart as it seems like he may be.

Overall I thought it was good and gave me confidence he has what it takes as PM.

Refreshing to have a leader from a working class background with experience of leading a large public institution, and a demonstrable commitment to human rights.

I listened to that a couple of days ago and thought he came out of it pretty favourably.

I imagine @eejit has also listened to it and read the various biographies to form his carefully considered opinion.

Maybe it is just me but it all seems reasonably positive early doors.

Cabinet looks to actually have some relevant expertise and appointments such as James Timpson suggest that maybe they are actually looking for solutions. The lack of public schoolboys is also quite a plus.

Early on but it all feels quietly competent.

You're doing it wrong. You have to call him a silly name and insinuate that he will be the downfall of all that is good and moral in the country.

Tsk.

Pissing with rain here. Starmaggeddon in full effect.

#amidoingthisright?

Yep. Sir Keir Stormer.

Nice.

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With Angela Rayner's input, obvs.

Good point.

I see that the red tory Keith hasn't yet solved the cost of living crisis and is just creaming off profits for the elites.

I see that the right wing press and all the regular twunts on Twitter are going for Starmer for about to release 40,000 prisoners early, without acknowledging that:

a) Its a problem caused by the Tories by increasing mandatory sentencing whilst not building more capacity
b) The tories have needed to make this same decision themselves and only delayed it because they didn't want to do it before the election purely because of the optics.

So Labour have only been in power a week and Streeting has already committed to going further than the Cass Report by permanently ban puberty blockers.

https://x.com/JolyonMaugham/status/1811670898740490413

I’m not up on this in anyway, is banning puberty blockers a good thing or a bad thing?

Fucking depressing that even "the left" in this country seems to be dominated by anti trans sentiments.

those quotes are asking a LOT of hard work!
but yeah, it's fucking shit. not really a supriae though

So are we at the point, where we can presume there aint any skeletons on his cupboard, because we'd of heard of them by now?

Fuck Wes Streeting, I really hate that little shit

It's amazing how fast Labour have speed run into being the Tories, it's like they were just soft-Tories all along.

I can't stand him 🤮

It really, really isn't

whats happenned? rwanda rebooted?

Transphobia maintained/accelerated

I’m not up on this in anyway, is banning puberty blockers a good thing or a bad thing?

I'm going to try to do something novel in the world of trans rights, I'm going to try to give you a balanced and fair overview of the science and what each 'side' says about it.

Scientifically speaking, puberty blockers are safe as hell. We've used them since the seventies to combat precocious puberty in children, and since the 80s to combat certain midlife conditions, also related to hormone production. They're safe for those use cases.

More recently (since about 1998), they've been used as a sort of delaying tactic for pre-pubescent teens who think they might be trans - they're seen by gender clinicians as being able to buy a teenager some time before they make any decisions about surgery etc. The Cass report said that as this was a novel use for puberty blockers compared to the use cases above, we should do more research, since we don't yet know if there's any irreversible effect of their use on (for example) a teenagers brain or bone development.

Important to note the Cass report did not recommend an outright ban, just more clinical research. But the government has taken this recommendation, and since clinical research happens before a drug is released to the public, that effectively means that people who used to be able to get puberty blockers on the NHS or privately can no longer do so. This is what's being called the 'ban'.

Labour has said they are "minded to renew the emergency banning order with a view to converting it to a permanent ban, subject to appropriate consultation”.That means trans teens will be unable to get these drugs, even privately. Which will mean trans teens going through a puberty they don't want - which must be horrific. And, arguably worse, trans teens for whom these drugs ARE working will have them taken away, and go through a puberty they thought they were saved from.

This is quite a challenging one. I'm very much pro trans rights, but I believe in evidence based medicine. If Cass is right that this is a novel use, and the impact on bone/brain development in teens is not yet understood, then I don't see why they should've been prescribed in the first place. On the other hand, we've been prescribing them since 1998 and isn't that trial enough? Banning them will lead to trans kids killing themselves. Not banning them might mean people who aren't trans being pushed into using puberty blockers without us understanding the impact. What's the right answer?