From now until the #election, I'm playing the Benny Hill theme tune at full volume and adopting a Kenneth Williams "oooh matron" voice, because it's now the only way to keep a grip on #reality
Our leaders, liberals, progressives, whether they be good people, bad people, mediocre people or total non-entities are one & all puppets of bad people.
The Telegraph - "Tory backlash as children set to gain gender-change rights at school"
>"Education Secretary says guidance will recommend pupils be able to 'socially transition' to a pronoun of their choice with parental consent"
>"Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, is facing a backlash from Conservative MPs and figures in Downing Street and the Equalities Office over plans to allow pupils to choose their own pronouns if their parents give consent"
Interesting, better than months of dogwhistles may have suggested, let's watch closely. Keegan is a more moderate conservative than Badenoch, and civil service lawyers will have been involved. This article suggests some sanity prevailing & an intra-factional Tory spat with the far right, transphobic types quoted like evangelical Miriam Cates MP, the (Un)Safe Schools Alliance
[Edit: this is draft guidance for a public consultation]
Your yearly reminder that there are more than two political parties in the UK and despite the voting system being first-past-the-post, which favours the Reds and the Blues, you can + should vote for whoever you like. :face_sunglasses_fb:
I have always voted Green in the UK and if you like the sound of their policies, then you should consider it too. :tongue_wink_fb:
BREAKING NEWS - Looks like the Tory & Labour Parties have found a way to stitch up the SNP on its call for an immediate ceasefire, & get the Labour Party off the hook when so many members of the shadow cabinet intended to defy Starmer
The Tory Party will not oppose the ineffectual Labour amendment calling for pauses, allowing it to pass, preventing a house vote on the unamended SNP motion.
Weasels to the left of me. Weasels to the right. Here I am. Watching a genocide with you 😡
At least 100,000 said to protest to stop the #GazaGenocide in #London right now. This crowd looks MUCH bigger than the two previous marches that were estimated at 100,000 by the MetPol. This is organic, and it is growing with every day of #IsraeliGovernment atrocity in #Gaza.
If we still need to move the House of Lords, while restoration work is carried out in Westminster, how about a large, recently refitted, barge, chained up on the Thames?
Nearly all the UK papers today have articles about the rise of shoplifting but they don't mention:
Loads of folk are skint via govt policies
Loads of folk who are skint have kids to feed
Food banks are struggling to provide because they're skint
There's another group who just have less money but still feel entitled to fancy things because of this 4-decades-long Thatcherite obsession with individualism and all its accompanying societal effects
I keep hearing the Tories defending the defeat at yesterday's by-elections as being due to low turnout.
Having a look at the numbers they do have a point, actual Labour numbers went up slightly in one since the last election, and down slightly in one, BUT the critical point here is this:
Tory voters aren't bothering to turn up to vote.
I would like to wholeheartedly support this lack of action on their part.
So that was some tea-leaf 🌿 reading as today: we see Miriam Cates MP all over the press with the "New Conservatives" (a statement by her was played on LBC radio when I was driving).
Comment: She and co-lead Danny Kruger MP are both evangelical christians, as is Steve Baker MP
> "New Conservatives such as Miriam Cates also say large number of (immigration) arrivals risks damaging UK’s cultural security"
Comment: From this splintering and "noise", we can see jostling for the post General Election Tory party leadership / influence and power grabs already being made (they know they are out of power ofc)
And what could "cultural security" be other than racism dressed-up?
If any outside the UK have a weird niche interest in UK political process are trying to understand this afternoon's farce in Parliament over the ceasefire votes(s), I really would suggest you don't waste too much effort on it. The best sense I can make of it is that it's a right #Hoyle cock up by a Speaker out of his depth who departed from protocol
It's hard to see how Lindsay Hoyle can stay in post #ukpol