Ignorant tory dog-whistles with anti-trans rhetoric

I said earlier on my channel that being wrong feels exactly like being right. It’s only when we take the trouble to learn, to see past our assumptions that we begin to feel the awkward psychological sensation associated with awareness of our own ignorance. And that’s good. Awareness of our own inaccuracy is the first step – often the only step needed to become accurate again.

That’s why it’s so toxic for any of us to bury our heads in the sand. Especially when the ostrich in question is a sitting MP with a penchant for attention-seeking and far-right dog-whistling. A populist MP who still believes that, having fooled his constituents once, he can continue to get away with voting so often against their interests simply by targeting a minority to whip up a bit of hatred against.

Someone like Mark Jenkinson MP, for example…

Mr Jenkinson stated recently: “Trans men aren’t men, and trans women aren’t women, sex is something we cannot change, that is the scientific view, and there is no need to educate myself on any view. It’s not just the view of me and my constituents. All I’ve ever said or done is point out the difference between gender and sex.”

https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/19850653.protestors-gather-workington-reject-opinions-mark-jenkinson-mp/

Well… let’s take a brief look at the scientific view, shall we?

The magazine, ‘Nature’ is one of the most respected journals in the scientific literature. Its peer-reviewed articles are a world away from the populist dog-whistles cobbled together by biased hacks in the Daily Mail. ‘Nature’ is a scientific journal with content written by specialist science journalists and peer-reviewed for quality by practicing scientists knowledgeable in their respective fields.

T’Sjoen is an endocrinologist at the very top of his profession. He spoke with ‘Nature’ in April 2019 and made some very interesting points. Points that Mark Jenkinson MP might do well to heed before he goes shouting his mouth off about other peoples’ right to be themselves.

“Saying you’re not informed about this topic is not really valid any more,” he says. “It’s just that you’re lazy.”

The European Network for the Investigation of Gender Incongruence (ENIGI) is the largest study of transgender people in the world. In April 2019 it had a research base of 2,600 transgender individuals who provide regular ‘snapshots’ of both their psychological and their biological states. The study takes account of subjective experiences as well as more objective measurements such as hormonal balance, biological wellness, general health, task-orientated brain activity and general physical and physiological well-being. Many of these metrics have very real correlations with more normative gender-based characteristics and the results are fascinating. I won’t quote the extensive article here but I’d strongly encourage anyone who thinks they understand this topic to follow the links.

One thing Mark and I do have in common is that neither of us really ‘get it’. I don’t pretend for a moment to understand what it means to be uncomfortable with your birth-assigned gender. I’m a man, I’ve always been male, I identify as a male and I feel absolutely comfortable in that regard. I have very real difficulty in understanding how others can find that problematic. I have little doubt that Mark Jenkinson MP can say the same. But here’s where we differ…

Jenkinson, perhaps deliberately, confuses gender with biological sex whilst, ironically enough pretending to rely upon that very difference to inform his spurious, bigoted arguments. I understand that gender is a socially defined construct which is different from biology.  And that social definition has always been open to change.

It used to be that women weren’t allowed to vote, they were barred from certain jobs. My own mother really wanted to be a barrister but gender-based prejudices in the mid twentieth century sent her down a different path, first as a housewife and mother and then on to a very successful career as a primary school teacher (traditionally a career acceptable for women). Today nobody would sneer at her ambition to approach the bar because the socially constructed gender rules have changed as society moves on.

Whatever your individual views on gender might be here’s the bottom line for me…

People have a right to be who they are… to live their lives free from bigotry and hostility… to know that they are part of their society and that they have a place. They don’t need everyone to understand their experience. I was very clear with the people I spoke to at Saturday’s little demo that I don’t ‘get it’ but that I support each person’s right to be themselves. Not a single trans person I met objected to that stance of mine.

If, like my bigoted, dog-whistling MP, you have a problem with trans people then I suggest you ask yourself just what it is about you that makes you take such an unhealthy interest in other peoples’ gender preferences. And remember…

Allowing yourself to feel uncomfortable about your prejudices is the first and most crucial step toward adopting a healthier, happier and far more reasonable and compassionate perspective for the future.

Don’t allow Mark Jenkinson MP to hijack your humanity just so he can con you into hating ‘them’ and voting for ‘him’. The politics of ‘us and them’ should have no place in a civilised democracy. Nor should bigoted, hate-mongering MPs like Mark Jenkinson! He has a right to his opinion but when he uses his position as MP to foster hatred and prejudice he really oughtn’t to represent the decent people of Workington for a moment longer than the law allows.

legalised oppression & the power of boycott

“There will be people who will have seen scenes of protests and asked, ‘Why aren’t the government doing something?’ The answer, in many cases, may simply be that we live in a democratic, free society.”

Theresa May, House of commons, July 2021

Today’s the anniversary of a crime. A terrible, heinous, unspeakable act that tore at the very fabric, of the society in which it was committed. An apparently lone criminal, in the most brazen way imaginable broke a law and a tradition that had existed for 55 years among the fine, upstanding citizens of Montgomery, Alabama in the good old US of A.

So what was this unspeakable act, this depraved antisocial behaviour that resonates across the miles and the years? Who was the criminal who on this day, December 1st 1955 set in train a series of events that would shake America – well, part of America to it’s bigoted, racist, ignorant core?

The criminal’s name was Rosa Parks and the act that would forever guarantee her fame was simple. Rosa Parks sat on a bus, on a seat reserved for white people – and that was against the law.

Sometimes it’s necessary to break truly unjust laws. Sometimes our very liberty depends upon it.

This session the UK government is taking the new police, crime, sentencing and courts bill through Parliament. It’s currently nearing the end of its passage through the Lords and is likely to become law very soon as there’s little chance of Boris’ sycophantic back-benchers opposing it. Among other erosions of civil liberties it aims to make anti-government demonstration illegal. Really. They’re going after our right to protest now.

This, yet again, is the stuff of dictatorship. The Nazis did the same thing shortly after gaining control of the Reichstag. It’s a blow both to our individual liberties and to our collective democracy.

When debating the bill at it’s second reading last July former Home Secretary and Prime Minister, Theresa May remarked…

“There will be people who will have seen scenes of protests and asked, ‘Why aren’t the government doing something?’ The answer, in many cases, may simply be that we live in a democratic, free society.”

So my question to you is this…

Do you have as much courage as a little woman from Montgomery Alabama whose lone protest on an Alabama bus ride helped bring down a system that had been tolerated for far too long?

Rosa Parks sitting in front of a white passenger on a Montgomery bus

A Brexiteer’s Godsend

All those pesky EU laws you can’t name

This is Jim Grace. Well actually it’s his Twitter account, @Mac_Puck and if you’re a Brexiteer his stuff will be right up your street. A proper Godsend.

Have a look at this ‘mega thread’ and you’ll be able to name those laws that we pesky Remoaners (now rejoiners) keep asking you about. The link is in the description but here are a few highlights…

Jim found that we objected to (and were outvoted on) only 72 pieces of EU legislation out of around 35,000 laws passed.

You can follow the ‘Mega thread’ link below to see what those laws were about but here are those highlights.

We voted against consumer protection and food safety… 17 times!

We voted against laws to combat cybercrime

We voted against laws ensuring workers’ rights and protection in the workplace

We voted against Laws opposing tax avoidance, including stopping people like Farage and Rees-Mogg using tax-Havens (to name but 2)

We even voted against legislation to maintain fish stocks and so protect our fishing industry – and we all know how well we’ve done handling that on our own, don’t we?

Fortunately for you, Jim Grace has linked to every piece of legislation so you can look up all those details you don’t usually have available for the next time you’re asked about it – unless, of course, having followed the links you’d prefer to keep your head buried firmly in the sand and pretend you still can’t think of any.

Then there are the European judgements against us. Jim found 72 of those for things like failing to prevent cybercrime, failure to protect womens’ rights in the workplace and elsewhere and failing to protect us from pollution.

But don’t take my word for it – follow the link below and see the details for yourself.

It’s no wonder that so many people who voted Brexit now openly regret it or just keep their mouths shut as the reality hits, is it?

Saving Christmas: A letter to Eric

Apparently Boris has buggered about a bit with Priti Patel’s treatment of Johnny Foreigner and graciously allowed the ungrateful little bastards back on to Britain’s glorious soil… for a strictly limited period of time.

This is to allow them to serve us, their natural masters, by driving our stuff about. They get to bask in the glory of Britain’s roads, much less congested now that fuel is so scarce and we, their overlords, get to have the Christmas we deserve. Good on yer, Boris.

But just in case those ungrateful Europeans don’t understand the honour they’ve so graciously been given. In case they prefer to work on the continent with better pay and permanent contracts. In case they misunderstand the privilege of being allowed to drive on the left side of the road, to use verges for toilets and to spend hours getting in and out of Kent. Just in case they don’t get it, I’ve written to a mate of mine in Dover. I’ve asked him to execute a sort of plan B for the festive season.

Here’s what I wrote…

 

Weights & measures: The Breckshit system

Hurrah! Once again we’ll be able to buy beer in pints, to ride bikes with frames and wheels measured in inches, we can get bathroom scales with stones and pounds and glory of glories, stop all that complicated working out in units of ten. We can go back to 12 inches a foot, 3 feet per yard and 4 ounces a quarter with four quarters making a pound or 16 ounces because multiples of 4 are so much easier to work out than multiples of 10, aren’t they?

We can drive miles like never before and confidently insist that everyone else in the world adapt to our measures because, when it comes to trade, they need us more than we need them. Now, where have we heard that before?

But just in case Johnny foreigner finds our system of measurement a bit too complicated for his inferior, non-British little foreigner brain, I’ve devised an easy to use intermediate system to help them get their heads around it. It’s a system intended to bridge the gap between Imperial and metric measures. I call it the Breckshit system.

Measurement of distance begins with the Boris. That’s equivalent to 2.5 cm or one imperial inch. It’s the basic unit of measurement because, along with zero, it’s the same in every system. It’s imperative that Brits and foreigners understand the imperial and metric equivalents of the Boris so that they can work out what the rest of the measurements equal in the shops or on the harbour side as the convoys of foreign traders sail into our ports desperate to convert all their filthy, foreign measurements into proper, British Breckshit.

A spine is roughly equivalent to 30 Borises or two and a half feet. That’s the distance between Boris’ arse ‘ole and his privileged little neck. Not to be confused with the spineless. That equals minus two and a half feet and is modelled on Michael Gove’s chinless anatomy but as a negative. So 1 spine plus 1 spineless equals zero or on++1 supermarket shelf. That’s also the same in each system.

An imperial yard is equivalent to 36 Borises or 90 centimetres. In the new Breckshit system it’ll be known as a Nigel because, unlike the metre +, it doesn’t quite measure up to European standards. The remainder, 4 Borises or 10 centimetres will be known as a ‘Gobby little bastard’ in honour of Mr. Farage’s strategy of over-compensating for his obvious failings in the European parliament.

A Breckshit goolie will be the same as an Imperial foot or 30 centimetres. This is in honour of most right-thinking Brits to connect their own foot with the goolies of the nearest conservative MP. If your nearest tory MP is female the equivalent Breckshit term will be the Patel. Everyone wants to kick her in the Goolies. Or if you’re not sure what sex they are you can use the descriptor ‘Lower then vermin’ instead.

Actually, strike that last one. There are no trans people in the tory party. They are unable to survive in such a Gammon-rich atmosphere. Tory bigotry is far too stifling.

The traditional pound, made up of 16 ounces cannot be used as a standard measure, like the inch to bridge systems. That’s because, thanks to Brexit, the pound keeps shrinking. But the ounce holds good so we’ll use that.

In the Breckshit system 1 ounce is known as a lying, cheating son of a bitch. In the Breckshit system 4 ounces becomes a deceit, 8 ounces is a ‘rip off’ and a seemingly unlimited supply of lying, cheating sons of bitches is a ‘government bench’. 300 or more lying sons of bitches will be known as a tax haven or a Rees-Mogg.

Goods and services rejected by Europe will be known as a Farage after our Nige’s failed attempt to gain German citizenship after the referendum win. Good accepted into Europe will be known as a government recommendation to mark the advice given to British firms who wanted to avoid going under. Goods accepted into the Far East will be known as a Dyson for similar reasons.

Any reduction in quantity or quality will be known as a Truss under the Breckshit system in recognition of the fact that our Liz (heroically) managed to negotiate worse deals with foreign governments than those we used to have when we were members of the EU.

Confused?

They haven’t even started yet!

Who’s the f*%*ing traitor now?

Not so very long ago I and people like me were branded traitors, liars and enemies of Britain. Gutter press tabloids and the hard of understanding alike accused us of being anti-democratic collaborators with a foreign superpower bent on destroying British sovereignty. We were the cucks who enabled a trojan horse style invasion by radical Islamists. We were inviting gangs of marauding East Europeans who wanted nothing more than to rape our daughters whilst we looked on helpless to prevent it.

People who’d never had a political thought in their lives and never even considered the reality of European membership until 2016 suddenly became experts because they’d seen a couple of headlines – not read the actual article, mind you – but seen some headlines in the Daily Fail. So all of a sudden they became fuckin’ experts! If only they’d read something about the Dunning-Kruger effect we’d all be way better off today.

But they hadn’t and so they kept on deluding themselves about our alleged treachery. And all because we wanted to uphold electoral law. Because we wanted to provide genuine facts to our fellow Brits instead of the fake slurs peddled by the likes of Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees Mogg, Nigel Farage and Michael Gove.

All because we wanted to protect our nation from the catastrophe that is now upon us. But we failed. You won – get over it!

And stop bloody complaining about the mess you created. If you’re a Brexiteer – or even worse, even more ridiculous, a working class tory then you did this. It’s all on you!

No longer do the newspapers call us traitors – because nobody would believe them.

No longer am I hesitant to go in certain pubs for fear of being assaulted by drunken Brexiteers – they’re all decidedly sheepish these days.

No longer do people talk about sunlit uplands – now it’s about economic hardship – how hard will it be and for how long will we have to endure it.

And it hasn’t really started yet.

Yes we’ve seen jobs lost.

Yes, we see harvests going to waste.

Yes we have shortages in the shops because we sent all the lorry drivers home.

The NHS is struggling without the mainstay of European workers.

The cost of living, driven by Brexit scarcity is rising exponentially and many Brits, employed as well as unemployed are unable to feed themselves and their families. And that’s before the new cuts to universal credit come into force.

But if you think this is bad just wait. We still haven’t started checking imports at our end yet. That’s because the government knows that, given how bad it is just checking on one side of the channel, once UK customs swings into action it’ll be a whole lot worse.

Why do you think we’ve been building all those lorry parks in Kent? It’s because once we begin checking both imports AND exports the delays will be monumental. Fresh food is already becoming unexportable because it goes off in the lorry transporting it to the mainland. How many jobs has that little bit of red tape cost? What will happen to imports once we start the same protracted process at our end? Then we’ll really see scarcity. Then we’ll really see inflation.

This government gained its majority on the back of three key election pledges.

One was to get Brexit done. Well – even if that were a good thing (obviously I don’t think there’s much good about it) it’s nowhere near done and won’t be for many years.

The new trade deals we keep hearing about are less beneficial to us than they would have been had we stayed in the EU. The not new deals are just temporary roll-overs from existing EU agreements which, of course keep us bound to EU regulations only now we have no say in how those regulations are created.

The second pledge was that there would be no tax rises for those at the bottom of the tree. Part of the ‘levelling up’ agenda. This week Boris has announced a massive hike in tax and National Insurance – hitting those at the bottom hardest.

Thirdly – maintaining the triple lock which states that pensions must rise by either 2.5%, the rate of inflation or the level of the average wage – whichever is the greatest. For the next few years Brexit economic hardship will see the state pension rise far above that of falling wages as it matches rising inflation instead. Personally I think that’s OK. Today’s pensioners were promised welfare ‘from the cradle to the grave’ and having paid their share all their working lives have no time to save for the future. As a nation we should honour that social contract, that pact the nation made with them all those years ago. But Boris is again considering changing the triple lock to remove those protections, protections we owe to the people who worked so hard to rebuild our nation after the first and second world wars.

I began this video by reminding you how so many of us were vilified as traitors.

But when we see the results of Brexit and this extreme right conservative government’s policies – results we were trying to avoid for the sake of the British people… let me ask you…

Who’s really the traitor?

Patel’s murderous plans for asylum-seekers

Priti Patel may well be the most despicable politician of my lifetime. She seems to be motivated only be her own mean-spirited avarice and cruelty. And yet even she has surpassed herself in heartlessness with a new bill intended to guarantee desperate people drown in the channel. She even plans to imprison anyone who rescues them from their fate. How can this travesty of a human being attain the position of Home secretary?

Patel’s press muzzle is far from pretty

The government plan is to amend the official secrets act to criminalise any reporter who effectively embarrasses the government. It means that anyone who publishes stuff like Hancock’s extra-marital kiss could face up to 14 years in prison.

“Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose.”

(George Orwell)

The reach of the act will cover anyone from journalists to bloggers, to keyboard warriors on Facebook and you don’t even need to have signed the act to be liable. But it gets worse. Click the video link below to watch a 6 minute video explanation of this appalling new proposal…

Patel’s plan to oppose free speech is straight out of Hitler’s 25 point plan

“A free press is one of the pillars of democracy”

(Nelson Mandela)

Judicial review reviewed

Yesterday a regular commenter on my YouTube channel pointed out that the government had agreed to abide by the ECHR and the Human Rights Act as part of the Brexit deal. This is true but, as a 5 minute google search showed, not without its caveats. Hardly surprising given the frequency with which this government of chancers breaks its international agreements. This country is already in breach, generally as a result of government policy of nearly every one of the 14 convention rights and there are plans to renege upon even more as I speak.

This morning’s article from the BBC news website, underlines the point beautifully…

This is a little nuanced and it will take a bit of explaining but there is a loophole which the government is relying upon to sidestep the convention. The conditions that apply to allow this are…

Article 15 of the European Convention on Human Rights allows countries to derogate (effectively put to one side) other articles of the convention in times of emergency. This was accepted into the UK legal system by the judicial chamber of the House of Lords in 1966. The conditions that allow this are very limited. They are…

  • in time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation;
  • only to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation;
  • any derogations may not be inconsistent with the State’s other obligations underinternational law;

In reforming the Human Rights Act, the British legislation mirroring the ECHR, the government is relying upon article 15 (the right to derogate) to create laws that are incompatible with European human rights. Since the British courts are bound to apply British law all they can do is issue a ‘Declaration of incompatibility’ and give leave to appeal to a higher court. Of course, the only court able to issue a contrary ruling would be the European court in Strasbourg and the route there was long and arduous even before Brexit.

As the BBC article points out…

“The government is pressing ahead with plans to limit how the public can legally challenge official decisions, despite fears it will damage justice.”

This attack on judicial review of government decisions, together with Boris’ enabling act which I described in an earlier video – click the little icon above to watch that one – takes us another step forward in our country’s relentless march toward dictatorship.

To quote again from the BBC article…

Critics call it an attempt to stop scrutiny of bad decisions.

“Judicial review most famously led to the Supreme Court’s judgement that Prime Minister Boris Johnson unlawfully closed down Parliament ahead of Brexit.

Any decision taken by a public body can be challenged in a judicial review before a High Court judge – and the power is used daily to examine whether officials are following the laws set by Parliament governing their work.

Recent examples include a challenge to exam grades being set by algorithms in England – the threat of which contributed to a government U-turn – and the blocking of the release of the so-called “black-cab rapist” John Worboys.”

They’re even providing a way to give wrongdoers a free pass, even when found guilty of existing law, potentially preventing anyone who has been wronged by the government from achieving appropriate legal remedy. This breaches articles 6, 7 and 13 of the ECHR as well as opening the door to breaches of every other part of the Convention in the process.

The result of all this, for the first time in living memory will be a government that is beyond scrutiny, that cannot meaningfully be challenged in court and that has already given itself the power to enact new legislation without reference to parliament or anyone else.

On one occasion they did this at 15 minutes to midnight the day before a new offence came into force, leaving no time for anyone to become familiar with their obligations before committing a brand new crime. This was the law, issued in September 2020, that limited drinkers to groups of 6 but allowed fox-hunters (itself ostensibly illegal in most circumstances) and grouse-shooters to meet in whatever size group they wished. Pub-goers and restaurant patrons faced £100 fines and a criminal record without notice the very next day.

Stephanie Boyce is president of the law society. Her judgement on the new legislation was…

“There is a great deal here that should ring alarm bells for people who come up against the might of the state”

Once again the Johnson regime is dragging our long-standing, traditional and internationally respected democracy over the coals and the outcome will not be pretty.

Nazi Britain: a warning from history part 4

If you’re still unconvinced of Boris Johnson’s gradual Nazification of Britain then this final part of the film provides evidence not only of the parallels with Hitler but the way that the Johnson government continues to attack our rights and freedoms. Johnson is a dictator in the making and the nature of that dictatorship is far from benign.

But there is hope. Watch to the end to hear what we can do to change this terrifying trajectory. The Tory party knows nothing of loyalty to leaders once they are seen by the public for what they really are. We can use the Tory party’s own inherent callousness to overthrow this regime before it’s too late.

The government that follows will still be tory but at least it won’t be Nazi. That might not be a perfect solution but it beats what the current government has in store for us.