tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58291621379638663832024-03-12T20:23:34.789-07:00The Rant MistressZero tolerance of idiocy starts here...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger322125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-30040655026513359092021-03-21T10:24:00.003-07:002021-03-21T11:13:22.972-07:00A week on from #ClaphamCommon...<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bPlx-Zg_VYE/YFdkzjtlTeI/AAAAAAAAZsg/JOvhr8B2c6U7KGdqAxu7p0DSPNv8RMkmQCLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-heloisa-freitas-1608099.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bPlx-Zg_VYE/YFdkzjtlTeI/AAAAAAAAZsg/JOvhr8B2c6U7KGdqAxu7p0DSPNv8RMkmQCLcBGAsYHQ/w267-h400/pexels-heloisa-freitas-1608099.jpeg" width="267" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A week on from the Clapham Common vigil for Sarah Everard that turned terrifyingly quickly into a hideous example of excessive force by police officers, women are still being condemned for expressing their anger, articulating their pain, sharing their experiences, and making the simple demand to be free and safe on the streets. Make no mistake - freedom is safety for any group that has been oppressed. The two concepts cannot be unlinked. If you are not safe, you are not truly free.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And a week on, it is hard to be optimistic.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Plenty of men, aided and abetted by deeply unhelpful women, keep piping up to tell women that street attacks are rare, that Sarah Everard was unlucky, and the "real problem" is being attacked, raped, killed by someone you know, possibly in your own home or workplace.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is not constructive. All you're really saying is that women are not safe anywhere. Women's safety is not an either/or proposition - the streets need to be safer for everyone, just as more needs to be done about abuse suffered by women at home, at work, on university campuses, in schools and so on.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And focusing on the greater likelihood of women being killed by someone they know rather than a stranger on the street is a distraction from the problem of "less serious" street offences against women being dealt with properly. Street harassment, indecent exposure, kerb-crawling - none of this is taken seriously enough even though it is not uncommon for someone to start their campaign of violence against women with these "minor" offences. It is symptomatic of a broken criminal justice system if there aren't the resources to do a better job of dealing with these crimes before someone is raped or murdered.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Hell, a woman tried to report an incident of indecent exposure as she was leaving the Clapham Common vigil last week and it was not taken seriously at the time. It's not as if there was a shortage of police officers in the area when she was trying to get home around 8pm last Saturday night. My friends and I saw them waiting in vans in laneways in the area from 5pm onwards. It was only after this woman's story received significant media coverage that the police launched an <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/sarah-everard-clapham-common-metropolitan-police-indecent-exposure-b925009.html" target="_blank">appeal for witnesses and information</a> a full six days after the vigil. We should not have to go to the media for the police to be shamed into doing their job properly.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Equally, it is not helpful to constantly point out that men are more likely to be murdered than women. More than 90% of all murderers and rapists are men. Male violence and aggression is the issue here. If this can be addressed better, men and women are safer. We all win.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">For women, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-56365412" target="_blank">statistics</a> show we are less safe at home than men, we are more likely to be raped than men, and if we report rape, the chances of a successful prosecution are staggeringly low. And when we don't report rape because of fear, embarrassment, shame, being unconvinced that we'll be taken seriously, not wanting to make a fuss, not wanting to relive the experience in a court room, it becomes harder for other women and men to come forward and report these hideous crimes against our bodies. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then nobody wins. Apart from rapists.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And, of course, because every woman's experience of male violence is different, we don't all feel equally safe or unsafe in the same places. My one experience of sexual assault was a street attack by a stranger in Dubai in 2006 but in 2021, I am happily married and feel safe at home. As a result, I am more wary of street attacks 15 years on - perhaps even more so now that the arthritis in my left ankle and knees has worsened and my fear of being grabbed and being physically unable to run away - even if mentally I am ready to run to the next county - is real.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The day after the vigil, I tweeted a picture of my swollen left foot, a legacy of spending about an hour standing in the one spot.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Q8wHhu761xk/YFd4LaG3RiI/AAAAAAAAZso/UUT2N5r7rs05QFAc7raDW4ByBe50A-CsQCLcBGAsYHQ/Screenshot_20210321-164443.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2160" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Q8wHhu761xk/YFd4LaG3RiI/AAAAAAAAZso/UUT2N5r7rs05QFAc7raDW4ByBe50A-CsQCLcBGAsYHQ/w320-h640/Screenshot_20210321-164443.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There were some supportive replies - and one arsehole called me a freak and suggested I join a circus, which proves my point that women are not necessarily safe anywhere and can be subjected to vile abuse from a stranger even while resting on the sofa after attending a vigil for a murdered woman.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But that is just my experience - I am not going to use my feeling of greater safety at home than on the streets to diminish another woman for whom domestic violence means she feels safer when she is not home. All the violence needs to be dealt with and a massive part of that is achieving wholesale cultural change. Women will continue to "take care", to do all the things we're told to do to stay safe on the streets, but until we are not viewed by too many men as expendable, as useless, as easy targets, as semen receptacles, as territory to which they have an inalienable right, nothing much will change.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Over in Australia, there were brilliant scenes of angry women marching in multiple locations calling for justice for women after multiple sexual assault allegations were levelled at men in positions of power, including the federal government. Prime Minister Scott Morrison's disgusting response to this was to tell parliament: "Not far from here, such marches, even now are being met with bullets, but not here in this country, Mr Speaker."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Great. So Australian women should be grateful they weren't shot for speaking out. He is not pledging to take any action, he is merely complaining that his words were twisted. He gaslit a nation by trying to make himself the victim. That is how low the bar has been set by a prime minister - and it shows just how far we have to go. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Meanwhile, here in the UK, the systemic sexism continues in myriad ways. Just this week, for example, the Supreme Court ruled that care workers are not entitled to minimum wage for sleep-in shifts - this is a terrible, reductive decision that will disproportionately affect women. <a href="https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/projects/time-think-differently/trends-workforce-overview#:~:text=As%20in%20health%20care%2C%20about,total)%20involve%20directly%20providing%20care." target="_blank">In the UK, 85% of direct care and support-providing jobs in adult social care are done by women</a>. Depressingly, it was Lady Justice Arden whose written ruling stated that "sleep-in workers ... are not doing time work for the purposes of the national minimum wage if they are not awake." Sleeping while on call in facilities where any number of emergencies can take place during the night is not the same as a relaxing night's sleep in one's own bed. It is work. And it is predominantly women's work.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And that is just one example. We are fighting battles on multiple fronts. There was some momentum for women's rage this week but it already feels like it is subsiding, that the <a href="https://www.politics.co.uk/comment/2021/03/16/anti-protest-bill-freedom-dies-in-silence/" target="_blank">right to protest</a> will be limited on the grounds of noise and disruption, the very essence of how protests work. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The issues that affect our lives and our bodies every single day will be swallowed up by the news cycle, by ridiculous patriotism pissing contest stories about flags, by divisive vaccine nationalism, by our own sheer exhaustion at it all. </div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by Heloisa Freitas/Pexels</span></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-59627903934549405642021-03-14T11:14:00.005-07:002021-03-21T11:19:04.695-07:00There's never a right time for women to get angry<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R-yAorAbCeU/YE433w7IAcI/AAAAAAAAZpU/W5CcUjCn7TsLJnkN78TAMwASrgVPaFGSwCLcBGAsYHQ/PXL_20210313_171547344.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1264" data-original-width="2048" height="198" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-R-yAorAbCeU/YE433w7IAcI/AAAAAAAAZpU/W5CcUjCn7TsLJnkN78TAMwASrgVPaFGSwCLcBGAsYHQ/PXL_20210313_171547344.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Last night, I attended the vigil for Sarah Everard. I am not going to apologise for this. Women are done with apologising, with trying to please others, with being quiet, with being told to take care. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Metropolitan Police could have worked constructively with the organisers of the official vigil to ensure it was Covid-safe. The ambiguous High Court decision by Mr Justice Holgate left the door open for the Met to work with the organisers, to use commonsense, to trust women. Instead, the organisers reluctantly cancelled. Sisters Uncut stepped in and called on women to meet at Clapham Common, not far from where Sarah Everard was last seen alive, to hold the vigil anyway. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As soon as the Met made it difficult for the organisers to plan a Covid-safe event, the vigil was always going to be tinged by protest and anger. Let us not be naive. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I am in a Facebook message group that was started a few days ago to plan our attendance at the vigil. When it was cancelled, some of us decided not to go for perfectly good and sensible reasons, and some of us decided that a socially distanced, mask-wearing walk n the fresh air of Clapham Common would be our Saturday exercise. It just so happened to coincide with a vigil. If any of us ended up getting fined for breaking lockdown rules, we would chip in. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We kept an eye on the news and Twitter and when we discovered there was a strong police presence at Clapham Common and Clapham South tube stations, Clapham North became my tube station of choice, followed by a walk down the Clapham High Street, something I hadn't done for more than a year even though it's only a few miles from my house. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I had a little bunch of daffodils from Sainsbury's hidden in my bag, rather than buying a more ostentatious bouquet to lay down in Sarah's honour, so it wasn't immediately obvious to any police officers that I was en route to the common. I didn't know those flowers would be trampled by police officers a few hours later. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Before I even got to the common, I had to moderate my behaviour. It's always women who have to moderate their behaviour, to not make a fuss, to not cause any trouble.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Holy Trinity Church at Clapham Common was our meeting point so we could walk safely to the vigil together, masks on. It was weird to meet with friends I hadn't seen in ages and not instantly throw my arms around them as we did in Before Times. At the bandstand, we stood near the back - two of the group had bicycles so it would have been a bit rude to barge through to the front - with our masks on, without touching each other or anyone around us. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The police presence when arrived was not heavy, it did not feel like we'd be kettled at any minute, most of the officers, all wearing masks, were women. We did not feel scared. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Then the first dickhead incident happened. Some maskless bloke with strong Piers Corbyn energy got up on the bandstand and started to speak, to yell at us, a group that was almost 100% women, to tell us why we were here, as if we didn't know what we were doing. It was peak mansplaining. It was disgusting. He started making irresponsible statements that could prejudice the trial of the police officer charged with Sarah's murder if they were widely broadcast or shared on social media. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We got angry, we started shouting, "NOT YOUR PLACE!" over and over again until he was led away by police. People started to applaud the police - some of us felt uncomfortable with applauding the Met after the events of the previous days but at least it gave a sense that maybe, just maybe the police would be on our side this time. No such luck.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">People were adding to the carpet of flowers on the bandstand steps, we held a silence for Sarah Everard as a police chopper hovered overhead, a member of Sisters Uncut spoke powerfully from behind her mask. It was a simple speech. Without the aid of a megaphone, she would call out a sentence and then we'd repeat it to ensure everyone heard. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There was no talk of politics, no calls for high profile resignations, she said we were there in "grief and anger", she demanded that women be safe no matter who they are or where they are. It was powerful and respectful of Sarah. We called her name in unison. Our masks soaked up our heartbroken, furious tears. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And for a lot of us, that was it. That was the vigil. It was precisely 6:31pm when I texted my husband to tell him I was heading home. Because that's what women always do. We take care, we do the right thing, we let people know where we're going and when we get there. And still men attack us.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As we walked away, we sensed that things were about to turn. The benevolent, woman-dominated police presence was absorbed by a lot of men in hi-vis vests over their uniforms. I heard cries of "SHAME ON YOU!" as I walked toward Clapham Common tube station with a friend. By the time I got home, about 40 minutes later, the scenes were horrific. I did not recognise the vigil I had just left - it was always going to be tinged with anger but it was peaceful. My friends and I started to piece together what happened after we left.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">To my utter horror, the Piers Corbyn tribute act earlier in the evening was just the warm-up. Piers Corbyn himself turned up along with mostly men - again the men making a women's event all about them - with placards calling to free Julian Assange. Julian Assange. A man who hid for years in an embassy to avoid answering rape charges. How dare anyone bring that man's presence to a vigil for a murdered woman. I felt sick.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There was an excellent Twitter thread from Helen Lewis who stayed on for longer than I did. She said there were indeed assorted fringe groups trying to take the focus off Sarah Everard and off our collective grief for murdered women, but heavy-handed police attempts to disperse the crowd set off an inevitable, horrible chain of events. These were the scenes that will forever be remembered from yesterday - flowers trampled by police officers, people who were still on the bandstand were effectively kettled. The photo of 28-year-old Patsy Stevenson pinned to the ground by police officers, her terrified eyes above her black mask, will be the image that lives on for years. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Helen got it right when she said that if the police presence hadn't become so heavy-handed, people would have drifted off of their own accord into the cold night. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Inevitably, I have been told on Twitter that I should have been fined for attending the vigil. Inevitably, everyone who attended has been accused of being paid protesters. Inevitably, the mindless "crisis actor" accusations have been bandied about. Inevitably, the fact that there is no evidence that outdoor events where everyone wears masks cause spikes in coronavirus cases has been roundly ignored.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Inevitably, we have been told that last night was "not the time" to do this.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But we've been here before. We have held vigils for other murdered women. We have dutifully tweeted and changed our Facebook profiles in impotent rage. And we have been the ones to modify our behaviour. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We are the ones who carry keys as a potential weapon when we walk alone at night, we choose our routes carefully, we stick to main roads and well-lit streets, we pledge to text our friends when we get home safely, we tuck ponytails into collars to make it harder for us to be grabbed from behind, we quicken our pace or cross the road when we hear footsteps behind us, we think hard about where we sit on buses and trains at night, we think twice about short hemlines and low necklines, we catch taxis we can ill-afford even if we're not necessarily safer with a cab driver, we make pretend phonecalls and invent husbands and boyfriends because apparently some men will only respect our boundaries if they think they might piss off another man, we are the ones who constantly change and think about our behaviour. Not men.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We are the ones whose bodies are likened to stolen, unlocked cars by men who still think we're asking for it. We are the ones who are told by men that it is rare to be attacked on the streets, as if that is going to reassure any of us. We are the ones who are told men are assaulted and raped too even though it's almost always by other men. We are the ones who are told men are assaulted and raped too even though making it harder for women to speak out makes it harder for male victims to speak out too.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But still we're told now is not the time to get angry. Because of Covid. Because it's too soon. Because we're wasting our time. Because, because, because... </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Because if we don't do it now, when do we do it? When another woman is murdered? When the government makes it near-impossible to protest? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If not now, when?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-64261547137570722202021-03-10T03:46:00.002-08:002021-03-10T03:46:18.577-08:00The week of International Women's Day is typically terrible for women<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-82U6ouX3rBU/YEilLRlqX7I/AAAAAAAAZl0/azrFwdmcENIclY-1dNcfM0ISKwaMfaunACLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-maryia-plashchynskaya-3518091.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-82U6ouX3rBU/YEilLRlqX7I/AAAAAAAAZl0/azrFwdmcENIclY-1dNcfM0ISKwaMfaunACLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-maryia-plashchynskaya-3518091.jpg" width="160" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">International Women's Day landed in yet another week that was largely terrible for women everywhere. The sad part is that the reasons why this week has been terrible for women were the same sort of reasons for this last week, and the week before that, and the week before that and so on. And next week will no doubt be terrible for depressingly similar reasons. And the week after that, and the week after that, and so on.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Around the world, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/8/women-rally-across-the-world-despite-coronavirus-restrictions" target="_blank">women have protested on International Women's Day</a> for a range of causes that serve to demonstrate why feminism is still necessary.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This week alone, here are a few terrible things that have happened.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">- In Clapham, a few miles from where I am sitting now, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56342465" target="_blank">Sarah Everard disappeared as she walked home</a> from Clapham to Brixton. Today, it was announced that a serving police officer has been charged in connection with her disappearance and a search for her is underway in the area where she was last seen. We still cannot walk home without fear. And depressingly, the advice is for women in the area to stay home. That doesn't solve anything. It just fails to hold men accountable for the actions against us and simply says, "You stay home, ladies, and maybe the women in the next neighbourhood will be preyed upon instead.". I am not here for any advice where the message is: "Don't touch me, touch that other woman instead.".</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">- In Mexico, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/09/mexico-protests-against-attacks-on-women-turn-violent-as-tension-with-president-escalates" target="_blank">protests by angry women</a> will probably have little impact. Women took to the streets because President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's party continues to back Felix Salgado, a candidate for governor, even though allegations of rape and sexual harassment have not been properly investigated. The protests turned violent and despite photographs to the contrary, police have denied using any kind of gas on the women. The only decent thing to do in such circumstances is for the accused to step down until a proper investigation has been carried out. The president's response has been to gaslight every woman who marched by saying the protests are motivated by conservative and foreign interests. His popularity appears to be unaffected by this scandal.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">- In Australia, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-08/woman-told-counsellor-of-porter-rape-allegations-eight-years-ago/13221438" target="_blank">allegations of rape dating back to 1988</a> have been made against the attorney-general Christian Porter. The woman who made the allegations committed suicide last year. The coroner has ruled that the investigation is "incomplete" and has asked for further investigations before he decides whether to hold an inquest into the circumstances of her death. The prime minister, Scott Morrison, has already publicly given Porter his full support and refused to commission an inquiry. See above for advice on the only decent thing to do in such circumstances...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">- <a href="https://guardian.ng/news/senegal-opposition-leader-charged-with-rape-freed-from-detention/" target="_blank">Rape allegations have also been politicised in Senegal</a>. The opposition leader, Ousmane Sonko was arrested last week on rape charges. This week, he has been freed from detention pending an investigation and civil unrest has ensued, including clashes in which a schoolboy was killed. Sonko has claimed the rape charges are politically motivated by President Macky Sall. In the midst of all the noise, one person has been largely forgotten - the woman who made the allegations. She works at a beauty salon where Sonko received massages and she slips to the bottom of news reports as Sonko and Sall continue a war of words.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">- The 40 Days For Life anti-abortion protests started on 17 February and continued here in the UK and elsewhere on International Women's Day and beyond. Two weeks ago, <a href="https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/edinburgh-council-backs-abortion-clinic-19901543" target="_blank">Edinburgh Council</a> agreed to support the introduction of buffer zones around abortion clinics in Scotland so protesters have to stay at least 150 metres away from clinics. This is good news. Unfortunately, the rest of the country has been slower to act and women are being harassed by protesters every day while they access legal medical procedures. Click <a href="https://back-off.org/" target="_blank">here</a> for more information about how to join the BPAS Back Off campaign. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">These are just a handful of examples of things that are utter crap for women in different parts of the world. I could sit here all day and add more. It is a neverending stream of horror for women everywhere. We cannot and will not be silenced or gaslit into believing we're just being hysterical, that it's all in our heads. We must fight on. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by Maria Plashchynskaya/Pexels</span> </div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-34340109786840003852021-02-14T12:11:00.001-08:002021-02-16T07:21:57.337-08:00The tiresomeness of conspiracy theories<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ncxl0k6xy1Q/YClvu69OL5I/AAAAAAAAZQw/ZqAmrLVk2JYY0Z5f8XlbEaDpe0qqGgDqwCLcBGAsYHQ/50517100113_d59379d1e6_c.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="504" data-original-width="800" height="202" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ncxl0k6xy1Q/YClvu69OL5I/AAAAAAAAZQw/ZqAmrLVk2JYY0Z5f8XlbEaDpe0qqGgDqwCLcBGAsYHQ/50517100113_d59379d1e6_c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I blocked someone on Facebook this week. It's not something I do often or lightly but let's-call-her-Louhi stunk up my page with her ongoing and increasingly desperate attempts to convince the world that Covid-19 is a plot to control us all. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">She started by suggesting I Google "Covid vaccine vending machines" - I duly did and told her that all it brought up was news stories about vending machines for coronavirus tests. Louhi told me I'd missed the point and said this was the first step toward vaccine vending machines. She conveniently ignoring the myriad ethical, legal, logistical and hygiene issues that would need to be overcome for this dystopia to be a reality. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Her proof that vaccine vending machines were coming comprised a quote from CS Lewis and a dream she had about a mall full of chemo chairs that were used for mass vaccination of a subservient public.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Louhi spouted ludicrous nonsense about how Captain Tom Moore merely died of old age, not pneumonia and Covid-19 - a conspiracy that would involve his family lying to the media, with the backing of the staff of Bedford Hospital. But I blocked because she shared an awful meme with the title "Anal Schwab" - it featured incoherent blather about how it's unfair that Covid deniers were called conspiracy theorists and it used an unflattering photograph of Klaus Schwab - this was linked to her idea that anal coronavirus testing is the government getting us to literally bend over for them. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I pointed out to that Klaus Schwab's image is frequently used by vile anti-semitic conspiracy theorists but Louhi refused to acknowledge that - and she wasn't going to admit that her collection of dreams, moronic Googling, a CS Lewis quote, and a meme from a disgusting corner of the internet did not prove her points. If she seriously thinks the current UK government is capable of anything close to her wild conspiracy, it has escaped her attention that their sheer incompetence rules this out - their mendacity is out there for all to see. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Louhi has gone from my Facebook world, I'm enjoying the peace and quiet, but it did get me thinking about the increasing prevalence of conspiracy theorists. They have been around long before the pandemic, but they're certainly emboldened by the current state of affairs. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Coincidentally, on Friday night, I binge-watched all four episodes of <i>Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Hotel Cecil</i> on Netflix, a documentary that is a magnet for conspiracy theorists. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">True crime documentaries straddle the fine line between information and voyeurism - and <i>Hotel Cecil</i> certainly veered toward the latter. It is told in a way that keeps you guessing if you don't know anything about the tragic case of Elisa Lam. The worst people are the conspiracy theorists - a couple of YouTubers, a self-proclaimed web sleuth, and a journalist who really needs to find something else to do for a living. The documentary centres around the investigation into the disappearance of Elisa Lam, in particular the CCTV footage which shows her behaving very strangely in the hotel lift.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The evidence is drip-fed over the four episodes and the most irresponsible filmmaking involves letting the conspiracy theorists continually insist Elisa was murdered. The police investigators and the forensic pathologist - who has the sad task of determining how the 21-year-old died - are the good guys. They kept an open mind as to whether her death was murder, an accident, or suicide. When it was revealed she was bipolar and the toxicology report found she had been under-medicating, it became increasingly clear her death was an accident rather than a murder. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Disturbingly, the conspiracy theorists were talking as if they <i>wanted</i> her death to have been a murder. They were so obsessed with coincidences and details that were irrelevant or, worse, were misinterpreted by these amateurs. None of them knew a damn thing about bipolar disorder or how it can affect sufferers, cause erratic behaviour, and distress themselves and others. If they had any knowledge at all here, they might have been more open-minded about how Elisa Lam died. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Thankfully, in the case of Elisa Lam, this is not how the investigators or the forensic pathologist went about their duties. But the alleged journalist who was interviewed for <i>Hotel Cecil</i> should be embarrassed - I can imagine him getting frustrated if an interview subject didn't give him the answers he was expecting or hoping for, and being unable to cope if an interview subject threw him a curve-ball. And the guy who called himself a web sleuth should not be allowed near any criminal investigation.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And therein lies the problem with all conspiracy theorists. Their starting point is an end point. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Conspiracy theorists are so convinced something must be true that they seek out any evidence, no matter how tenuous or ridiculous, to try and prove that specific theory rather than looking at the available evidence with clear eyes and mind. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And if you dare challenge their fragile little world with facts, you'll be condemned as one of the sheeple who needs to wake up. But sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by byronv2/Flickr</span></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-76085413228180522021-02-07T08:10:00.003-08:002021-02-07T08:12:00.680-08:00Vaccine nationalism and criticising the EU<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gzx4zG8_LBo/YCAAFHNJccI/AAAAAAAAZKA/YktJqLjQsu0WbfHhgaM77JCVxMvjyUdLACLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-gustavo-fring-3985170.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="133" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gzx4zG8_LBo/YCAAFHNJccI/AAAAAAAAZKA/YktJqLjQsu0WbfHhgaM77JCVxMvjyUdLACLcBGAsYHQ/w200-h133/pexels-gustavo-fring-3985170.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The EU dropped a bollock. A massive bollock. A bollock the size of Jupiter. There, I said it. I am a militant remainer, someone who voted for the UK to stay in the EU in 2016, and would vote to rejoin the EU if the opportunity ever presented itself. But I can still criticise the EU without compromising my views. This is because, like pretty much ever remain voter I know, I can criticise EU decisions while not wanting to dismantle the whole damn thing. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The bollock to which I am referring is, of course, the vaccine debacle. What started out as the EU being disgruntled over what it saw as AstraZeneca not being able to fulfil the vaccine order from a paying customer quickly degenerated into an unseemly spectacle. AstraZeneca was about 75 million doses short of being able to meet the EU's order of 300 million doses, with the option of a further 100 million. AstraZeneca cited production problems at their Netherlands and Belgium plants. The EU demanded that AstraZeneca should send over a load of doses manufactured here in the UK.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Unsurprisingly, the headlines seen across the UK front pages did not take a measured tone. It was an opportunity to take a huge potshot at the EU while talking up our own vaccination success. Behold, the WWII cosplay language of war and British victory, of explosions - and a Mafia analogy. This was an absolute gift for Boris Johnson - the front pages made him look mighty and powerful, despite lethally mismanaging the pandemic since the beginning, and we could all blame the EU for being mean and evil again. Just like old times! The fruit was so low-hanging, it was growing with the potatoes.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xZLzaPD6AOE/YCAC8qO14zI/AAAAAAAAZKQ/gDt6r4bX_ywNnffJGyihciEiXaE9j_gngCLcBGAsYHQ/20210131_124552.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1106" data-original-width="828" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xZLzaPD6AOE/YCAC8qO14zI/AAAAAAAAZKQ/gDt6r4bX_ywNnffJGyihciEiXaE9j_gngCLcBGAsYHQ/w150-h200/20210131_124552.jpg" width="150" /></a><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-16Mkwkwv1pY/YCADMdBF9OI/AAAAAAAAZKg/RpPWBR42gT0-CM6ZxdbfuSR6PsN0TxrggCLcBGAsYHQ/20210131_124504.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1608" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-16Mkwkwv1pY/YCADMdBF9OI/AAAAAAAAZKg/RpPWBR42gT0-CM6ZxdbfuSR6PsN0TxrggCLcBGAsYHQ/w157-h200/20210131_124504.jpg" width="157" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Fo-KaLXGNJ8/YCADFBWszgI/AAAAAAAAZKU/O2NP9ixPnWEKTbET-LhiztZxlTsFwpx-QCLcBGAsYHQ/20210131_124519.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1020" data-original-width="802" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Fo-KaLXGNJ8/YCADFBWszgI/AAAAAAAAZKU/O2NP9ixPnWEKTbET-LhiztZxlTsFwpx-QCLcBGAsYHQ/w158-h200/20210131_124519.jpg" width="158" /></a><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1joMJ6_ydrU/YCADTg_VrLI/AAAAAAAAZKk/AJmTz027sFop_OXNFcQeP75f2WmRUkyZwCLcBGAsYHQ/20210131_124424.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1528" data-original-width="1136" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1joMJ6_ydrU/YCADTg_VrLI/AAAAAAAAZKk/AJmTz027sFop_OXNFcQeP75f2WmRUkyZwCLcBGAsYHQ/w148-h200/20210131_124424.jpg" width="148" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But then a grown-up entered the room. Michel Barnier, the man who had the thankless task of leading EU negotiations over Brexit, offered his reasonable view that Brussels had overstepped the mark with the UK, and before long, there was a screeching U-turn from the EU. Unlike every embarrassing U-turn Boris Johnson has performed in regard to managing the pandemic, the EU's about-face was swift. There was no EU raid on UK-made vaccines. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rWY5hGTLtlA/YCAC2HS3e6I/AAAAAAAAZKM/mvIL6OTE8lUFg4ay8RCp_3EPZTi06X6wACLcBGAsYHQ/20210131_124604.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1030" data-original-width="809" height="200" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rWY5hGTLtlA/YCAC2HS3e6I/AAAAAAAAZKM/mvIL6OTE8lUFg4ay8RCp_3EPZTi06X6wACLcBGAsYHQ/w158-h200/20210131_124604.jpg" width="158" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was reckless when she effectively called for a hard vaccine border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland - and she has kept a low profile ever since backtracking on this issue. The risk to the terms of the Good Friday Agreement cannot be understated here. But her ill-conceived statement exposed just how fragile peace is and, crucially, how the Brexit deal is poorly equipped to cope when Irish border issues crop up. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The whole fiasco also exposed the embarrassing absurdity of vaccine nationalism. Yes, the UK is ahead of the EU in rolling out a vaccination programme, which is obviously a good thing. Only a psychopath or an anti-vaxxer would say otherwise. It was a gamble to start the programme three months ahead of the EU but it paid off. The rollout is not perfect - there is plenty of evidence to suggest there is a <a href="https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vaccine-postcode-lottery-nearly-twice-23376947" target="_blank">postcode lottery</a> that means rates of vaccinations are varying significantly from region to region, and the real logistical test will come when it is time to give some people their second shot while new groups are being invited to book their first shot - but we are making steady progress.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And the EU will, of course, catch up with the UK on vaccinations. Belgium, Czech Republic, Malta, and Portugal are already doing pretty well. This is also a good thing. It is in our interests for people across the EU as well as in the UK to be vaccinated in a timely manner. Brexit or not, the geography does not change, we are still part of the wider world, people are keen to travel to Europe for work, for play, to see friends and family, and the virus does not care about national borders. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Carrying on about a British "victory" over the EU makes us look like idiots, just as the EU made itself look silly by making demands on UK supplies. Crowing about our vaccination figures, as if it's a contest rather than a serious global health emergency that can only be properly managed through international cooperation, is pathetic behaviour for a country where its leaders claim that Brexit makes us more outward-looking.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The EU dropped a bollock over vaccines. Then it did the right thing and backtracked. Tiresomely, Brexiters will bang on for the rest of their lives about the time the EU tried to nick our jabs. But the rest of the world won't care, especially as none of this has affected the EU's humanitarian vaccine efforts in developing countries. The rest of the world will move on while Brexiter Twitter will refuse to let it go, like Miss Havisham in a Union Jack wedding dress. And we'll be left with the ongoing economic and social consequences of a poor Brexit deal, as well as the loss of more than 100,000 people. Some victory, eh?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by Gustavo Fring</span></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-73701576771510136062021-01-24T08:42:00.003-08:002021-01-24T08:42:46.662-08:00Was Brexit meant to be this lame? <p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x4bhG6rFnlg/YA2Ntv5JlTI/AAAAAAAAY1g/Q-9X0wFQqsAyv-sUw8jHmX-GsdbL8W8FQCLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-freestocksorg-113885.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="853" data-original-width="1280" height="213" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x4bhG6rFnlg/YA2Ntv5JlTI/AAAAAAAAY1g/Q-9X0wFQqsAyv-sUw8jHmX-GsdbL8W8FQCLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-freestocksorg-113885.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Remember gung-ho, priapic Boris Johnson of the referendum campaign? The moment my remainer heart sunk, the moment I knew the leave vote might just get up in 2016, was during the debate in which Johnson loudly heralded "independence day!" to a spontaneous, rousing cheer. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But that excitable rhetoric of "sunlit uplands" and "amazing opportunities outside the EU" has been replaced by a more subdued mood from Brexit's most vocal cheerleaders. Their shoulders are slumped and the confident promises have been replaced by stumbling, mumbling desperation. And, unsurprisingly, the self-serving, grifting con man, Nigel Farage has abandoned the men and women of the fishing industry after using them disgracefully for his own ends in 2016.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The Brexiters' rhetoric now is more like "well, it won't be so bad" or "this is what we're doing to make this a bit less rubbish" - and everything "we're doing" is stuff that we're paying for, stupidly expensive stuff we, the taxpayers, wouldn't have to pay for if we'd simply stayed in the EU. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Take Nissan's Sunderland plant for the latest example. All of a sudden, Nissan executives were singing the praises of Brexit and announcing that batteries would be manufactured in Sunderland. Last year, Nissan was sending out perfectly valid warnings of the dire consequences of a no-deal Brexit - and luckily for Nissan, the wafer-thin deal covered goods (but not services). Last week, Nissan was all about Brexit.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">First, before any leave voter dares accuse me of wanting Nissan to close the Sunderland plant, nothing could be further from the truth. On a personal level, I have friends and family in the area and, even if they don't work at the factory, a 6,000-job employer shutting up shop has implications for them all. And on a broader level, only a hateful sadist would get any joy from seeing the end of a genuine achievement for the north-east from the Thatcher era. Nissan Sunderland is a fiscal multiplier, an unalloyed good for the region, as well as the 70,000 supply chain jobs beyond the plant's gates.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The reality is that the loss of Nissan Sunderland would be a PR disaster for this government. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Sunderland voted 61.3% to leave the EU, smashing the nationwide 52% leave vote. Ever since, the people of Sunderland have been characterised, often cruelly, as idiots who shot themselves in their collective feet in 2016. A no-deal Brexit would have almost certainly spelled the end of the Nissan plant. The government knew this from June 24, 2016, and they have been generous with our money toward the automaker as a result. In February 2019, business secretary Greg Hand had to publicly concede that Nissan, a company with assets worth US$154 billion, received a government grant of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/04/government-letter-to-nissan-reveals-brexit-promise-to-carmarkers" target="_blank">£61 million</a>.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">While this is good news for Sunderland, such corporate welfare is unsustainable. Other parts of the UK automotive industry won't be as fortunate and the government knows full well it can't just spunk £61 million every time a big company threatens to leave the UK.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And the rest of this whole Brexit thing is just a bit pathetic really. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's obviously a good thing that the country hasn't descended into total chaos. I'm glad I haven't been in a fist fight for the last loaf of bread in Asda or taken to shooting squirrels off the garage roof for dinner. Only the most economically reckless or illiterate disaster capitalists and disaster socialists - almost always people wealthy enough to be insulated from any real hardships - genuinely wanted absolute bedlam after 11pm on New Year's Eve 2020.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Instead, we now have lots of examples of supposedly "little things" that have happened as a result of Brexit. This was always going to be the way it panned out - Brexit as the death by a thousand cuts rather than one massive social and economic explosion wiping us all out. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">These "little things" have been seized on by Brexiters as examples of pampered remainers whining from their ivory towers - it is low-hanging fruit picked gleefully by leave voters in what has degenerated into an embittered culture war. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Brexiters have laughed at remainers for calling out everything from having to buy dog food in France when taking pooches on holiday to increased postage charges. Apparently, only wealthy remainers have ever taken a dog on holiday to Europe, even though that is clearly nonsense. It's not just about bloody dog food - it is about the added costs of taking a pet on holiday across the channel which are a direct result of leaving the EU. Brexit makes what was once a simple, affordable pleasure for a nation of dog-lovers into something that will become out of reach for many people. It's a microcosm of the sheer joylessness that Brexit is starting to bring to us.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Increased postal costs between the UK and the EU are not just a bit of a pain in the bum - they are genuinely crippling a range of smaller British businesses and you can bet your life they won't be getting a £61 million handout from the government any time soon. But Brexit suffering is only for the little people and the little companies. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And there are other "little things" that are being minimised by Brexiters desperate to paint remainers as doomsayers. For example, phone companies have not yet started charging for global roaming when we travel to the EU - a dire warning of the remain campaign - but anyone who seriously thinks this will never happen is almost adorably naive.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The loss of access to the fast EU queues at European airports is dismissed by Brexiters by saying it's "worth it" or "anyone would think we never travelled or worked on the continent before the EU!", conveniently romanticising an era where travel was not accessible for a lot of people, where crossing European borders was inconvenient and time-consuming, where it was not easy to work or retire in Europe without a lot of money.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">When Boris Johnson pettily pulled the UK out of the Erasmus scheme, even though we could have stayed in post-Brexit, this led to predictable Brexiter howls that this was just for privileged kids. No amount of people stating that they were working class kids whose lives were changed for the better by Erasmus will change their minds.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Similarly, Boris Johnson refusing the EU's magnanimity to allow easy access for British musicians to tour in Europe can be easily dismissed by Brexiters as just muso luvvies complaining. Never mind that the arts contributes way more to the UK economy than fishing or being able to easily work as a performer in Europe helps British artists financially and professionally. This is just another "little thing" we have to put up with for... For what exactly?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Liz Truss can bang on about pork and cheese all she likes but it's not going to bring us trade deals that are close to what we had in the EU. We will still need to abide by EU rules to trade with the EU, but we will have no say in making those rules. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Boris Johnson can tweet ridiculous photos of himself giving God the thumbs-up while on the phone to Joe Biden but the reality is that a mutually beneficial UK-US free trade deal was not part of that conversation. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Brexiters can yell "Sovereignty!" without being properly challenged on what it means or informed of the myriad things EU countries do as sovereign nations, such as effectively closing borders to help stop the spread of a deadly pandemic. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Any Brexiter who dares say they don't mind if the price of groceries goes up as a result of Brexit probably isn't trying to get by on universal credit. Covid-19 delays and "teething problems" can only be blamed for so long when it comes to reduced choice in our supermarkets, higher prices, and fresh foods with shorter expiry dates - these are all direct outcomes from voting to make supply chains with the EU more complicated, bureaucratic and time-consuming.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And anyone who is genuinely excited by blue passports that we could have had without leaving the EU is just too sad for words. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Nope, it's all just a bit lame, isn't it? It's not, as yet, an abject economic disaster - and the pandemic will be blamed for all manner of things for the foreseeable future - but over the next few years, we're going to see lots of little annoyances add up, in between completely predictable job losses across a range of sectors, even after the virus is under control. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the meantime, the movement toward an independent Scotland and a reunited Ireland, with EU membership, will go from strength to strength - and, ultimately, that may lead to the isolated rump states of Wales and England rejoining the EU under terms that won't come close to the benefits we enjoyed as part of a 28-strong bloc. Brexit is already looking pathetic. It is a damp squib wrapped in a wet blanket - and nobody voted for that.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-59032665509348059002021-01-03T09:23:00.005-08:002021-01-03T09:23:39.798-08:00Covid-19 and the expendables<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VS0oR-wwvr0/X_HwzL2MwbI/AAAAAAAAYdc/6mToJLqJvRgAWwEZmuYWozfkk7DnWynGQCLcBGAsYHQ/133592427_188787942968079_7206453922954110234_n%2B%25281%2529.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="934" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VS0oR-wwvr0/X_HwzL2MwbI/AAAAAAAAYdc/6mToJLqJvRgAWwEZmuYWozfkk7DnWynGQCLcBGAsYHQ/133592427_188787942968079_7206453922954110234_n%2B%25281%2529.png" width="234" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Paul Embery is not an epidemiologist, virologist, or indeed a doctor of any description. According to his Twitter bio, his main claim to fame is being a columnist for UnHerd. Despite being a member of the National Union of Journalists, he appears to have missed the bit in his training where you're taught to properly analyse and responsibly report on statistics.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Unfortunately, his ridiculous tweet received a lot of traction, predictable support from the likes of Julia Hartley-Brewer, and, sure, it looks credible enough. After all, he has included a link to the NHS website. Why, he's just a humble journalist sharing Actual NHS Statistics to prove his coronavirus-minimising point. And given that we all love the NHS so much we used to applaud it every Thursday night, how could we possibly question his wisdom?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Quite easily, actually.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">First, we have the ageist bigotry that says it's somehow OK for people over 60 to die of Covid-19, that once we all turn 60, our lives, our value to society, our purpose is diminished. Women over 40 already know they start to become invisible after a certain age. Now we are told that once we hit 60, we should consider ourselves lucky to have had such a good innings. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">From a purely cold economic standpoint, the NHS figures mean that an increasingly productive part of the economy is at risk and should be protected. According to the Department for Work and Pensions, between 1985 and 2015, women aged 60-64 represented the highest increase in employment rates of any demographic, rising from 17.7% participation in the workforce to 40.7%. In the same period, employment rates for men aged 65-69 increased from 12.8% to 25.8%. That's a lot of extra tax revenue and consumer spending from these demographics. As the government continues to raise the pension age, these figures should surprise nobody.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then we have the sinister "pre-existing condition" part of Embery's out-of-context tweet. It's stunning how casually we can dismiss the coronavirus deaths of those with pre-existing conditions. This includes diabetes, asthma, heart conditions, immune system conditions, regardless of the person's age. Suddenly, we have a much larger group of people at risk from Covid-19. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">By and large, thanks mostly to modern medicine, plenty of pre-existing conditions can be managed so people can live healthy, productive, happy lives. You can't always see a pre-existing condition but if that person caught Covid-19, they could become seriously ill and possibly die way before their time. But Embery's thoughtless tweet devalues the lives and contributions of millions of people as he attempts to minimise how serious this global pandemic is.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And with a virus as easily transmissible as Covid-19, it's not just the deaths we need to focus on. There are plenty of blowhards who'll yell into the internet that there's "no need to panic about a disease with a [insert very low percentage here] death rate!". But that ignores not only the lost productivity from people who test positive, and their contacts, having to self-isolate - it also ignores the emerging data about the long-term effects even after a patient has recovered from the virus, including long covid, where people suffer ongoing health problems for weeks or months after the usual two weeks or so of illness. Even if you do survive Covid-19, that's not necessarily the end of the story - viruses can be nasty like that.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of course, none of this has been helped by an incompetent government led by a self-serving, impatient, spoiled man-baby of a prime minister, a man more concerned with tomorrow's headlines rather than properly dealing with a major public health emergency. The UK lost the advantage of being an island in March with a late lockdown, no closing of international borders, and letting events such as Cheltenham go ahead.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Boris Johnson hates being the bearer of bad news, hence his pathetic WWII Blitz spirit cosplaying about it being all over by summer or Christmas or Easter or next summer. And don't forget his incoherent ramblings about the commonsense and pluck of the British people, even when this commonsense appears to be in short supply. But that suits Johnson too - it works for him for us to turn on each other for breaking lockdown rules or being "too careful", rather than to seriously hold him and his useless cabinet to account.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There is a desperation for things to "return to normal", which is perfectly understandable. We are all missing so many things from Before Times. But even after we have been sufficiently vaccinated and the virus sufficiently suppressed, there will be lasting changes. This means everything from irrevocably changed personal relationships to radical decisions made after taking stock over lockdown, through to a growing culture of flexible working, a collapse of the commercial property market, and a possible rethinking about how city centres can be repurposed to be more residential rather than merely places where we go to work before disappearing to the perimeters. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We cannot and should not emerge from this awful time unchanged and none the wiser. But as long as nonsense, such as that ridiculous tweet from Embery, is shared, the stats unparsed without challenge or consideration, the emergence will be a long time coming. </div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-74305390995882643162020-11-19T12:37:00.000-08:002020-11-19T12:37:04.352-08:00Boris Johnson's big, green car con<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_03DMM4Wfzg/X7V-tAyUopI/AAAAAAAAXwQ/0Y1yXk_LmBs4skpgVE34eMyXA-Ee57_7QCLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-mike-110844.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="2048" height="180" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_03DMM4Wfzg/X7V-tAyUopI/AAAAAAAAXwQ/0Y1yXk_LmBs4skpgVE34eMyXA-Ee57_7QCLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-mike-110844.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Boris Johnson's latest wheeze is to declare that there will be no more new petrol- or diesel-fuelled cars sold in Britain from 2030. Don't get me wrong - clean air is good. Hell, after five years of living in the UAE, working as a motoring journalist, owning a gas-guzzling SUV, and travelling business class for press trips, I should probably atone for my carbon footprint. It was like a coal miner's lung.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's not the idea that is the problem. It's the lashings of bullshit that come with it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">First, Johnson can say whatever the hell he likes. After all, why break the habit of a lifetime? He knows he won't be prime minister in 2030. He won't have to actually see this idea through. He won't have to take any real responsibility for the government's role in funding infrastructure, determining policy, or liaising with the private sector to make this happen.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's a calculated risk. He's smart enough to know there will be a bit of an outcry but it's better to have a few people howling about the latest war on cars than let them get too worked up about the government's ongoing mishandling of Covid-19 or the looming Brexit debacle.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It's not all doom and gloom. Charging infrastructure is certainly improving and the range for electric cars has become longer in recent years. Indeed, the range of a couple of hundred miles is ample for the driving many of us do on a day-to-day basis. Electric vehicles often make sense for local authorities too - if the vehicle is only going to be buzzing around the borough, there's little risk of running out of charge. Fast-charging technology is getting better every year.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But for a lot of us, used to being able to fill up a car with a fossil fuel quickly and easily, making the transition to electric cars will take a mindset shift as well as potentially being expensive. Half an hour for an 80% rapid charge will seem like too long for a lot of people, especially when they need a car for work. Business secretary Alok Sharma revealed how stunningly out of touch he is with real people in a pandemic when he was talking about £20,000 electric cars as being cheap on Sky News yesterday morning. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A decade should be plenty of time to make the transition, if there was a competent government running the show, but I am not convinced that Johnson's electric vehicle policy, part of a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-ten-point-plan-for-a-green-industrial-revolution/title" target="_blank">10-point "green industrial revolution"</a> has allowed a big enough budget.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">£1.3 billion to roll out charging points in homes, streets and on motorways probably won't be enough. Currently, the government offers up to £350 for households to install a charging point. With around 75% of adults in the UK holding driving licenses, approximately 20 million households will need a charging point - that's potentially a subsidy bill of up to £7 billion. A lot of houses and apartment building car parks will need charging points. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Obviously, it's entirely reasonable for companies such as BP and Esso to fork out for charging points at their petrol stations. But this smells like the government pulling a big figure out of their collective arses in the hope that we'll all be so impressed by the sheer size of £1.3 billion that we won't work out what it really means. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Similarly, £582 million in grants to buy zero- or ultra-low-emission vehicles is a petty cash drawer figure in terms of government spending.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And "nearly" £500 million over the next four years - so less than £125 million per year - for the development of mass production of electric vehicle batteries really won't go that far. The government statement on the 10-point plan adds that this is part of £12 billion in state spending on developing electric car manufacturing with "potentially three times as much from the private sector". So that's money that we cannot count on, especially if car manufacturing goes down the toilet post-Brexit. After all, it's not as if we will be able to make all components or source all materials from the UK - with inevitably buggered-up, expensive supply chains from the EU, it becomes a less attractive investment. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Then there are concerns about the supply chain ethics of certain raw materials for electric vehicles, such as the <a href="https://allafrica.com/stories/202010310002.html" target="_blank">mining of cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo</a>, which supplies 60% of cobalt for this sector. The second-biggest producer of cobalt in the world is Russia and its output is 83% smaller than that of the DRC. Wonderful.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of course, there is an attempt in the statement to desperately appeal to their newly won Red Wall voters and Conservative voters elsewhere with the pledge to create electric vehicle sector jobs in the northeast of England, Wales and the Midlands. For the northeast, this pledge comes just as there are renewed reports of Sunderland losing its Nissan plant if a no-deal Brexit goes ahead - this could be a pre-emptive strike to convince people that this is how the jobs will be replaced. Ironically, it is faintly reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher convincing Nissan to build the Sunderland plant to help replace jobs lost when the coal mines closed, with access to the EU market as a major selling point. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But Boris Johnson has not got any of the convictions of Thatcher and he certainly does not have her work ethic. There's no real detail in his plans for the automotive sector about how the money will be spent, and no breakdown on practical things such as budgets for retraining workers and retooling factories. At least Sunderland has experience with building the electric Nissan Leaf. Apart from the electric Mini and the possibility of an electric Jaguar, a lot of money will be needed to ensure electric cars can roll off production lines in Derbyshire, Swindon, Norfolk, Warwickshire, Cheshire, West Sussex and Luton.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But this is not a government that does details.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The point in the plan about public transport has nothing much to say to areas where public transport is non-existent. There is a pledge to spend £4.2 billion in "city public transport". Given that in London, TFL's 2019-2020 budget was £10.3 billion, £4.2 billion across all UK cities is going to spread out very thinly indeed. Again, Boris Johnson pukes out numbers that are more than we'll ever see in our bank accounts and expects us to be impressed without question. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Still, it's all on brand for Johnson. It's all big-sounding numbers and bumper sticker soundbites, as ever. He was supposedly a green Tory mayor for London but that was a con too. This is the idiot mayor who wasted £1.4 million in a failed attempt to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/13/boris-johnson-sticky-pollution-failure#:~:text=Boris%20Johnson%20has%20spent%20%C2%A3,dirtiest%20roads%20and%20industrial%20sites." target="_blank">"glue" pollution</a> to the capital's roads and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jul/15/london-congestion-charge-change" target="_blank">removed the congestion charge exemption for hybrid cars</a>. Basically, he got away with developing a reputation for being an eco-friendly mayor because he was photographed riding a bicycle like a saggy-suited clown.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Boris Johnson's figures for his "green industrial revolution" are as rubbery as the condoms he seems to be incapable of using. It's bluster and waffle, there's a strong whiff of <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/pork_barrel_politics.asp" target="_blank">pork-barrelling</a>, it is more simplistic sloganeering.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">He is a charlatan, a fraud, a major league con man, someone who has fooled voters for years on an industrial scale, the wrong person to be in charge of anything let alone an environmental programme this nakedly ambitious - put that on your electric car bumper sticker.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-79267275064764644312020-11-13T05:03:00.000-08:002020-11-13T05:03:03.061-08:00Peter Sutcliffe's mirror on misogyny<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-q2TQyJgirts/X656lrwTSqI/AAAAAAAAXsk/d1jrvb-MeB0QhjlKCACrhLfiCJCdJ0TFACLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-tasha-kamrowski-987627.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1362" height="320" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-q2TQyJgirts/X656lrwTSqI/AAAAAAAAXsk/d1jrvb-MeB0QhjlKCACrhLfiCJCdJ0TFACLcBGAsYHQ/w213-h320/pexels-tasha-kamrowski-987627.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Peter Sutcliffe is dead and nobody should be upset that he is gone from this world. We will never know exactly how many women he killed or attacked. We will never know exactly how many lives he ruined. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Thankfully, today's coverage is centred largely on the victims and the people left behind to pick up the pieces after women they loved were taken cruelly away from them. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Naga Munchetty did an excellent interview on BBC Breakfast this morning with Richard McCann, the son of Wilma McCann, believed to be Sutcliffe's first victim. She was compassionate, she let Richard speak through his grief and complex feelings about his mother's death and the man who was responsible, she reassured him that he has nothing to be ashamed of. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The appalling events between 1975 ad 1980 could have ended much sooner - Sutcliffe was interviewed nine times before he was finally brought to justice, and the Wearside Jack hoax tapes were a devastating distraction, wasting police time, allowing Sutcliffe to kill more women. Misogyny infested the West Yorkshire police force at the time, fuelling incompetence. This horrific account of a press conference is sickening:</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SmYwItv2PwQ/X66ClqTyd6I/AAAAAAAAXsw/Tg3V1Mh5kfkVo7Ni2iISkEwJ0A1clo8jQCLcBGAsYHQ/EmsiN9xXUAA_3YH.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="576" height="124" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SmYwItv2PwQ/X66ClqTyd6I/AAAAAAAAXsw/Tg3V1Mh5kfkVo7Ni2iISkEwJ0A1clo8jQCLcBGAsYHQ/EmsiN9xXUAA_3YH.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Today's coverage of Sutcliffe's pathetic demise has not been perfect. The footage that did not need to be broadcast was that of a jovial interview with one of the killer's former colleagues. We saw the unedifying spectacle of a man laughing as he said they all knew Sutcliffe was the Yorkshire Ripper and that he even answered to this name. And still he laughed, reducing dead women to workplace banter.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It is vile misogyny, just as it is vile misogyny to diminish some of the victims as "just prostitutes" rather than individual women with their own stories, often of hard lives, of limited choices. It is vile misogyny to dismiss any of the victims as somehow asking for it, to create a hierarchy of dead women from sainted virgins to scorned sluts. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But this is what happens when sex workers are among the dead, as if their lives matter less than those of other women. This narrative reared its ugly head for years in discourse surrounding the Yorkshire Ripper just as surely as it did a century earlier when Sutcliffe's grotesque namesake, Jack the Ripper, was terrorising women in London. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Our dead bodies are not there for workplace banter, for our corpses to be picked over by hideous vultures seeking to push misogynistic narratives from our carrion, for making people feel better about their attitudes to women, for helping people convince themselves that the safety of some women is more important than that of others. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Instead, let us take this moment to remember the names of the victims we know and to reflect that we may never know the names that would surely complete this tragic list:</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Wilma McCann</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Emily Jackson</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Irene Richardson</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Tina Atkinson</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Jayne MacDonald</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Jean Jordan</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Yvonne Pearson</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Helen Rytka</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Vera Millward</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Josephine Whitaker</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Barbara Leach</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Marguerite Walls</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Jacqueline Hill</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And these are the women who survived attacks by Sutcliffe, more women whose lives will be forever affected by his violent hatred of women:</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Anna Rogulskyj</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Olive Smelt</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Tracy Browne</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Marcella Claxton</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Marilyn Moore</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Upadhya Bandara</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Maureen Lea</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Theresa Sykes</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Say their names. Say all their names.</p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography: Tasha Kamrowski/Pexels</span></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-30857109158125309142020-10-06T10:42:00.001-07:002020-10-06T10:42:09.984-07:00The pandemic of "honour" killings<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-oqFFLBmIdsI/X3ddBSKiq-I/AAAAAAAAWZU/tI8AdGiu_JI8B_G7zVZ3gOY9p7b202dJQCLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-photo-3225796.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1300" data-original-width="837" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-oqFFLBmIdsI/X3ddBSKiq-I/AAAAAAAAWZU/tI8AdGiu_JI8B_G7zVZ3gOY9p7b202dJQCLcBGAsYHQ/pexels-photo-3225796.webp" width="155" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Let's start calling so-called "honour" killings by their real name. They are misogynistic murders. They are the murders of girls and women who have done nothing wrong. They are murders committed almost exclusively by men, although women can be complicit. They are murders with vile motivations such as a taking false offence, feeling an unwarranted sense of shame, a desire to control girls and women in everything they say, do and think, a heinous jealousy that is never flattering, a desire to maintain a sickening patriarchy where men and boys enjoy freedoms that they deny to the girls and women in their lives.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The disgusting reality of misogynistic murders was brought into sharp focus last week with <i>Honour</i>, the ITV drama based on the 2006 murder of 20-year-old Banaz Mahmod at the hands of her own father and uncle. Three of her cousins and two family friends were also convicted in relation to her killing. Her non-crime was to leave an abusive forced marriage and find happiness with a new boyfriend, who killed himself 10 years after Banaz was murdered. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Banaz had gone to the police multiple times to share her very real fears that her life was in danger, even naming names of the people of whom she was rightly terrified, but she was not taken seriously until she went missing. Her body was found in a suitcase buried in a derelict garden in Birmingham, after she was killed in South London a few miles from where I'm now sitting. She is buried at the cemetery down the road. Her family tried to insult her one last time with an unmarked grave but a granite memorial stone now marks her final resting place, paid for by the Iranian and Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO), police officers and Nazir Afzal, the tenacious lead prosecutor in her case.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">One of the most heartbreaking aspects of the ITV drama was the portrayal of Diana Nammi by brilliant, brave Saudi actress Ahd Hassan Kamel. Diana is a British-Kurdish activist who came to the UK as an asylum seeker, founding IKWRO in 2002. There is a scene where she expresses her sheer frustration that because she is a woman, she is not considered a leader in the community where Banaz and her Iraq-Kurdish family lived.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But Diana is a leader. It is so important that Britain has elevated her to this status because of her important work, which included helping bring Banaz's killers to justice. In 2014, she received a Barclays Woman of the Year award,s a Women on the Move award from UNHCR and named one of the BBC's 100 Women. In 2015, she received a Voices of Courage award from the Women's Refugee Commission in 2015 and an honorary degree from the University of Essex in 2016. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is important because Britain needs to be better than the misogynistic murderers of Banaz Mamod, to take a stand, to speak the truth that there is nothing honourable about honour killings. A vital part of this is for Britain to be a place where women, regardless of their ethnicity, are empowered to be community leaders, to be taken seriously when they defend vulnerable girls and women and denounce misogynistic, patriarchal cultures - all of them everywhere - in no uncertain terms.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Appalling stories such as that of Banaz Mahmod are low-hanging fruit for racists. There will always be the people whose first reaction is to blame immigration, to claim that if "these people" weren't allowed in the UK, then such murders wouldn't happen here. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is a dreadful notion for two reasons. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Firstly, while Banaz Mahmod would not have been killed on British soil if her family didn't come to the UK, it is entirely possible that she could have been killed in similar circumstances in Iraq - the problem of so-called honour killings would simply happen elsewhere and that is equally as unacceptable as when it happens here. The banning of immigration and, in particular, the stopping of all asylum seekers being allowed to seek safety in the UK, simply moves the problem to other countries. If Britain is serious about the moral high ground and about stopping the bloodshed, it is essential that we condemn all so-called honour killings, no matter where they happen.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And secondly, it is wrong to claim that such murders are only the domain of immigrants, that the only hands that are gripped around innocent necks or holding knives or tightening ligatures or pointing guns in the name of false offence or bringing supposed shame to families and, in particular, to men belong solely to foreigners.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the UK, the number of women killed by current or former partner is on the increase. Data from the Office for National Statistics showed that 80 women were killed by a current or former partner between April 2018 and March 2019, a 27% increase on the previous year.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If you think these men's motivations are any different to those of the pathetic men who were offended by Banaz Mahmod making her own life choices, you're mistaken. When women are murdered by men close to them, it doesn't matter what colour anyone's skin is or whether anyone's family has been in the UK for a few years or since Roman times. The killers are still men who hate women. They are still offended because a woman has dared to leave or spurned advances or was perceived to have strayed or flirted or fell short of some impossible standard. These men, just as surely as Banaz Mahmod's killers did, feel a misguided and bogus shame, feel like they have lost control of women they considered their property, feel their pitiful male pride has been wounded by women who would not comply. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">If we are serious about ending this misogynistic turf war that is fought on women's bodies, more needs to be done. We should absolutely engage with all communities in Britain, to uphold courageous people such as Diana Nammi who shine a light on this hatred and violence at great personal cost. But we also need to acknowledge that murderous misogyny is not exclusive to any one community or ethnic group. It is a dark stain on every town and city and as long as women are killed by people close to them every single week, it shames us all. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="sc-qPySC cPsBu" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Independent Serif", serif;"><p style="font-size: 19px; line-height: 1.44em; margin: 16px 0px;"><br /></p></div><div class="sc-qPySC cPsBu" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Independent Serif", serif;"></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by Joanne Adela Low/Pexels </span></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-77707404227420740142020-09-21T10:32:00.004-07:002020-09-21T10:40:09.779-07:00How to fall in love with a country again<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-U5PMeTWtGQs/X2jYJtS1L7I/AAAAAAAAWMw/aahajos2c206wNgrqINlWM7ihCKVYRPGwCLcBGAsYHQ/119253650_10158553524020449_7253926923441622083_o.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-U5PMeTWtGQs/X2jYJtS1L7I/AAAAAAAAWMw/aahajos2c206wNgrqINlWM7ihCKVYRPGwCLcBGAsYHQ/119253650_10158553524020449_7253926923441622083_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Oh, how we whined and whinged when it became apparent that, for a number of reasons, a holiday in the UK was going to have to replace our usual September jaunt to somewhere warm and European. It just wouldn't be the same as lolling by a pool in Corfu wiling away the afternoon with endless gin fizzes or hiring an open top car to explore every corner of Rhodes. Indeed, as we booked rooms in two old hotels at Grange-over-Sands and Peebles, both places where people used to travel in pre-antibiotic days to "take in the air", we resented every penny of the price. We could have a week in Menorca for the same price, dammit. Would it even feel like a holiday if we did all our travelling in the car rather than leaving the trusty Volkswagen at the long-term parking at Gatwick and jumping on a plane?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But as we left the M25 hellscape and hideous traffic around Birmingham behind us, Cumbria hovered into sight and we found our hotel overlooking the Irish Sea at Grange-over-Sands. Sure, it wasn't the most soundproofed of hotels - I am still convinced the couple in the room above us were moving furniture in between acts of copulation - and the breakfast service could have been a bit better organised, but the picture above was the view from our room. When we opened the florid, floral curtains and were greeted by a scene that definitely beat the "sea glimpses" promised on another holiday, there was an overwhelming sense that it was going to be OK.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It was better than OK - work worries were forgotten, we ate, drank and were merry, like all good holidays there was "the incident" (in this case, my sense-of-humour failure after a misreading of Google Maps in the rain in the Lake District), we saw new places and revisited old favourites. When we crossed the border, we had to pre-book our pool time in Peebles, which does kill the spontaneous swim, but we had lovely weather, which is always a bonus on any trip to Scotland. The big coats, packed pessimistically, remained unworn on the back seat of the car.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of course, no matter where I go, I can't quite divorce myself from politics. After all, I am the nerd who went to Cyprus on holiday and wrote about the <a href="https://therantmistress.blogspot.com/2014/10/is-and-turkish-conundrum.html" target="_blank">tragedy of the abandoned resort of Famagusta</a>, and went to Menorca and ended up writing about<a href="https://therantmistress.blogspot.com/2017/08/jesuistalayotic.html" target="_blank"> feelings of solidarity with the Talayotic people</a> who lived on the Spanish island from about 1400BC until AD1287. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And so it came to pass that on last week's UK holiday, we could not be unaware of government's ongoing cack-handedness with the coronavirus pandemic. Whether it was loving how the wearing of a mask improved the olfactory experience of using public toilets or wondering how necessary masks were while aboard a boat that was open to the wet and wild elements on our one day of shitty weather, we were conscious of the virus. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On the way back to London, we stayed with the in-laws in the north-east for a few days, just as the region went back into a partial lockdown - the chat as I got my hair done for a considerably cheaper price than in the capital was of confusion over the latest restrictions, in between utter disdain for Donald Trump ("He's out of his box!") and sympathy for "lovely" Keir Starmer having to self-isolate. North-eastern salon banter never fails to surprise, amuse and delight in equal measure.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In Scotland, we noted the contrast between Peebles and Jedburgh. Peebles was lively, shops were open and busy, there was an air of prosperity, a sense that this historic town was going to be OK no matter what an uncertain future might hold. But Jedburgh, equally bursting with fascinating history and general prettiness, was ultimately a depressing lunch stop - it was hard to find an open cafe for lunch, barely any shops were open, pubs were boarded up, there was neither hustle nor bustle. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Both towns, along with plenty of places where we stopped in Cumbria, had plenty of signs indicating funding from the European Regional Development Fund - a source of valuable income that has now dried up. These funds are unlikely to be easily replaced, especially as the government's absurd or corrupt attempts to prevent pandemic-related economic disaster drain money away from everything from funding tourism promotion to ensuring the decrepit but clearly once brutally beautiful lido at Grange-over-Sands is properly restored any time soon.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">But while I may still be angry about the sorry state of British politics, my anger is tempered with a renewed love for my adopted country and the many lovely people we met along the way. I have a desire for the UK to be the best it can be be - and one thing I do know is that it deserves better than either the elected and utterly risible Johnson government or the hypothetical Corbyn government that was never going to happen because, like it or not, he was never going to resonate with large swathes of voters across the places I visited and revisited on what was a truly wonderful holiday. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-2283668229269086072020-06-10T11:56:00.000-07:002020-06-11T01:31:53.196-07:00Toppling Edward Colston was important and right<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Two of the most useful things I studied at university were statistics and a history elective called "Public History". As the name suggests, it was all about how history is presented to the public, including statues. We studied the reasons why statues were erected, what statues are meant to achieve and how old statues stand in a modern context.</div>
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Statues are almost always erected as an act of celebration, to honour and remember people considered to have achieved great things. When we erect a statue of someone, we are literally putting them on a pedestal, we are forced to look up to them, whether we want to or not. When a statue is torn down, it is usually an event fuelled by anger, by the need to triumph over whatever it was that the statue stood for. </div>
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In the case of Edward Colston, it stood for celebrating a man who trafficked human beings.</div>
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Between 1680 and 1692, it is estimated his company transported 84,000 men, women and children. But his apologists will claim that his statue was for his charitable work, so that somehow makes a man who treated the equivalent of almost the entire population of Bath as chattel a perfectly acceptable guy to cast in bronze for all the world to see. </div>
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But even his charitable work was unsavoury. While there is nothing to be gained by closing down the schools he helped found, it is important to recognise that at the time, his philanthropy was tainted by his own High Church Anglican religious bigotry. He insisted that children of Dissenters be refused admission. Dissenters were the protestants who separated from the Church of England during the 17th and 18th centuries, including Quakers. The school rules included the expulsion of any boy who had been caught attending a church service outside the Church of England. Boys became apprentices upon graduation but could not be apprentices to Dissenters.</div>
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By the time his statue was erected in 1895, the act which abolished slavery in Britain had been in force for 61 years. This makes the morally lazy argument that we can't judge an old statue on modern values ridiculous. </div>
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The other pathetic argument for leaving Colston on his plinth was that the statue should be removed by "democratic processes". Oh please. Sit down. Since the 1990s, there have been peaceful, polite campaigns to remove the statue. But, as Professor Kate Williams pointed out in a brilliant Twitter thread, plans in 2018 to put up a plaque to put Colston into historical context hit brick walls when some councillors objected to the wording and <a href="https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/edward-colston-statue-society-merchant-4203544" target="_blank">Bristol's Society of Merchant Venturers </a>got involved because they didn't want any mention of the 12,000 trafficked children or the selective nature of his philanthropy. Pulling the statue down and throwing it in the river has been a bold, powerful, important statement. Sometimes being polite is a waste of time. </div>
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But merely pulling down statues will not end racism in the UK any more than having two female prime ministers has ended sexism. Shadow justice secretary David Lammy suggested that these sort of statues should be in museums where the historical context can be discussed, where they will actually become a means of education rather than something for people to walk past and pigeons to shit on. Very few people ever learn anything particularly profound from a statue and they are not usually erected for pedagogical purposes. The notion that statues of racists need to stay put to educate people on racism is embarrassing.</div>
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And that brings me to my other useful university subject - that of statistics. When we look at racial inequality, the criminal justice system is quickly placed under the spotlight. By the government's own statistics, black people are <a href="https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/crime-justice-and-the-law/policing/stop-and-search/latest#by-ethnicity" target="_blank">stopped and searched</a> way more often than white people - the rate for the whole population is seven in 1,000 people are stopped and searched but for black people, this is 38 per 1,000. For white people, the figure is four per 1,000. Last year, 27% of the prison population identified as an ethnic minority compared to 13% of the overall population. Before a case even gets to court, black men are 26% more likely to be remanded in custody at the Crown Court than white men. Once in front of the beak, black men are 53% more likely than white men to be sentenced to prison for an indictable offence.</div>
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Crucially, according to a 2017 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/sep/01/young-black-people-jailed-moj-report-david-lammy" target="_blank">Ministry of Justice</a> review, young black people are nine times more likely to be locked up than young white people. That means that for first offences, young black people are ending up behind bars more often than young white people - and this is where the cycle of crime so often starts, with a focus on retribution rather than rehabilitation.</div>
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Simple changes such as only locking up first-time offenders for serious violent crimes, such as rape, murder and armed robbery, could help, along with eliminating custodial sentences for non-violent crimes. The money saved on keeping people of all skin colours in overcrowded prisons, which are not conducive to rehabilitation, could be invested into education, training and counselling for young and first-time offenders. The "broken window" policy of cracking down hard on first offences, no matter how minor, does not work.</div>
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Class plays a role in disadvantage too. It is naive and simplistic to think that Malia and Sasha Obama are not privileged while declaring a young white man on a council estate born into multi-generational unemployment is a shining example of white privilege. There are intersections when it comes to who holds the aces in the game of life, who will be able to reach their potential and who will fall by the wayside. But being born with black skin is still a lightning rod for prejudice on sight, for attracting the attention of police when you're minding your own business, for fearing being pulled over for a minor traffic offence, and being a target of hate. </div>
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Policies which encourage investment in high quality comprehensive education so that "rough schools" are not permanently accepted as being rough because that's just the way it is will help the white kids who are disadvantaged as well as the black kids. The same goes for investing in high quality, affordable social housing, ensuring equitable access to healthcare and allowing greater access to higher education. And so and so forth - the policies that will help black people help society as a whole. Why would anyone object?<br />
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And while we're at it, Priti Patel could easily put an end to all Windrush deportations and ensure that every family affected receives compensation.</div>
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Pulling down the vile Edward Colston was an important moment in history, along with the powerful image of a black woman taking her place on his empty plinth to address the crowd with a megaphone, but even if every statue of every slave trader is rightly removed, there is still so much that needs to be done to improve the awful statistics.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-62214142789421746482020-06-02T11:52:00.002-07:002020-06-03T06:25:02.755-07:00Moving on from Cummings going to Durham with the Dompologists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Dompologists came out in force as soon as their hero was busted. Apparently, Dominic Cummings going to work on what should have been his first day at home for a 14-day quarantine; driving 260 miles non-stop to Durham with a child in the car while he and his wife were both possibly contagious so they could be near the person who was their only childcare option; the person who was the only childcare option apparently incapable of travelling alone to London if required; being tragically unable to ask a single friend or family member in London to drop off groceries or medication during quarantine; being unable to pay for a grocery or medication delivery service despite having a pretty good combined household income; driving his child to hospital in Durham with his wife while still possibly contagious; driving to Barnard Castle on his wife's birthday with his wife and child in the car on a 60-mile round trip to test his eyesight; not sharing the drive home with his wife even though she can drive; his wife writing a column for the <i>Spectator </i>about life in lockdown which omitted the salient fact that they'd buggered off to Durham; testing the capacity of a Range Rover petrol tank to its absolute running-on-fumes limits; being the parents of a four-year-old with a cast iron bladder; and retrospectively editing a blog post in April 2020 to give the impression that he warned everyone about the coronavirus last year - all mean that he didn't break any of the rules he helped to set and therefore he shouldn't resign.<br />
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Instead, a pathetic rebranding of Dominic Cummings, father of the year, erupted. It was quickly pointed out that the whole "he did what any good dad would do" line insulted everyone, especially those struggling to juggle kids and work, and all who had followed the rules since March.<br />
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So, the Dompologists started yelling: "LET'S MOVE ON AND TALK ABOUT THE IMPORTANT ISSUES!".<br />
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OK. Sure. Fine by me. Let's talk about the important issues. How about we start with childcare? Seriously, I've never heard so many people who have never previously breathed a word about childcare talk so much about childcare when they leapt to Cummings' defence.<br />
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Let's talk about childcare not just for now - although that is important - but for the long-term. What can we do about (mostly) women giving up careers because childcare costs meant they were literally paying to go to work? What about incentivising employers to subsidise childcare, offer more flexible hours or working-from-home opportunities to help families? Hell, if anything good can come of this wretched virus, it might be the penny dropping for presenteeism-obsessed employers in regard to trusting staff to work from home. At the same time, though, how about recognising the need for people who work from home to have access to childcare? And what about affordable, high-quality childcare for people on low incomes? Maybe some of the Conservative MPs who smashed the red wall could raise this issue on behalf of their working class constituents?<br />
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Perhaps the craven cabinet ministers who all spinelessly tweeted embarrassing boilerplate nonsense about Cummings being a plucky little battler who was struggling with childcare could show the same concern for families up and down the country? I could introduce them to someone I know, a single father raising a severely disabled teenaged daughter while working from home. I'm sure that meeting would prove very instructive for the government front bench.<br />
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And let's talk about how shamefully outrageous the Downing Street rose garden press conference was. Why was an unelected adviser allowed to use that particular space to defend himself on live TV?<br />
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But more importantly, if the Dompologists want to talk about the big issues of the day, let's talk about how Cummings' defence blew wide open the rifts among Brexiters, and how it became painfully clear that the main reason Boris Johnson hasn't sacked him is because he is too scared to try and be prime minister without his trusty adviser.<br />
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Cummings came across as being puffed up with his own self-importance during his rose garden statement but he had a point - to Boris Johnson, he is important. Cummings was quite right to talk up his importance to the running of the country - this is the pedestal on which Johnson placed him and now he's incapable of taking him down.<br />
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We have a prime minister who is self-serving, unpleasant, cowardly, bullying and lazy. This PM gig has not panned out like he thought it would when it competed for top billing in his masturbatory fantasies at Eton. As a result, he relies heavily on Cummings, having been way too impressed by the effectiveness of the "Take back control" slogan of the Brexit campaign.<br />
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Since then, Classic Dom's simplistic slogans have been the order of the day. To be fair, "Stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives" was clear and effective. It was an instruction the Cummings himself found impossible to follow but it made sense. Now we have the shitshow of "Stay alert" with a government rushing to ease lockdown rules because public trust has eroded. It seems the government has figured everyone is just going to flock to the nearest park or beach anyway. Bizarre rules about allowing six people in your garden as long as nobody sits on the sunlounger or uses the toilet abound. We're being warned not to have sex with anyone outside our own households but we can let the cleaner, nanny or estate agent in, if required.<br />
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Today, we witnessed the Rees-Mogg-inspired farce of MPs queueing in a ridiculous conga line to vote in parliament, along with a drive to force all 650 MPs back into the House of Commons before it's safe to do so, all because the PM is useless without his braying fan club behind him. The pared-back parliament with limited numbers in the house and questions by Zoom exposes Johnson as an incompetent blatherer, a desperate haystack of a man, obviously out of his depth, reaching for Latin Christmas cracker jokes when he has no answers.<br />
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Dominic Cummings isn't urging the PM to take a step back and look at this mess with a cool head. He's probably delighted with the chaos - after all, we are edging towards his libertarian wet dream where everyone does the hell they want so they can all be blamed when there's a second spike in COVID-19 cases. And he is happy to continue to lead Boris Johnson down this pitiful path, regardless of whose lives it might cost, along with leading us over an irresponsible no-deal Brexit cliff for good measure. One unelected man has way too much power. That is what has emerged from the scandal over the drive to Durham. That is what is so outrageous and that is why we should stay angry.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo: Ninian Reid/Flickr</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-62028515352743082642020-05-11T06:50:00.001-07:002020-05-11T07:39:24.056-07:00Alert or alarmed? Conservative communication at its worst<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As soon as Boris Johnson pivoted from "Stay home" to "Stay alert", I had flashbacks to Australia circa 2002. The John Howard government, in all its wisdom, spewed forth the slogan <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/be-alert-not-alarmed-grins-replace-guns-on-anti-terrorism-ad-20021228-gdg11u.html" target="_blank">"Be alert, not alarmed"</a> in regard to being vigilant about terrorism. </div>
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Of course, by this stage, plenty of people were alarmed about the threat of terrorism in a post-9/11 world and it was never entirely clear what "be alert" meant apart from maybe going above and beyond the usual neighbourhood watch curtain-twitching if you suspected someone might be plotting a terror attack. Alertness didn't stop four young Australians getting killed in 2005 when they were enjoying a night out in Bali, nor did it stop the 2014 siege at the Lindt Cafe in Sydney's Martin Place, in which 18 people were taken hostage and three people were shot dead. </div>
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Should the people who went out for a night on the razz in Bali or the people who were going about their business, meeting friends or colleagues for coffee in Martin Place have been more alert? Of course not because it's is a load of victim-blaming nonsense.</div>
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That's the problem with telling people to "stay alert" - at what point does alertness give way to ridiculous paranoia? And how meaningful is advice to stay alert? </div>
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Staying alert is reasonably sound life advice in that it's smart to be aware of one's surroundings, pay attention while driving or keep an eye on the kids when they're swimming in the sea, but how does it apply to a virus that is invisible but deadly? It won't jump you from behind and nick your wallet, despite Boris Johnson's crap mugger analogy after he emerged from hospital like scruffy Jesus. It won't cut you off like Prince Phillip when you have right of way at a T-junction. It won't drag the kids underwater like a freak wave at Tenerife.</div>
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In any case, we are already alert. </div>
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For weeks now, people have been rolling their eyes, tutting or yelling at people who don't respect social distancing on footpaths or can't follow simple one-way systems in supermarket aisles. Hell, some people are reporting their neighbours to the police, be it for non-crimes, such as sitting in the sun for a bit, or genuinely dangerous petri dish situations, such as having a load of mates over for a party.</div>
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And people were alert enough to avoid public transport unless absolutely essential until this morning. </div>
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Boris Johnson's new "Stay alert - Control the virus - Save lives" message was coupled with a pre-recorded address to the nation last night which avoided the scrutiny of parliament. The advice seems to be to go back to work if you can't work from home, unless you work in a pub, restaurant, barbershop, hairdressing salon or beauty salon; try to walk, cycle or drive to work if you can; and only take public transport if there is no other option. But this was issued at 7pm on a Sunday night, without the accompanying 60-page guidance document, and without any real advice to employers to make sure the workplace is safe before calling people back to work. </div>
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The overwhelming message that cut through was "Shit! I think I have to go to work tomorrow!", probably followed by assorted panics, such as "Shit! Childcare!" and "Shit! I can't get to work unless I take the tube!".</div>
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Cue packed tubes in London this morning as people were either called into work by unscrupulous employers who couldn't possibly have done all the due diligence required to make workplaces safe between 7pm last night and 9am this morning, or people who saw the message from the prime minister as a non-negotiable order to get back to work ASAP. For many of these people, it was a decision that was based on fear of unemployment, even if it put their health at risk - and not everyone who went back to work today would have been empowered to walk off the job if they didn't feel safe. </div>
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A construction site worker on a zero-hours contract is not going to be in the same position of power and self-determination as someone who can merrily keep working from the comfort of home. This virus is not the great leveller some say it is.</div>
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The poor messaging from a table-thumping Boris Johnson last night was compounded by a hapless Dominic Raab this morning who stammered his way through an interview with the excellent Michal Husain, admitting that maybe it would be better to wait until at least Wednesday to go back to work and, at the same time, refusing to come out and say that workers who don't feel safe should be able to walk off the job without fear. He expressed a faith in the willingness of employers to do the right thing that was, at best, cute and naive and, at worst, a reckless, irresponsible means of washing the government's hands of a likely second spike in virus cases.</div>
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It's so easy for people to claim the government's messaging was perfectly clear when they have the luxury of working from home. It's so easy to accuse people of not knowing what the word "alert" means. It's so easy to set the bar so low for this government, even though they have a well-paid communications team at their disposal.</div>
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And it's so easy for the latest example of poor communication from this government to be misunderstood - or understood and followed because there was no choice to do otherwise - possibly with the worst possible consequences.</div>
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Photography by Circe Denyer</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-22332111058524355022020-04-19T10:45:00.002-07:002020-04-20T01:25:11.620-07:00Of course COVID-19 is political<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The COVID-19 pandemic should not be an excuse to score cheap political points. It is not an excuse to wish death on politicians and their loved ones like a psychopath. It is not the time for ridiculous, batshit conspiracy theories about 5G causing the pandemic. It is not the time for anti-vaxx pedlars of death and disease to spout ignorant, science-denying twaddle. And it is certainly not a time to become a racist bellend. But it is political. It is naive to think otherwise. </div>
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Countries across the world are relying on their governments for leadership, to figure out the best way to manage this terrible virus, to support healthcare systems, to know what the hell individuals can do to stop the disease spreading, to ensure the scientists working on a vaccine and a cure have everything they need, to work out what role charities and the private sector should take, and so on.</div>
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This means, obviously, politicians everywhere are making decisions - and it is naive to expect that certain decisions won't be politically motivated rather than for the greater good. In every democracy, this means they should be held to account - every decision that our leaders make affects our health and our wealth. We all have a huge stake in this. And in every country that is not a democracy, this should be the catalyst for increased transparency and public participation as a positive after-effect of the pandemic - after all, if you think the official mortality figures coming out of China or Iran are accurate, I have some magic beans and a time share in Narnia to sell you. Then again, the UK isn't bothering to include care home deaths in official stats so we still need to lift our game in terms of accuracy and transparency. </div>
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In no country should COVID-19 be a time for cultish, blind loyalty to any leader of any political stripe. I'm glad Boris Johnson didn't die of COVID-19. And I'm glad Carrie Symonds, his pregnant fiancee, is doing well. Hell, I'm glad that he is recovering for a few weeks rather than working because that is what every coronavirus patient should be doing after they leave hospital. I am also glad that the attempt to stir up a national round of applause for the prime minister's recovery was a massive damp squib. A nationwide chorus of clapping and pot-banging for one man would have been embarrassing, unnecessary and definitely cultish.<br />
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And while Johnson may now join the immune herd for COVID-19, he is not and should not be immune to criticism or scrutiny - and neither should the hapless cavalcade of assorted incompetents, yes-men and women, charisma-vacuums, intellectual lightweights and slippery moral bankrupts who are filling in for the PM at the daily briefings.<br />
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It is clear that political decisions have been made which are not necessarily in our best interests, such as declining an invitation to join a European Commission-funded scheme to stockpile essential medical equipment, to have constantly dropped pandemic planning from the agenda since 2016, and for Boris Johnson to have found better uses for his time, such as meeting a dancing dragon for Chinese New Year instead of attending a COBRA meeting - or indeed attending five COBRA meetings on COVID-19.<br />
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At a time when we should be re-evaluating our relationship with China on multiple levels, including taking a stand on human rights and animal welfare issues and getting over our reliance on cheap goods often manufactured to low standards and in awful working conditions, the photograph of Boris Johnson gurning gormlessly at the dragon is not ageing well.<br />
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Yes, it's true that the relevant cabinet minister chairs COBRA meetings but given these meetings were about a global pandemic, it is negligent at worst and lazy at best for Johnson to simply not bother with these ones. Imagine the outcry in an alternative universe if Prime Minister Corbyn missed five COBRA meetings because he was pottering about on his allotment or attending a Venezuelan solidarity Zoom meeting. The very same people who are demanding we leave poor little Boris alone would be foaming at the mouth at the very thought of Corbyn neglecting his duty so comprehensively. Hell, imagine any prime minister in living memory missing such meetings.<br />
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In January, when PPE supply chains should have been bolstered and early scientific advice heeded, Boris Johnson was distracted by January 31's Brexit day brouhaha, something which at the time he thought was going to be his greatest triumph, his most memorable speech, the iconic photograph for the history books - but now it seems like a lifetime ago. That was a political decision as well as a negligent one.<br />
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To those who are upset about the much-villified "mainstream media" going over past decisions of recent months, please try to comprehend that it is important to flag up the mistakes that have been made. If only we had a leader who could graciously admit to and apologise for mistakes in the way that Emmanuel Macron did - that would be a good first step on the road to accountability and to quickly learning from mistakes which have surely cost lives. There will almost certainly be some sort of inquiry further down the track as to how the government handled the pandemic, when lockdown restrictions have been lifted or at least relaxed. But for now, we need decisive action from accountable leaders who are prepared to admit to errors and work their arses off to fix them.<br />
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Getting upset because The Sunday Times and Reuters have pointed out these failings in great detail is absolutely pathetic behaviour. Michael Gove was on brand on Marr this morning when he admitted Johnson didn't attend five COBRA meetings but gave the mealy-mouthed excuse that cabinet ministers chair such meetings, while simultaneously making a dig at journalists, a more articulate but equally venal version of Donald Trump's constant whines of "fake news". This was political manouevring on Gove's part - he appeared to be Johnson's loyal footsoldier but his defence of Johnson missing meetings would collapse in a light breeze and he knows it. He is not an idiot. Gove, ably assisted by his wife, Sarah Vine, a Poundland Lady Macbeth, would most likely be delighted if the pandemic cost Johnson his job. Again, let's not be naive here.<br />
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The next political decision to watch is in regard to an extension to Brexit negotiations, which has a deadline of June 30. The government is adamant that the UK won't ask for an extension but they may be left with little choice if the EU decides it has bigger virus-shaped fish to fry for the rest of the year. The British economy can recover from COVID-19 or it can recover from a no-deal Brexit after December 31 this year, but to try and get through both economic and social shocks, most likely concurrently, will be wantonly destructive. We have no choice but to deal with COVID-19 but we do have a choice about taking a more responsible approach to Brexit. Either way, it's a political choice and it will affect us for years to come.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Image: Mikhail Denishchenko</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-29060850243347920332020-03-01T10:30:00.000-08:002020-03-03T02:59:38.460-08:00Of dead cats, engagements and babies<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Ever since Boris Johnson romped into power with an 80-seat majority last December, he has created a cottage industry of dead cat-dumping. He got into training years before the election when he explained the art of dumping a dead cat on the dining room table to create a distraction when you're losing an argument in a <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/9906445/This-cap-on-bankers-bonuses-is-like-a-dead-cat-pure-distraction.html" target="_blank">column for <i>The Telegraph</i></a> in 2013. </div>
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And last June, when he wanted to be the Conservative Party leadership frontrunner without any of the scrutiny, he took the heat off by claiming to paint wooden models of London buses for fun. As a bonus, this weird claim helped drop Google results about dishonest Brexit referendum claims emblazoned on buses, and his shameful waste of public money with the dreadful "Boris buses" when he was mayor of London, way down the list.</div>
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So it comes as no surprise that the PM's lust for dropping dead cats continues apace, now he has the job to which he has felt entitled since he was a boy. </div>
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Reviving the ridiculous idea of a bridge between two remote points in Scotland and Northern Ireland a few weeks ago was a classic of the deceased feline genre. Johnson knows full well why it would be an expensive, dangerous engineering nightmare, although this probably won't stop him spending more of our money on a feasibility study even though the outcomes are a foregone conclusion. </div>
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It took a serious brass neck to drop the big bridge dead cat - Johnson does not have a great track with bridges. The Garden Bridge debacle from his time as mayor wasted millions of pounds of public money, raised as-yet-unanswered questions about corruption and conflicts of interest, and the stupid project was ultimately, mercifully abandoned by an exasperated Sadiq Khan, his successor as mayor of London. It was the inevitable result of letting Joanna Lumley dictate urban planning.</div>
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But talking up a big, dumb bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland was an excellent distraction from big issues around that time, such as the Streatham stabbing, which could be directly attributed to the early release of terrorist offenders on the watch of the Conservative governments over the past decade. This dead cat also stalled any proper scrutiny of the UK's Brexit negotiation preparations ahead of talks with the EU, which are due to resume this month. What a handy fictional bridge that was!</div>
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And yesterday, we were treated to the news of Boris Johnson's engagement to Carrie Symonds, complete with an early summer baby on the way. But this does not necessarily automatically fall into the category of dead cat, despite Twitter last night exploding with claims of ex-pussies. There were a few appalling commentators urging Carrie to take advantage of Britain's liberal abortion laws - but here's the thing about being pro-choice. It means you do not condemn women for making choices that you wouldn't make for yourself. </div>
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Even with Johnson's notorious virility, it is preposterous to suggest that he and Carrie planned a productive bunk-up late last year that would coincide with an engagement/pregnancy announcement to fall on a weekend where the Sunday papers had plenty of embarrassing front page options. </div>
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Anyone who knows about female biology would realise they have been aware of the pregnancy for a while, and anyone who knows about the Conservative Party's need to appeal to social conservatives would realise the announcement would have to wait until after Johnson finalised his divorce with Marina Wheeler, his second wife. Who knows if they really did get engaged last December and, frankly, who cares? It was just a necessary part of the announcement to appeal to Tory pearl clutchers. And the pregnancy announcement obviously couldn't be delayed forever. </div>
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In any case, if it was a dead cat, it was a pretty unsuccessful one. While the engagement/pregnancy made its way to most front pages - and it is naive to expect otherwise - it was really only <i>The Sunday Telegraph</i> which went for the full-on, Hello!-magazine-style gush-fest. I'm not surprised there was no byline on that story - any journalist with even the tiniest shred of credibility would be embarrassed to have that on their CV.</div>
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The <i>Mail on Sunday</i> ran the Instagram photo of a stubbled Johnson kissing the cheek of a beaming Carrie but tempered the soppy, sickly claim to an "exclusive inside story of their love" with a "CRIPES!", which was probably the reaction of plenty of people across the country yesterday. And across the bottom of the front page is a damning story about a leaked government memo that demonstrates that not being content to "fuck business", Boris Johnson may well be tempted to fuck farmers as well in his quest to give Dominic Cummings his wet dream Brexit.</div>
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<i>The Independent</i> ran an old photo of the happy couple with a discreet caption but went big, and rightly so, on Sir Philip Rutnam's departure from the Home Office amid claims of bullying, lying and intimidation by Home Secretary, Priti Patel. Bizarrely, the apologists for this wretched government seem to think Priti Patel's existence as a powerful woman of Asian heritage is some sort of gotcha-headfuck for those who oppose this government. Nope, sorry, Johnson fans, Priti Patel does not get a leave pass from scrutiny because of her gender or ethnicity. How patronising.</div>
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<i>The Sunday Times</i> and <i>The Observer</i> also led with the Home Office troubles, with both pieces holding Priti Patel's feet to the fire. The <i>ST</i> added a teaser for an exclusive on the forthcoming budget with news of entrepreneurs losing a big tax break. The engagement/pregnancy headline was a wry "What a good day to announce a No 10 baby", while <i>The Observer</i> went with a picture caption of the happy couple, and a story at the bottom about Matt Hancock's absurd plans to pull NHS doctors out of retirement to deal with the coronavirus. </div>
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<i>The Sunday Mirror </i>made the obvious "Carrie to go into labour" pun and described her salaciously as the "PM's lover" in a splash of barely disguised judgement. But the lead story was still an exclusive on Mo Farah's ongoing drug row. </div>
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And <i>The Daily Star</i>, which exists in its own glorious bubble of madness, had no mention of engagements or babies at all. Instead, it went big with "QUACKERS - Plastic ducks barred from charity race to save the planet", along with some <i>Love Island</i> gossip.</div>
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So it was reassuring that, apart from the <i>Sunday Telegraph</i>, the newspapers weren't too badly distracted by the PM's personal announcement, news that was, in all honesty, as predictable as it is banal.</div>
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Of course, the ball is now in Johnson and Symonds' court - with wedding plans and a baby due in a few months, there are plenty of dead cats they could gleefully drop, especially if negotiations with the EU go as pear-shaped as many expect. </div>
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There are golden opportunities for pictures of an engagement ring to be sent out into the ether, wedding dress design speculation is compulsory, maybe some hints will be dropped about the decor of a Downing Street nursery, and because every pregnant woman in the public eye must have her private choices exposed, there is plenty of scope for the "Will Carrie give birth naturally to whale music?" genre of intrusive journalism. </div>
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Will they opt for privacy or will they happily let fluffy wedding-and-baby stories take on a life of their own next time Johnson cuts his own throat, fucks up, or would rather not face hard questions about the path on which he and Classic Dom are dragging the country? </div>
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Photography by rawdonfox/Flickr</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-12814856848309220912020-02-16T11:18:00.000-08:002020-02-17T01:42:20.030-08:00Rest well, Caroline<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As ever, whenever a celebrity dies, especially when they die young, suddenly and tragically, the internet comes alive with the inevitable public grief, hand-wringing, assumptions from people who claim they knew exactly what happened in that unfortunate person's final sad weeks, days and hours, and there is a rush to apportion blame. </div>
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But with the news only breaking last night about the suicide of Caroline Flack, we only have certain facts available. We know she took her own life, we know she was due to face trial for the assault of her boyfriend, Lewis Burton, we know the CPS alleges that she hit him with a lamp while he was asleep, we know he didn't want to press charges, we know that she pleaded not guilty, we know that a condition of her bail was that she was not to contact her boyfriend. </div>
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And there is plenty we do not know. </div>
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We do not yet know what the post-mortem or inquest will reveal. And there are things we will never know, such as whether this story may have had a happier outcome if she was allowed to see her boyfriend before the trial, or indeed what the outcome of the trial would have been. We won't know of a not-guilty verdict or find out how she could rebuild her life after an acquittal - or what would follow for her and Burton in the event of a guilty verdict. </div>
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The only thing we can be sure of is that if she was found guilty, she'd become the anti-poster-child for the "See? Women can be abusers too!" brigade. That brigade had already come out of the woodwork, shitting on the whole concept of presumption of innocence. Nobody is saying that women cannot be the perpetrators of domestic violence - of course they can - but everyone accused of this dreadful crime has the right to a fair trial. </div>
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This brigade of (mostly) angry men was emboldened by pictures published by <i>The Sun</i> of a bloodstained bed at Flack's flat, pictures which, horrifically, were still on the newspaper's website at the time of writing. The publication of the bloodied bed was, at best, in poor taste and, at worst, not in the public interest, particularly before her trial had taken place.</div>
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There is a rush to blanket-blame "the media" for Flack's death - and she has long been an object of tabloid obsession, particularly after she dated a 17-year-old Harry Styles when she was 31. No age of consent laws were broken, but eyebrows were raised when Styles was photographed leaving her flat. It didn't take long for her to be pigeonholed as a "cougar", a sexually aggressive and adventurous seducer of younger men, a woman who is seen as a threat to the ideal of a demure, compliant woman. </div>
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She became an easy target for hate and it wasn't restricted to the usual tabloid suspects. Everyone with a Twitter account and a misguided sense of moral righteousness could pile in. </div>
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And the public lapped it up. If there wasn't a market for these sort of salacious stories, they wouldn't be written or broadcast in the first place. We feed the beast when we click on the links. Entertainment journalists are often quick to defend their profession, to point out that it's not an easy job (it's not) and they are obliged to constantly seek out the stories that will get the clicks and the sales (also true). But it is unfortunate that in the quest to keep eyeballs on screens and papers, fingers furtively scrolling or turning pages, that not only does accuracy often fall by the wayside, but public interest tests fall short and there is little time to pause and contemplate if a story is kind or even necessary.</div>
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Advocating the end of entertainment journalism or holding "the mainstream media" solely responsible for Flack's death is reductive and simplistic, ignoring the role of social media in this complicated story, especially as that was the only way Burton was able to communicate with Flack since December. However, it shouldn't preclude entertainment journalists from pausing to think about how they cover stories, especially those involving celebrities who may be vulnerable, may have mental health issues, may be struggling with addiction, or may simply be going through a tough time, as can happen to any one of us. </div>
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The <a href="https://www.samaritans.org/about-samaritans/media-guidelines/" target="_blank">guidelines</a> for reporting on suicide, issued by the Samaritans, are an excellent resource - it is not a restriction on press freedom to report responsibly.</div>
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Ultimately, gossip is part of human nature. That's never going to change. We devour gossip about our friends as readily as we devour celebrity gossip. Hell, I have an episode of <i>The Bachelor</i> burbling mindlessly away in the background as I write this and I just rolled my eyes as a doe-eyed blonde used her one-on-one time with the prized Colton, the hot, virgin bachelor, to call her mother for the first time since her release from prison. I'm not going to pretend I'm immune to taking a pervy interest in the lives of beautiful people I'll never meet. Of course, with every celebrity death, there's always one sneering blowhard who feels the need to comment "Who?" under a tweet or Facebook post, as if not knowing about a figure in popular culture is some form of moral superiority. </div>
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But the truth is that none of us are superior. We're all flawed and farty and prone to awkwardness, even those who, on the surface, appear to have everything under control. And any one of us could end up in as dark a place as Flack found herself in her lonely final hours. May we all pause to be kind to each other and to ourselves.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by Alex Borland.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-79573361328177074202020-02-09T08:09:00.000-08:002020-02-09T08:09:11.874-08:00Wanting young people to suffer: the new sadism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It starts out as a seemingly harmless thing that most of us have heard from our parents or grandparents: "Young people today! They don't know they're alive! They know nothing of the suffering we went through as kids..."<br />
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Hell, as I become an increasingly old hack, I'll roll my eyes at journalism graduates when they baulk at having to make a phone call or look aghast at the days of heavy reliance on fax machines or dial-up internet only being available on one computer in the office. But I'd like to think that I'm not a bitter sadist, mercilessly wishing we could all go back to the paste-up era of newspaper production, or wanting to deprive young journalists of the convenience of fast internet to teach them a lesson.<br />
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But the cries of young people not knowing true suffering now go beyond the jocular overtones of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k" target="_blank">"Four Yorkshiremen"</a> sketch or laughing at trigger warnings supposedly demanded by the snowflake generation. There's a nastiness, a disdain for comfort, a yearning for good old days that were actually terrible, a desire to see young people have as hard a life, or harder, than previous generations, rather than wanting to see the next generation be more successful, more comfortable and more prosperous.<br />
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Misplaced nostalgia for WWII is a good example of the new sadism, and it is particularly embarrassing when it comes from people who were not alive during the horrors of WWII or have never served in the military. Someone who courageously tweets anonymously as Brexit Stonking Majority Tory tweeted the following miserable nonsense:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>In 1941 teenage RAF pilots were flying old MK1 Hurricanes & putting their life on the line against Luftwaffe veteran pilots in the brilliant ME109F.</i></span></span><br />
<span class="css-901oao css-16my406 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" style="background-color: white; border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #14171a; display: inline; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; line-height: 1.3125; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>
Remainer teenagers today.... </i></span></span><a class="css-4rbku5 css-18t94o4 css-901oao css-16my406 r-1n1174f r-1loqt21 r-1qd0xha r-ad9z0x r-bcqeeo r-qvutc0" data-focusable="true" dir="ltr" href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/marr?src=hashtag_click" role="link" style="border: 0px solid black; box-sizing: border-box; color: #1b95e0; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.3125; list-style: none; margin: 0px; min-width: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration-line: none; white-space: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">#marr</span></a><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bPhQqyVdXsU/XkAezXoO_EI/AAAAAAAARWw/-EK1sbVKmc8PpnTOVNkoG0cioLpSc05FgCK4BGAYYCw/s1600/teen%2Beu.jpeg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-bPhQqyVdXsU/XkAezXoO_EI/AAAAAAAARWw/-EK1sbVKmc8PpnTOVNkoG0cioLpSc05FgCK4BGAYYCw/s320/teen%2Beu.jpeg" width="180" /></a></div>
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The image is a still from a video of a pink-haired teenager dancing joyously in support of the UK staying in the EU rather than spending his youth bombing neighbouring countries in a war that we won with the help of European allies (but don't tell Brexit Stonking Majority Tory that...).<br />
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We've had almost four years of Brexity blathering along the lines of: "We got through two world wars, we'll survive Brexit!" to jolly people along in the face of evidence of a forthcoming recession, increased prices, bending to US standards to get a trade deal with Trump, job losses and anything else that indicates that the leave campaign's grand promises turn to dust upon any contact with reality.<br />
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The reality is that leaving the EU will most likely lead to hardships - because Brexiters can't refute this, they are instead revelling in the possibility of suffering, getting their pitiful excuses in early, saying it'll be a price worth paying for some intellectually bankrupt notion of sovereignty, rather than preparing to take any responsibility for any hardships which might come as a result of their vote.<br />
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Wishing another war on young people to somehow harden them up is appalling. There are already plenty of young people across the world suffering the horrors of war on a daily basis. Adding more young people to their number won't make anything better for anyone. <br />
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Liz Kershaw joined in the sadistic idiocy last month in an awful attempt to squash the notion of period poverty, that anyone in the UK was suffering from a lack of access to sanitary products. She tweeted:<br />
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<i>Sorry if this is gross.</i><br />
<i>But #periodpoverty FFS?!</i><br />
<i>My mum had to use old rags which my grandma boil-washed and she re-used.</i><br />
<i>How did she ever manage to get a scholarship to grammar school, go to Uni or become a headteacher without free tampons???</i><br />
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The most charitable reading of this tweet is that Liz Kershaw is an eco-warrior, calling for more widespread use of reusable sanitary products, but she's really just advocating a time when things were harder, especially for girls and women. There are certainly very good reusable sanitary pads on the market today but they are not cheap and they do rely on access to good laundry facilities. A return to shoving any old rag in in your pants is a return to, at best, the risk of a humiliating bloodstained accident and, at worst, the risk of infection. Liz mindlessly generalises from the example of one person and glorifies suffering as a result. She is the same woman who twisted the 430 job losses in East Anglia as a result of the <a href="https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/liz-kershaw-on-sky-news-says-job-losses-at-phillips-is-great-news-for-brexit-1-5856746?utm_medium=Social_Icon&utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=in_article_social_icons" target="_blank">closure of the Philips factory</a> as some kind of Brexit benefit so you'll have to forgive me if I fail to see any altruism in her sadistic period tweet.<br />
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Still, the good news for anyone crowing about the possibility of young people suffering or wishing hardship on them all is that their sadistic dreams are coming true. There are measurable examples of things getting worse rather than better for the next generation.<br />
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Last year, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries reported that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/07/life-expectancy-slumps-by-five-months" target="_blank">life expectancy in the UK is declining</a> and it is a trend rather than a statistical blip. Compared with 2015 figures, the institute now expects men aged 65 to die at 86.9 years, down from 87.4 years, and women aged 65 are likely to die at 89.2 years, down from 89.7 years. While this is not on par with Chad, with a life expectancy of 50.6 years, it's not something we should be celebrating either as it reflects a decline in healthcare, living standards, individual affluence and the overall economy.<br />
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The Learning and Work Institute projected last year that the UK will <a href="https://www.tes.com/news/uk-will-drop-world-literacy-and-numeracy-table" target="_blank">drop four places</a> in world literacy and numeracy rankings by 2030 - so the good news for the sadists is that we're apparently less healthy and less educated.<br />
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<a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/bulletins/housingaffordabilityinenglandandwales/previousReleases" target="_blank">Housing is becoming less affordable too</a>, even if those pesky kids quit spending their deposit on avocado toast. A report released by the Office of National Statistics last year revealed that on average, full-time workers could expect to pay an estimated 7.8 times their annual workplace-based earnings on buying a home in England or Wales in 2018. The figure was 7.6 times annual earnings in 2016 and 3.6 times earnings in 1997. And these figures are based on people in full-time employment - this does not take into account the gig economy or people languishing on zero hours contracts when they would love job stability.<br />
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This is not catastrophising or being what Boris Johnson, a man who cares little for facts, stats, details or nuance, would call a "doomster and gloomster". This is modern reality.<br />
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So, well played, sadists! Take a fucking bow. You're achieving your dream of the next generation having it worse than you did. If this is what you need to do to feel proud, I feel sorry for you - but I feel even more sorry for the young people who are genuinely suffering, even if you're deluding yourself that they're all pampered softies living a life of luxury.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by kai Stachowiak</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-12629980605073262662020-01-01T11:17:00.000-08:002020-01-01T11:17:45.088-08:00Childhood memories up in flames<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In 1982, I was six years old and we lived in a cul-de-sac called Nicholi Crescent in Wagga Wagga, Australia. Everyone knew each other - we used to play tennis on a makeshift court painted onto the road by a neighbour, safe in the knowledge that no cars would ever speed through. At the end of the dead end, there were acres of long grass - we played there too, never thinking of the possibility of a snakebite, in pre-nanny state Australia. These days, the long grass has been replaced by houses, the cul-de-sac bulldozed into a street, although it's still called Nicholi Crescent. A snoop on Google Street View shows that our old house still has the terrible yellow 1970s glass on the front, although the magnificent Nicholi gum tree, the one in which I got stuck in 1986, is gone.</div>
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One warm Thursday night in 1982, we got home from late night shopping to find the end of Nicholi Crescent on fire. Everyone was staring from their front lawns as the fire brigade went to work. I even remember what I was wearing - pale blue pedal pushers and a blue floral shirt handed down to me from close family friends with slightly older daughters. My photo ended up in the local paper, the Daily Advertiser. It was a picture of me, my mother and the old lady next door with concerned expressions on our faces, but nobody was hurt and nobody lost their home.</div>
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It was terribly exciting. </div>
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Being in the paper was akin to being famous for a few days in Wagga Wagga in the 1980s. The next day, I got to wear my pink dress to school - unafraid of burglary, the windows were left open when we went shopping and my uniform, lovingly, nerdishly laid out for Friday, reeked of smoke. I had a great story for class news that day - a fire, the newspaper photographer, my pink dress in a sea of blue and yellow checked school uniforms - I loved the attention. </div>
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But that was 38 years ago. I can't remember what caused the fire at the end of Nicholi Crescent but neither can I remember any discussion of climate change. Throughout my Australian childhood, serious bushfires across the country made the news in summer, there were long, hot days, and droughts. But this summer's fires and temperatures have gone to the next level. This time, bushfire season started in September, which is still spring in Australia. </div>
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It has been relentless. For many farmers, droughts have become the norm rather than the exception, and yet still, Scott Morrison refuses to accept that the climate is changing, that it cannot be ignored as a factor in these horrific, destructive fires. </div>
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In 2013, the CSIRO (Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) released a report which found that Australia can expect higher temperatures, more extreme heat and longer fire seasons. Then, in 2014, the CSIRO released a report that found since the beginning of the 20th century, average annual temperatures have increased and, crucially, in the 50 years leading up to 2014, temperatures increased at twice the rate than in the previous 50 years. Alongside this increase, rainfall has decreased. The data is real and there was a time when it wasn't being ignored.</div>
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In 2011, Prime Minister Julia Gillard introduced a carbon tax - in three years, this tax helped reduce carbon emissions but in 2014, Prime Minister Tony Abbott repealed the tax and ramped up coal production and carbon emissions have been increasing ever since. The summers keep getting hotter, the coral of the magnificent Great Barrier Reef is suffering a visible extinction event, and this year's bushfires have, at the time of writing, destroyed more than 900 properties, killed nine people with four people missing, and burnt more than 5.1 million hectares. Oh, and funding for the CSIRO has been cut by the federal government, which should surprise nobody who knows about this wretched government's anti-science, anti-environment agenda.</div>
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It is no longer terribly exciting. </div>
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The fire at the end of my street in 1982 happened at a time when there was limited awareness about the human impact on climate. It all seemed so innocent at the time but we had no idea that we were contributing in ways big and small to the situation we have today. </div>
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It's easy to mock Greta Thunberg for saying her childhood has been stolen. It is easy to say that she should be in school, that she is being manipulated by powers bigger than her, but she is right to suggest that economic growth is meaningless if it comes at great environmental cost. Instead of directing ire at a teenager (and in some vile cases, expressing a desire to inflict physical violence on her), that energy would be better spent finding solutions.</div>
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Unfortunately, I can't see the Australian government stepping up any time soon.</div>
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<i>If you're feeling powerless to help Australia, especially from other countries, here are some links where you can make donations, although it would be nice if the federal government stepped up and ensured adequate funding made its way to the states. If this summer is any indication, Australia will not be able to continue to rely on volunteers to back up the full-time firefighters. Scott Morrison's thoughts and prayers can, with all due respect, get in the bin.</i></div>
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<a href="https://www.redcross.org.au/campaigns/disaster-relief-and-recovery-bushfires" target="_blank">Red Cross Bushfire Appeal </a></div>
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<a href="https://quickweb.westpac.com.au/OnlinePaymentServlet?cd_community=NSWRFS&cd_currency=AUD&cd_supplier_business=DONATIONS&action=EnterDetails" target="_blank">New South Wales Rural Fire Service</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/about/supporting-cfa" target="_blank">Victoria Country Fire Authority</a></div>
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<a href="https://donate.vinnies.org.au/appeals-nsw/vinnies-nsw-bushfire-appeal-nsw" target="_blank">St Vincent de Paul</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/midcoast-bush-fire-relief" target="_blank">The Lions Club appeal for the north coast of New South Wales</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-thirsty-koalas-devastated-by-recent-fires" target="_blank">Port Macquarie Koala Hospital</a></div>
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Photography by Kim Newberg</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-8669311570152226992019-12-13T06:34:00.000-08:002019-12-13T07:09:27.309-08:00What next after the Johnson triumph?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"Get Brexit done!" That's what cut through at this election as swathes of once-safe Labour seats fell to the Conservative Party, particularly in the north of England. Just as "Take back control!" was an appealing, simple message during the EU referendum campaign, after three years of abject incompetence in trying to leave the EU, "Get Brexit done!" sounded very appealing.<br />
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It doesn't matter now that plenty of useless architects of the Brexit negotiation shitshow have kept their seats in parliament, or that if the spectacularly self-serving Boris Johnson and others had voted for Theresa May's still-terrible-but-better-than-Johnson's-deal, we'd be out of the EU by now. That's all completely irrelevant.<br />
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It doesn't even matter that "Get Brexit done!" - as if it's going to be quick, easy and painless, and then we can just get on with other things - is a massive, simplistic lie. It worked. It resonated with people. Labour wasn't able to compete on that playing field, even if it would actually make sense for Corbyn to stay neutral during a second referendum campaign and then implement the result untainted by how he campaigned - that was a major stumbling block for Theresa May. Corbyn's Brexit stance became irrelevant. And, ironically, he has always been a Brexiter.<br />
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Jeremy Corbyn has to resign. He should have resigned in his concession speech, clinging to a few shreds of dignity. Labour has lost two elections on his watch.<br />
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It doesn't matter what he promised in his manifesto. Out on the doorsteps, especially in the north of England, the Midlands and South Wales, he is not appealing to voters. It doesn't matter how deeply you analyse his manifesto. Out on the doorsteps, the feedback is that he's too far to the left, he's an overgrown student protester, he comes across as being happiest when he's churning out pamphlets on a creaking old Gestetner in an Islington basement rather than leading a country.<br />
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Boris Johnson, meanwhile, was able to get away with puking out endless, easily disproved lies, promises that will be impossible to keep even with a healthy majority, hiding in a fridge, pocketing a reporter's phone, refusing to be interviewed by Andrew Neil and running away from small groups of protesters for bullshit security reasons, mostly because people cut him some slack. He's a truly terrible human being, a self-serving, over-promoted charlatan and a pathological liar, but people still fall for the contrived lovable rascal act.<br />
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And let's not forget anti-semitism in Labour. It is there and it is real. It is still not being properly addressed and this was not lost on large numbers of Jewish voters, as well as non-Jewish voters who are not prepared to throw their Jewish friends under a bus. There is plenty of racism and bigotry among Conservative Party ranks and it would be naive to deny that, but it's never a good look for anyone to resort to whataboutery when their own issues with racism are called out. It's not good enough to dismiss charges of anti-semitism with a wave of the hand and a sniff or to minimise anti-semitism as somehow being a lesser form of racism. Labour needs to deal with this issue properly as part of its process of renewal.<br />
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If Labour can't work out what has gone wrong from the top down over the last few years, it will not be an effective opposition in the days, months and years to come. It will not be in a position to hold a Boris Johnson government to account. A strong, credible opposition is essential for a functioning democracy in a civilised society. We do not have this right now, and at this moment, we need this more than ever.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by DPP Business & Tax/Flickr</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-90206878187655293052019-10-13T10:19:00.001-07:002020-10-08T10:29:36.608-07:00Leaving women alone should not be a big deal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This blog post should be filed squarely under "I cannot believe this even needs to be said" but here we go... Yesterday, Mallory Hagan, a former candidate for Congress and Miss America 2013, tweeted the following truth which should be self-evident:</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Dear every man in America,
I’m sitting at the bar by myself because I want to. Please be self-aware enough to know when we are simply not interested in carrying on conversation.
Sincerely, </i></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #14171a; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>All women</i></span></span></div>
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Sadly, it should come as no surprise that this tweet triggered men far and wide and soon Mallory had to deal with an online pile-on from overgrown, entitled toddlers throwing testosterone tantrums (with apologies to the perfectly adorable and polite toddlers I know). And there were, depressingly, a few women joining in - generally the "but I love being chatted up!" brigade.</div>
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Let's go through some of the asinine responses to break down why they're tweeting utter horseshit, shall we? *rolls up sleeves, has bottle of brain bleach at the ready*</div>
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Of course Stefan Molyneux piped up. Any opportunity to be a misogynistic dick, eh Stef? He tweeted:</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>"Drinking alone in public with a hostile and entitled attitude.
RUUUUUUN!!!!!"</b></span></span></div>
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I see you, Stef. I fucking see you. You think that if you say something rude about a woman and then imply that this makes her unattractive to men everywhere then she'll realise the error of her ways and go out of her way to make sure next time a man talks to her, she'll fawn all over him whether she wants to or not. You big hero, Stef! Look at you speaking up for the men who feel entitled to conversation from every woman they meet, claiming that you're actually helping them rather than telling women what to do. Because that's not at all creepy...</div>
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And now for a tweet from a guy who, without irony, claims to know why all women do the things they do:</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: blue;">"No woman goes alone to a bar/club if she is not looking for attention. She goes with her girlfriends."</span></b></span></div>
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Sorry, but you clearly don't know any women who travel regularly for work (or indeed women who have gone out on the pull with a few girlfriends - and that's perfectly fine too). I am a woman who travels for work. Sometimes I want to have a quiet drink after a long day working. Inevitably, I've been talking to people all day, I'm possibly jetlagged and the last thing I feel like is a conversation with a stranger. But I might want a glass of wine and some time alone. I might use the time to lazily scroll through the news on my phone, check emails, write up my notes or I might just want to have a drink and watch the passing parade. Whatever the case, it's nobody's business but mine.</div>
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If someone tries to talk to me under these circumstances, I quickly and politely let that person know I'm not interested in a conversation - as I'm sure Mallory does too, judging by her patient replies to the idiotic tweets. Usually I am then left in peace. Sometimes I feel the need to flash my wedding ring and let it be known that I am married - but I shouldn't have to do that, just as a single woman shouldn't feel obliged to invent a husband or boyfriend to be left alone. But if someone is persistent and you're alone, especially if you're far from home, that is the kind of thing that women often feel they have to do to feel safe without causing offence. </div>
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We are conditioned to not cause offence, to always be polite and demure, even if we're receiving unwanted attention and don't feel safe. That is how fucked up things still are for women. </div>
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Then there's the tweet from the guy who assumes that a woman who wants to be left alone will suddenly change her mind when an Adonis appears at the bar:</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: blue;">"Translation: “Unattractive Beta males should know their place and not approach me. If you are attractive it’s your duty to approach me.”</span></b></span></div>
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This guy would be stunned to know that there are women who don't want to be approached at a bar by anyone, regardless of where they might fall on the scale of attractiveness, conventional or otherwise. Of course, it could be that a good-looking man might enter the bar, the lone woman may spot him and it could be one of those love-or-at-least-lust-at-first-sight moments and if she decides to have a conversation with him, that's her right just as it is to ignore him - except that LIFE IS NOT A GODDAMN MOVIE! There are myriad reasons why a woman might be drinking alone in a bar and for many of us, it wouldn't matter who walked through the door, we'd still like to have a drink in blissful solitude. </div>
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And there were plenty of tweets mansplaining bars to Mallory, such as this genius:</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: blue;">"People go to bars to SOCIALIZE. It's that kind of place." </span></b></span></div>
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The use of capital letters always makes a point more valid, right? And sure, the majority of people in any given bar probably are there to socialise. But that doesn't mean that people who want to have a drink by themselves should stay away. If a solo individual wants to buy a drink, whoever owns the bar is hardly likely to stop them give they're in the business of making money through selling drinks. Anyone who tweeted this sort of tripe while claiming to be a free market capitalist is, with all due respect, an idiot. </div>
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And here we go with one Dr Saad. He's a professor of evolutionary biology, according to his Twitter bio. But here he proves that having a PhD does not exempt a man from being a dick:</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: blue;"><b>"If you are sitting at a bar, it is perfectly reasonable for people to think that you are open to social interactions. It takes a lot of courage for most men to approach women. If they do so politely, act kindly rather than as a smug schmuck to half of humanity. Dr. Saad- A man"</b></span></span></div>
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No, Prof, it's not "perfectly reasonable for people to think you are open to social interactions". You have no idea why that woman is alone in the bar. Maybe she has just received some bad news and wants to process it over a drink. Maybe she is there to get away from a pesky man in another bar. And sure, you won't know unless you approach her - but if you approach her with the assumption that she is "open to social interactions", you're already being an entitled twat.</div>
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And, yes, I get it - it takes courage to approach a woman, just as women may need to summon up courage to approach a man - or just as any of us have to summon up courage to have any number of difficult conversations in this life. But even if it took every ounce of courage you possess to talk to a woman in a bar, she still does not owe you her time or a conversation. You do not get to assume that she really wants a man to insert himself into the situation or into any other part of her life or anatomy.</div>
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At no point did Mallory suggest that women shouldn't "act kindly" if someone approaches them politely so to go straight to accusing her of being a "smug schmuck to half of humanity" is a rather un-nuanced escalation for someone who claims to be an academic.</div>
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This tweet is just the academic version of the common man-whine of "How are men and women meant to get together if men can't talk to women anymore?". Sit down. Nobody is saying men can't talk to women. We are simply saying we don't owe you anything if you talk to us and if we make it clear we're not interested, back off. Men and women are still getting together, and if they are doing so in a more mutually respectful manner these days, that's a good thing. </div>
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And then there is the patronising oversimplification from a man:</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: blue;">"Try this simple hack: “Nice to meet you, I’m not interested in talking right now.” Works every time"</span></b></span></div>
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No, it doesn't work every time. If a polite response worked every time, it wouldn't be a problem for women. How the hell would a man know if it works every time anyway? He is only speaking from his own experience. If he can accept that a woman is not interested, good for him but he can't assume that every man who is politely turned away will take no for an answer. </div>
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There were plenty of responses to Mallory's tweet along the lines of a sarcastic "the struggle is real", as if she is detracting from what a bunch of men on the internet have decided to deem as genuine oppression against women. The struggle is real. We know the struggle is real because conversations where women have told someone they're not interested have ended up in their rape or murder. That's why it's a struggle and that's why we have the right to be angry about this issue along with the thousands of other reasons from around the world for why feminism should still exist.</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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And here are a few terrible responses from women, such as this one:</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: blue;">"Well Mallory, there are many of us women out here who adore men. In fact, take me as an example: I quite prefer conversation with a man over a self-absorbed puppet propaganda female."</span></b></span></div>
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Thank you for perpetuating the myth of the man-hating feminist. It is possible to "adore men" and expect these adorable creatures to show us respect if we want to be left alone. You are perfectly entitled to talk to men instead of women. Literally nobody is stopping you from doing this. </div>
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And just as there are patronising men, there are women who are not above patronising other women:</div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: blue;">"Dear men,
Not all women are like this. If you speak to me, I’m perfectly capable of being polite. I’m often blessed by the stories/people I meet when I don’t close myself off. A brief conversation never hurt anyone. And listening is a valuable skill to develop. Sincerely, me."</span></b></span></div>
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Oh yawn. Any civilised adult is "perfectly capable of being polite". The problem is that a polite refusal is not always respected. Good for you that you've been "blessed" by the strangers that you've met because you don't "close yourself off". But nobody should be expected to be permanently open to chatting to strangers, no matter how fascinating they may be. As for the patronising guff about listening being a valuable skill to develop, it is precisely because I've spent all day listening to people that I might want a drink by myself when I'm off duty. </div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; color: #14171a; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span face=", , , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: #f5f8fa; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="color: blue;">"Dear Men, when I was single, I was mature enough to carry on a conversation with men, and when their attention was unwanted or inappropriate, to let them know that I wasn’t interested. PS, you all responded as mature humans as well."</span></b></span></div>
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And this is the terrible female equivalent of the "simple hack" man. Just as he has never seen an example of a bad situation as a result of a woman rejecting a man politely, this lucky woman is here to tell us that when she politely rejected men, 100% of the time they "all responded as mature humans". That's great but extrapolating from the example of one is stupid. </div>
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If you refuse to recognise that not every polite refusal ends in a civilised manner, you are denying the real experiences of real women than happen all over the world every day. When these interactions go sour, at best, it might result in an awkward conversation - but, hey, nobody ever died of embarrassment, right? Or it could escalate to an angry conversation. Or it could end in unwanted touching, which could be an insistent hand on the arm, hand or thigh or it could be rape or murder. </div>
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Because men who feel entitled to a conversation from a woman can easily be the men who feel entitled to our bodies.</div>
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I stand with Mallory.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by Frederic Poirot/Flickr</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-77693211914948050292019-09-18T13:09:00.001-07:002019-09-19T04:02:53.587-07:00Britain: the spoiled toddler of Europe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We got home in the early hours of this morning from a brilliant holiday on the Greek island of Rhodes. Everywhere we went, my Australian self and my British husband did not have to trouble ourselves with knowing a word of Greek, apart from "Yamas!" when the beers arrived. </div>
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Waiters, bar tenders, hotel receptionists, hotel cleaners, the woman in the mini market, people urging us to have fish pedicures and walk through a giant lion's mouth to enter a club in Faliraki, the guys who take the money for the sunloungers on the beaches, the cheerful car hire bloke - they all spoke good English. Better than good. Way better than anything I could burp out in Greek. And then you'd see them talk to other people and effortlessly swing from Greek to French to German to Italian and back to English for the monolingual people.</div>
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Because that is what Brits (and Australians and Americans...) have come to expect - that everyone will speak English. </div>
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I couldn't sneer at the Greek waiter who said "Lovely jubbly!" as he took our order at a beachside taverna, even though I find Jamie Oliver chronically irritating. After all, he took the time to learn a popular English catchphrase for our benefit. If I was waiting on tables in London and that waiter turned up, I wouldn't be able to muster a single Greek catchphrase to welcome him. I could manage some schoolgirl German, maybe some French and Italian babble that would make me sound like a reject from <i>'Allo, 'Allo</i>, but I'd be flattering myself if I thought I could hold entire conversations with our nearby neighbours in their own language.</div>
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But the cliche of the British tourist expecting to be pandered to, coddled and pampered like an obnoxious toddler is true. You do see British holidaymakers talking loudly and slowly, creating halitosis mirages in the faces of bemused Europeans. It's embarrassing (and I'm only British by presumption and association when I travel with my husband) but it's a microcosm of how Britain expects to be treated by the European Union. </div>
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And we have been treated very well as members of the EU. We are not compelled to have multilingual road signs. Our driving distances are measured in miles, not metric. We can order a pint rather than 568 millilitres of beer. We have kept the pound as our currency rather than adopting the euro. We are not part of the Schengen zone. We have the power to deport Europeans for reasons of security and if they are a burden on the welfare system. We would have had even more rights in terms of deporting EU citizens under the deal David Cameron negotiated before the referendum - if we'd voted to stay in the EU. Ironically, he did a better job of negotiating with the EU than any of the lazy, low-information charlatans who have turned up to Brussels since the referendum still expecting special treatment.</div>
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It is pitiful to see Brexiters whine about the EU being mean to them when all they are doing is enforcing what it means to leave the EU. The four freedoms are indivisible - if you voted to leave the EU, you literally voted to give up those freedoms. You can poke your bottom lip out and wobble it all you like, but that is what you did. At least have the courage and awareness to own your shit.</div>
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If we do end up leaving the EU on October 31, we don't yet know the level of chaos that will ensue. Only a masochist would want things to go badly. But there are some things that will become more difficult, things that many of us haven't even considered. There are no cheaper, smoother alternatives for British companies who benefit from supply chains through Europe - and this is not just for exporting to the EU. Anyone with a map of the world can see that the port of Antwerp offers an easy route to Africa, for example. </div>
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There is a world of crap facing the travel industry too. Trust me, I report on it for a living. Bus drivers who drive in Europe will need EU-approved certificates of professional competence as UK certificates would become invalid in a no-deal Brexit. Insolvency protection for UK retailers selling to EU customers and vice versa will become way more complicated, such as those who sell travel products. UK travel companies will need to take out insolvency protection for each EU market into which they sell. EU-based tour operators will need to be ATOL members. UK travel agents will need proof that non-UK organisations they work with comply with separate UK regulations.</div>
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But supply chains and ease of working for bus drivers and insolvency protection for the travel industry and Antwerp - that's all boring, right? If anyone read the paragraph above in its entirety, I'd be stunned. <a href="http://travelbulletin.co.uk/news-mainmenu/mixed-news-for-the-travel-industry-as-brexit-uncertainty-continues" target="_blank">Here's the link</a> to a story I wrote on it if you can be arsed.</div>
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No matter what I write, there are still plenty of people who are fetishising any possible hardships, spouting tedious bumper sticker slogans about how we survived two world wars and we just need to invoke the Blitz spirit. Except WWII ended 74 years ago. People who have never fired a shot in defence of anything are carrying on as if they were there, underneath Luftwaffe bombs and enduring rationing. It was a bloody awful time. </div>
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We survived? My arse, we did. We didn't have to do anything because most of us weren't yet born or we were too young to really remember - and for that we should be grateful for the generations before us. But in the online peanut galleries, it is the Brexiters who are claiming a monopoly on respecting the sacrifices of our largely long-dead soldiers. That's bullshit.</div>
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The desire in particular to see young people suffer post-Brexit is particularly vile. When did people stop wanting the next generation to have a better, easier life? My grandfather, who saw the horrors of WWII up close in Papua New Guinea and Japan, was always grateful that his son and daughter and my sister and I did not have to go to war. He did not want us to see what he saw and he did not want our young adulthoods blighted by war and suffering because he was decent and rational.</div>
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And as the days grind on, ever closer to October 31, it's obvious Boris Johnson, our wretched joke of a prime minister, has nothing to offer. He has no real desire or ability to negotiate anything with the EU. All he has is meaningless arse-waffle about "believing" and "getting on with it" and "clean breaks". It's the Brexiters who are all about the feelz, even when the attempts by the government to negotiate a deal that won't damage the economy collide with reality and dissipate into a fine powder of delusion. </div>
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This country is behaving like a spoiled toddler. I hope we're not the poorer for it. If the Brexiters prove me wrong, fine. So be it. But spare me the WWII analogies - they're historically ignorant and you're embarrassing yourself like a prime minister who runs away from a bunch of middle-aged protestors in Luxembourg.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-3471169194898161202019-08-30T09:28:00.002-07:002019-08-30T09:28:55.226-07:00Of dead cats and trial balloons...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<i>Dead cat: Apparently coined by political strategist, Lynton Crosby, it is something said or done to draw attention away from unpleasant news.</i></div>
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<i>Trial balloon: A project, scheme or idea that is tentatively announced to test the reaction.</i> </div>
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There is nothing particularly new about dead cats or trial balloons, but in the last few months, we've had enough dead cats dropped on us to fill a Stephen King novel and the sky is so full of trial balloons, everyone has received an online petition about it from Greenpeace.</div>
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Basically, the government wants to know how far it can go, exactly how strong is our appetite for assorted populist, right-leaning policies and how loud and effective are the dissenters. And when something awful is happening, a diversion will be created.</div>
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The two most obvious trial balloons of recent months were flown by the chronically misnamed Centre for Social Justice,</div>
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A think-tank, led by Iain Duncan Smith, floated the idea of <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/uk/retirement-75-state-pension-age-increase-iain-duncan-smith-think-tank-report-explained/" target="_blank">increasing the age when the state pension can be accessed</a>, to 75. The CSJ put the proposal forward and it wasn't long before it was howled down by many. It was a bold move for a conservative think-tank led by a Tory politician, considering the reliance by the Conservative Party on older voters.</div>
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IDS himself spluttered out a tweet which made a valiant attempt to put a positive spin on a policy that would make many a tired, overworked voter furious:</div>
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"Removing barriers for older people to working longer has the potential to improve health and wellbeing, increase retirement savings and ensure the full functioning of public services for all."</div>
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Never mind that this policy would lead to many people placing further strain on public services, such as the NHS, because they've worked long after their bodies have started begging for a rest. As if he cares about that - it's all about saving money on the state pension, the biggest proportion of the welfare bill.</div>
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A 75 retirement age was never government policy and may never happen, but the reaction to the balloon was probably very instructive for the government.</div>
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The other trial balloon from the CSJ was to urge Home Secretary Priti Patel to make the <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/home-secretary-priti-patel-urged-to-impose-36000-minimum-salary-on-visa-applicants/" target="_blank">minimum wage for visa applicants £36,700</a>, effectively eliminating people from coming to work in the UK in most nursing, teaching, hospitality and aged care jobs. Despite the obvious labour shortages that such a policy would create pretty quickly, particularly with an ageing population (but, hey, maybe we can look forward to a country where the average care home worker is over 70...), this idea seemed to be a bit more popular, particularly with anti-immigration voters who are being courted by the Conservative Party, lest the Brexit Party parks too many more tanks on the manicured Tory lawns. </div>
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I'm sure it has given Priti Patel much food for thought - and I wouldn't be surprised if she finds it rather tasty indeed.</div>
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Of course, both trial balloons caused insta-outrage across social media, even though neither was actually government policy. That said, awful ideas should be challenged loudly because complacent acceptance can be taken as consent.</div>
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Meanwhile, dead cats have been distracting us particularly in recent times. The two most obvious dead cats are the ridiculous Jacob Rees-Mogg issuing a <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2019-07-26/itv-news-exclusive-jacob-rees-mogg-issues-style-guide-to-staff/" target="_blank">ridiculous style guide</a> for his staff to use in written correspondence, and Boris Johnson absurdly claiming he paints wooden buses as a hobby.</div>
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While the country was generally united in saying "What a dickhead!" in regard to the Rees-Mogg style guide, Boris Johnson was getting his arse handed to him in Brussels over his delusional rhetoric about negotiating a whole new deal before Halloween. It was probably around then that he realised he had all the negotiating power of a kitten trying to wrest a zebra steak off a lion and started investigating proroguing parliament - or asking Dominic Cummings to look into it for him, because Johnson is essentially a lazy bugger. Negotiation has never been his strong suit.</div>
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And Johnson's own dead cat - the admission that he makes <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-48766451/boris-johnson-i-make-models-of-buses" target="_blank">model buses from old wine crates</a> for fun - was possibly a work of evil genius. Anyone who seriously thinks Boris Johnson paints model buses in between his busy schedule of shagging, abusing exclamation marks in official letters, farting, spilling red wine on sofas and bellowing bumper sticker slogans instead of answering journalists' questions properly, is either naive or stupid. There is a theory that he was advised, possibly by a digitally savvy member of his team, to confess to this dorky hobby so that whenever someone Googles something like "Boris Johnson bus", the demonstrably dishonest red bus of the EU referendum campaign <a href="https://www.thepoke.co.uk/2019/06/27/theres-a-theory-about-boris-johnsons-bus-box-nonsense-will-blow-your-mind/" target="_blank">drops off the search engine's top results</a>. </div>
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Sure enough, I just Googled "Boris Johnson bus" and the first page spat out three model bus stories and three videos on this story at the top. The image search results still lead with Johnson standing in front of the bus promising an extra £350 million a week to the NHS if we leave the EU, but the search results are certainly less embarrassing than they were before that story broke.</div>
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As a bonus for Boris Johnson, while everyone was saying: "Model buses? Really?", the heat died down around the story about his row with girlfriend Carrie Symonds, in which the police were called to her flat. </div>
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Johnson is not afraid to look silly. Indeed, his ludicrous persona has helped him get so far with minimal challenge, so pretending to make buses from wine crates is a minor example of buffoonery compared to his litany of contrived wackiness. His whole manufactured eccentric schtick is possibly the biggest dead cat of them all.</div>
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And the biggest trial balloon of them all? The one that could rival the movie <i>Up</i> for its house-lifting properties? Proroguing parliament, of course. This is a classic example of Johnson, with the able assistance of Cummings, seeing what they can get away with. It was so easy. He knew the Queen was not going to tell him to fuck off. </div>
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A much-longer-than-average prorogation of five weeks may only mean a few less sitting days in the House of Commons, because of the party conference recess, but for Johnson, it reduces the time for proper parliamentary debate, and further scrutiny is shut down as the House of Lords and all select committees must close under prorogation. This is sinister. If Theresa May tried to do this to force the passing of her EU deal, there would be outrage across the political spectrum, no doubt with plenty of sexist abuse thrown in for good measure. If a Labour government pulled this stunt, the accusations of Stalinist tactics would fly thick and fast.</div>
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But already Brexiters are accusing remainers of panicking over a little shut-down and gleefully celebrating the fact that the prorogation makes a no-deal Brexit on October 31 more likely. The trial balloon is having the desired effect. Dominic Cummings is playing a blinder and we'll probably all be poorer for it.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-46780103534431105912019-07-21T10:55:00.000-07:002019-07-21T10:55:10.236-07:00On being told to go home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I'm an immigrant. I was not born in the UK, my passport says I'm Australian. But I have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, I am married to a British man, I work here, I pay tax here, I vote here. I am a privileged immigrant - I have not been subjected to horrendous racism in the eight years that I have lived here. Of course, I have been told more than once that I'm "the kind of immigrant we like", which is usually code for "white skin, native English speaker, not a Muslim" - that is obviously racist too - but I have never been subjected to the sort of racist abuse that leaves people fearing for their personal safety.<br />
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Only once have I been told to go home. It happened a few weeks ago on Twitter (where else?) when I had the temerity to express an opinion on the sorry state of British politics. Some faceless, nameless, gutless individual felt the need to reply to me, saying that if I don't like it here, I can always go back to Australia. The tweet was accompanied by a picture of an angry bloke holding a blue passport. (Spoiler alert: I've had a blue passport my whole life and they're not that exciting...).<br />
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But plenty of people get told to go home all the time. It's tiresome, it's repetitive, it's wearing and, above all, it's racist. When the president of the United States uses the "go home, go back to where you came from" rhetoric, it's still racist. The two men who are vying to be the next prime minister, however, were unable to say that Trump's words were racist.<br />
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In a particularly pathetic display on BBC Breakfast, Jeremy Hunt said he wouldn't use "the r-word". The r-word? Really? It's one thing to say "the n-word" rather than lower oneself to use a particularly vile racial slur against black people but to reduce a word that was entirely accurate in the context to "the r-word" is pitiful. He then went on to say that he was the father of two half-Chinese children, as if that made everything OK. It doesn't make anything OK. If anything, it makes things worse - if some cretin told Jeremy Hunt's kids to go back to where they came from, would he condemn that person as a racist? Or is it only people we're seeking trade deals from that get a leave pass to be a bigot?<br />
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Of course, that was everyone's defence of the mealy-mouthed responses of Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt to Trump's awful comments. It's the Special Relationship! They're our closest ally! We need to do a trade deal after Brexit! Ilhan Omar's a racist too!<br />
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A few things: the special relationship predates the Trump administration and it will long outlive his presidency and the premiership of either Johnson or Hunt; trade deals take years to negotiate and a negotiation with the US will almost certainly go on for longer than our next PM is in office; and if a trade deal is done in a hurry, it will not be a great deal for the UK. Trump means it when he says "America first".<br />
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And in regard to Ilhan Omar, it is possible to disagree with her position on a number of issues without resorting to one of the oldest racist insults in the book. We should be better than that, but it seems that, increasingly, we are not.<br />
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We've reached peak whataboutery when it comes to accusing people of racism, particularly in the Labour and Conservative parties. Anyone who dares call out anti-semitism in Labour is guaranteed to have someone yell "But what about Tory Islamophobia?" at them and vice versa. How about we aim to reach a place where none of it is OK? How about we stand up against racism without trampling on another group which also experiences racism and ensure our own houses are in order before we start deflecting attention to the house across the street?<br />
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This is how we've ended up with Katie Hopkins using her supposed support of Israel and Jewish people as sticks with which to bash Muslims, even though she is not above making anti-semitic comments herself and making allusions to a "final solution" or using dehumanising language when it comes to migrants. Hopkins merely picks on a group of people for her own self-promotion and profit. If it's not Muslims, it might be poor people or obese people or people with tattoos or any other group she seeks to demonise in her desperate quest to stay relevant. Any one of us could be her next target and her loyal band of haters will gleefully wave their pitchforks and join in the pile-ons.<br />
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It's no coincidence that Trump and Hopkins are in bed together, at least in the online world, with their cosy, bile-laden circle jerk of mutual tweeting.<br />
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Trump's comments matter on this side of the pond because many people over here look to him for inspiration, to legitimise their own awful views. We do need to maintain a relationship with the US but it is possible to do this without lowering ourselves to Trump's level. Britain must be better than that if we are at all serious about remaining an influential country, if we are serious about setting an example to the world, if we care about our standing in the global community and, above all, if we truly love this country and the people who call it home.<br />
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Photography by Jim Larrison/Flickr </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5829162137963866383.post-20641775455061612092019-06-23T11:17:00.001-07:002019-08-05T05:27:14.453-07:00When the news became a great big trigger warning...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The news cycle since last Thursday has been more unedifying than usual. Perhaps it is naive to expect that people would largely agree that the correct way to deal with a <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/06/21/mark-field-suspended-for-grabbing-protester-janet-barker-at-mansion-house-10024600/" target="_blank">peaceful protester at an elite dinner</a> is <i>not</i> to push her into a pillar and frogmarch her out, grabbing the back of her neck. And perhaps it is naive to expect that if a couple is having an argument so loud it can be heard in the street as well as in neighbouring flats, a reasonable response would be to knock on the door to see if everyone is OK and, if there is no response, call the police.</div>
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Yet here we are, arguing all over the internet about all this. I can only imagine how horrific it must be for so many women who have been victims of physical violence or domestic abuse, which can be physical, emotional, verbal or psychological - or an awful combination of these types.</div>
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On Thursday night, Janet Barker, a Greenpeace campaigner, along with a group of fellow activists, managed to barge into the Mansion House dinner just as Chancellor Phillip Hammond was about to give his speech. She was dressed in a red cocktail dress and heels, she carried a small bag, a phone and a bundle of leaflets, and she wore a Greenpeace sash. Her fellow protestors were similarly dressed - red cocktail dresses and sashes for the women and tuxedos for the men - and the obvious question is how did they get as far into the building as they did? It is astounding in these paranoid times, that they were not stopped at the entrance, bags X-rayed and leaflets inspected. I've been to events at the Houses of Parliament and Portcullis House and the security was on par with catching a plane.</div>
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But get into the dinner they did. And when Janet Barker walked towards the front of the room, Mark Field MP took it upon himself to stop her - which would have been fine if he'd handled it almost any other way other than the way he did. </div>
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He could have been a true class act and defender of free speech by stopping her, asking her to tell the room why she was there, and then handed her leaflets around the room. Or he could have steered her away by the arm rather than push her into a pillar and grab her by the scruff of the neck, his face magenta with instant rage.</div>
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For so many women who have been attacked in that manner, whether in public or private, the endless repetition of the footage for a solid two days cannot have been easy. The pushing into a wall, the grabbing of the neck, instantly weakening defences - it's appallingly familiar for too many. It gave me a brief flashback to the time <a href="https://therantmistress.blogspot.com/2017/11/on-believing-women.html" target="_blank">I was pulled off a footpath in Dubai</a> and pushed into a bush in an attempted sexual assault. And I managed to get away, albeit with laddered tights and a scratch on my chest. I can only imagine how much worse this footage would be for women who have suffered worse violence at the hands of men, especially over a sustained period of time.</div>
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Field's defence was that he "acted on instinct" but if that was his instinct, he really does need to take some time away to reflect as to why his immediate reaction was rage and excessive manhandling of a woman who was clearly representing a group known for peaceful protest. Please note that "peaceful" in this context means "non-violent", not "quiet" or "non-disruptive". The Greenpeace protesters who woke me up one morning in Durban in 2011 to protest a gas industry event in my hotel made a racket but nobody was in any danger. They were allowed to sing, bang drums in the street and chant unimpeded. One activist managed to get into the hotel business centre and change the wallpaper on the computers to the Greenpeace logo. There was no harm done. I giggled to myself when I went to the business centre to write up my notes from the gas event on one of the altered PCs - it was excellent mischief.</div>
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And nobody was in any real danger last Thursday night. </div>
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Nobody else at the dinner felt the need to react so disproportionately. Plenty of people who were at the Mansion House dinner were at the Conservative Party conference of 2017 when Simon Brodkin, a "prankster" (read: overgrown schoolboy who is about as funny as burning orphans), barged in and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2017/oct/04/man-interrupts-theresa-mays-speech-to-hand-her-p45-video" target="_blank">handed Theresa May a P45</a>. On that occasion, no male MPs felt the need to be a Billy Big-Balls hero and push Brodkin into the wall or frogmarch him out by scruff of the neck, Theresa May was the very model of British good manners when she took the P45 form in the same way that many a Brit is too polite not to take a leaflet from someone at the tube station, and the security guard who escorted Brodkin out did so with a single, gentle hand to the back.</div>
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Following on from the usual suspects defending Mark Field, news broke of a noisy row at Carrie Symonds' flat, which would not be newsworthy except the argument was with her partner, one Boris Johnson, the man most likely to be the next prime minister. He has been staying there after his second marriage broke up. God forbid he rent a place in Uxbridge, his actual constituency, but that would require him to show some sort of commitment to his job as an MP.</div>
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But I digress. As with any argument between a couple, only the couple knows the full story, but we do know this argument was loud enough to be heard on the street and through walls, Ms Symonds was heard saying "get off me" and "get out of my flat", Mr Johnson was heard saying "get off my fucking laptop" and smashing sounds were heard. It's the kind of language and sounds that are familiar to many a victim of domestic violence.</div>
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The ethics of the neighbours giving a recording of the altercation to the<i> Guardian</i> newspaper is being furiously debated - along with the ethics of other newspapers making hay from it all while spouting fauxrage at the neighbours who recorded the argument and claiming Ms Symonds is "furious" based on what <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9354092/boris-johnson-furious-partner-carrie-symonds-stitch-up-anti-brexit/" target="_blank">"friends" have apparently said</a>, rather than anything she has directly told a journalist. There is definitely an intelligent debate to be had about media ethics here, especially in regard to whether this endangers Ms Symonds' safety. The <i>Daily Mail</i>, in particular, should remove from its website a diagram of the apartment building, including a floorplan of Ms Symonds' flat - that invasive crap goes way beyond the public interest defence.</div>
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However, it is stunning that anyone says the police should not have been called. The ire has been directed at "nosy neighbours" and their own politics have been thoroughly dissected in today's papers. But in this sort of situation, where an argument can be easily heard outside a flat, where it sounds as if there are people in distress and possibly in physical danger, calling police is absolutely the right thing to do.</div>
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It is pretty common for police to arrive only to be told everything is fine, but there are plenty of occasions where the arrival of the police has saved someone's life or is the turning point for an abused partner to leave a dangerous relationship. In the wake of the Johnson-Symonds row, people have spoken up about how they were grateful for the neighbours who called the police, or how they would have left an abusive relationship sooner if the police were called earlier or, tragically, how people were left badly injured or killed because nobody picked up the phone.</div>
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I have been the "nosy neighbour". In 2005, I called the police multiple times on the couple in the flat across the hall from me in Sydney. They were drug addicts who would have noisy and violent fights that would spill out of their place and carry on outside the door to my flat, usually in the middle of the night. This went on for months. On one occasion, after I knocked on their door telling them to be quiet because I was trying to sleep, the woman bashed on my door when I was back in bed, yelling that she would "kick my cunt in". Then there was the day when I burst into tears at my desk, crying frustrated tears of distress and exhaustion because I was too sleep-deprived to do my job properly.</div>
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That story did not end happily. The parents of the woman called me, desperate for information about their daughter, particularly as they were caring for her child from a previous relationship. One night, the woman knocked on my door to tell me she was pregnant and too scared to tell her boyfriend - I told her she would have to start taking better care of herself if she was serious about continuing the pregnancy and that she should end the relationship. I let her know that her parents were very worried and would take her in. She told me it was too hard to leave him and scuttled back to her flat. The good news is that ultimately she did leave the toxic relationship, but not long afterwards, her boyfriend committed suicide in the flat - by this time I'd moved to Dubai and a friend who lived upstairs told me the sad, sorry story.</div>
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I don't regret calling the police. The police officers' interventions could have defused life-endangering situations, even if they always sent the police away and said they were fine. Calling the police several times was still the right thing to do. And it is the right thing to do, regardless of whether the couple is a wretched pair of drug addicts or a privileged couple who are on the verge of being the most powerful twosome in the country.</div>
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The more we argue about the morality pushing women into walls and grabbing their necks or whether we should call the police if we overhear a nasty argument, the less safe women will be. Why the hell is anyone who professes to be decent tolerating this?</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photography by George Hodan</span></div>
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