Labour: "The UK is putting women and girls at the heart of everything that we do."

Also Labour: "protect abusive men who push women to suicide"

This is shocking. But I’m not shocked.

The first thing I said when I heard thus was happening.

“Which anti rights activist wrote the letter?”

I’d love to have been wrong. To see science leading the decision…

But this has all become way too predictable to anyone who follows this stuff.

Pssst! Pass it on… Myself, @drrobertchapman.bsky.social and @emilywebz.bsky.social are looking to set up a radical bookshop in Newcastle! Follow us over at Instagram www.instagram.com/p/DVve2wlDXh...

'Government’s latest proposals would accelerate this cruel trend' Disabled people are being pushed into poverty - we must stop this now, says York Citizens Advice

Disabled people being pushed into poverty.

People with disabilities need support, not benefit cuts.

Requirement to score 4 points for an activity leads to loss of PIP support.

Govts attack human welfare whilst promoting corporate welfare.

We are all one event away from needing disability support

How democratic is the UK? The UK has a crisis of democracy

UK democracy in action.

Thousands of unpaid carers prosecuted for inadvertently breaching benefit rules.

No Post Office exec prosecuted for false prosecutions of postmasters.

In 2017, 72 people died in Grenfell fire. Execs “deliberately concealed” the fire risks of cladding. No one prosecuted.

Keir Starmer's Government Votes to Block UN Plan to Tackle Global Tax Avoidance The UK has joined with the United States and a handful of other rich nations in rejecting the UN push

Knowingly backing the filthy rich, at the expense of every-day struggling workers, is Kier Starmers drive for a better future.
#VoteHimOut #CorbynWasRight
Keir Starmer's Government Votes to Block UN Plan to Tackle Global Tax Avoidance – Byline Times bylinetimes.com/2025/02/04/k...

This is how it begins. Soon women will have to fork out money routinely to prove to rich men that they are female enough.

Women far from being equal to men they will be subjugated and strictly controlled.

Our understanding is that the police's entire "intelligence" basis for the raid was "a social media post about targeting the rich" rather than specific plans for any protests actions.

I don't dispute the Home Secretary's power to change terms through regulation, but if it's really as significant and 'existential' a shift as she claims she ought to have the courage to defend it in debate in parliament. She won't, because it's indefensible.

South West Water admits criminal offence over Devon parasite outbreak Firm admits supplying water unfit for human consumption after nearly 150 people fell ill

South West Water admits criminal offence over Devon parasite outbreak.

Water unfit for human consumption, 150 people fell ill.

SWW already has nearly 200 criminal convictions. Licence not cancelled, no exec prosecuted, record high customer bills, sewage dumped in rivers.

Privatisation is a scam.

This is the part of the report the government was forced to publish. Eventually. As quietly as possible.

#R4Today

The US is not a 'partner'. It's in their National Security Strategy to support far right parties that oppose multicultural liberal democracy here. They are behaving lawlessly at home and abroad, summarily executing their own citizens, and now bombing Iran with no coherent rationale or plan.

World politics already rippling back into British politics in potentially important ways

🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤔🙄
It’s an illegal war. You could help in other ways without letting them use bases.

The poetics of knowledge in the Anthropocene: Rancière and the politics of posthuman knowledge - Ben Bowsher, 2026 This paper responds to debates over the politics of knowledge in the Anthropocene, which often centres on affirmational and negative approaches to posthuman the...

for those committed theory heads, spend yr Saturday reading my first ever journal article. Its open access over at Progress in Human Geography:

The poetics of knowledge in the Anthropocene: Rancière and the politics of posthuman knowledge

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

And tell yer friends

This is perhaps too frank, but there’s something about being trained for a sector of the economy that is collapsing, something about having several markers of excellence to your name from that training… and finding yourself unable to get a job interview that just weighs very heavy after a while

So interesting to compare notes between the UK & South Africa

& see how all around the world the same rhetoric of anti-migrant hatred is being spread by the same rich people with the same interests in dividing & ruling over us.

A modern western capitalism dominated by fear - whether of immigrants, imported goods, or endlessly changing government intervention - is not conducive to growth.

That doesn't look likely to change any time soon.

that outfit has something of the inquisition about it

Southern Lebanon is the countries bread basket. This is both about depopulating the border region with Israel and putting economic pressure on a country already in economic crisis by disrupting their main domestic food supply.

Israel using starvation as a weapon of war... again.

KFC, Nando's, and others ditch chicken welfare pledge as demand soars Wingstop, Burger King, and others have walked away from an industry commitment to avoid using fast-growing chickens

KFC, Nando's, Burger King and others ditch chicken welfare pledge.

It is about profits.

They prefer "franken-chickens" which mature quicker but have higher rates of premature death and muscle disease.

What are people eating?

Customers not told anything about chicken welfare.

Results Gender-affirming surgeries were associated with a reduction in mental health treatment. Five years post-surgery, gender-affirming chest and genital surgery recipients respectively used 1.87 (95% CI 0.88; 2.80) and 5.03 (95% Cl 3.62; 6.44) fewer mental health services per annum. Mental health prescription utilization also decreased for chest surgery recipients [1.26 (95% C| 0.42; 2.10) fewer prescriptions at five years] but were not significantly different to the reference period for genital surgery recipients [0.01 (95% CI -1.03; 1.06) at five years]. Annual government spending on mental healthcare decreased by AU$430 (95% CI 270; 591) [US$310 (95% Cl 194; 425)] for chest surgery recipients and AU$884 (95% C| 545; 1,222) [US$636 (95% Cl 392; 880)] for genital surgery recipients at five years.

Gender-affirming healthcare doesn’t just save lives, it saves money, and on a much shorter timescale than you might think. New peer-reviewed research…

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Israel’s Illegal Occupation of Southwestern Syria Read Sam's full report here, funded by the CounterPunch Investigative Fund.

#israel #illegal-occupation #syria

When Israel seized the Golan Heights during the June 1967 war, most of Quneitra’s western plateau was emptied of its population, and more than 130 villages were destroyed, their lands absorbed into what became the Israeli-occupied Golan

Centrica boss to get £3.6m bonus despite sharp fall in profits Chris O’Shea will receive a total of £4.7m despite British Gas owner suffering a shareholder rebellion

The owner of British Gas will hand its chief executive... another salary increase despite a shareholder rebellion over its decision to raise his pay last year while households faced record levels of energy debt.

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

It's as if he ran a water company.

#R4Today

So much support from @northumbriauni.bsky.social students yesterday for @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social strikers - they have sent 1000s of emails to the university and SU, and one lad wanted to give us the free coffee vouchers ☕he got from the uni when his classes were cancelled! Solidarity! 🫶

The profits of business in the UK are so high that they could employ every single one of the 2.1m unemployed people in the UK.

And pay them £300,000 each.

But still they tell you there is 'no money' to employ people.

But we won't offer a vaccination for Covid for kids despite it being one of the most devastating illnesses of modern times..
Or admit that minimising vaccination for Covid has meant a weakening of uptake of all vaccinations
#measles

Men lose their Y chromosome as they age.

40 % of 60-year-old men show loss of of their Y.

Science shows that human biology is “dynamic” and adaptable, even in “adulthood.” reshaping long-held ideas about sex differences and hormone effects.

www.downtoearth.org.in/health/men-l...

They call you racist, they call you xenophobic, they call you islamophobic - every ism and phobe under the sun. But they never call you wrong,

A Rupert Lowe backing, Chinese speaking, UK nationalist, posting a painting by the Italian artist Raphael, of a possibly fictional Greek born Cappadocian who was appointed the patron saint of England by an Anglo Norman French speaking Plantagenet king.

What could possibly be more British than that?