Tag: corruption

Really? During a cost of living crisis and the most corrupt prime minister in history you want to talk about GENITALS?

By Daviemoo

The law states that a transgender person- regardless of gender reassignment surgery- is their stated gender. So yes, by law a woman can have a penis. Whether you personally think a woman can have a penis or not is a personal decision, and doesn’t- and shouldn’t- change the law. But if you don’t have more important things to focus on than someone else’s genitalia then you live in unimaginable privilege and it’s time someone told you that.

As a young boy I was given a never ending list of things that made a man a man. If I’d imbibed them all I suppose I’d consider myself not a man now- or I’d have tried to become the woman bedding wood chopping dilettante that is constantly touted as what a “real man” is. Ultimately, whilst society can have a broad consensus on what constitutes a man or a woman it’s really down to every single individuals’ personal feeling, an answer that will of course frustrate any transphobic or regressive folk who read this- but think about it.
You know you’re a woman, yes? What makes you a woman? Is it just a lack of a penis or is it a multitude of things? And if someone else gave you a list of what they think a woman is that conflicts with yours does that make you less of a woman or is it irrelevant?
There is your answer to this entire protracted exhausting debate around gender. To themselves and in the eyes of the law a trans person is their stated gender and you can’t and won’t change that any more than the fact they are that gender to themselves alters your gender. NOW CAN WE MOVE ON?

Every day the media assails us with endless rhetoric around whether women can have penises, why do we need to call it chest feeding, what about bathrooms and shelters and on and on- as if suddenly 70% of children instead of around 0.7% identified as trans, as though trans people are positively sweeping the globe! It’s the new catchy phenomenon- that affects less than 1% of people.

Ah but then of course comes the argument- should 99% of people be made uncomfortable by this less than 1% of people? No… but they aren’t. Transphobia is not the popular theory we’re constantly told it is by right wing knee jerk reactionaries like the person who prompted this article today, the ever ineffable Nick Ferrari. Most people don’t feel uncomfortable around trans people because most people realise that a trans person is a person trying to live their lives in a world that seems to be doing its utmost to hinder that. Would I expect women to be comfortable with the pontificating, red faced pillock that is Ferrari tumbling into their gym changing room and haranguing them about their dress size? No. But Ferrari isn’t identifying as a woman, because he isn’t one. There’s a gulf between a trans woman and a cis man and the constant ignoring of this fact is what drives most of us who are not trans but are fucking sick of the endless recycling of the anti trans talking points are fed up of.

How often do you see strangers’ genitals? Me, usually about 50 minutes after I’ve hopped on Grindr, and other than that never.

I avoid looking at people at the gym because I’m not a creep- and if you, like utterly obsessive people like Staniland, spend your time talking about furtively staring at the dangly parts of strangers in the hopes of justifying your moral outrage, you may come to realise that you are the spooky one, not the person just trying to use the facilities.

Ultimately, I feel I need to say this very clearly for transphobic people- and I’m sorry to my trans mates, I don’t mean this to sound as insensitive as it will but- the correct answer to “can a woman have a penis” is I DON’T CARE. I don’t care what’s in your pants, what you were born with or as, I don’t care. I care about you on an individual level and the only time your genitals factor in is if I want us to see each other naked or if you plan to weaponise them against me.
The stats clearly speak to the fact that trans people are not a danger, not simply because they barely exist in the first place but also because trans transgressions (say that five times fast…) barely exist as well!
Websites developed by TERFS would have you believe that around every 3rd turn in a city a trans person is waiting to assail you with what they conceal beneath their clothes- it’s confected outrage and the fact that so many people endlessly fall for it is so consternating. Maya Forstater claims to care for women and yet has declared previously she doesn’t believe in period poverty and only referenced the overturning of abortion legislation in the days after it was leaked to say WOMEN, NOT PEOPLE. Truly, picking at language is the real indicator that you’re a champion of women.

With all of the things going wrong in the UK right now- coronavirus killing approximately 83,000 of us a year, a government making their own corruption legally unassailable, the breakup of the union, the worsening war in Ukraine and our ever increasing march towards direct involvement- focusing on whether a person has an inny or an outy in their private personal area is the height of pathetic. If you feel like trans people are encroaching on your freedom you may want to double check you can still vote after the restrictions on ID came in. If you feel that trans people are taking your rights away I hope you dont want to protest about it because you literally can’t do that any more without risking legal repercussions. And if you feel trans people are dictating laws and sensibilities to you, you may want to know that the government is enforcing laws that means the far right are able to visit and speak at universities and cannot be turned away.
All of the posture, bluster and noise around trans rights has done absolutely nothing but allow actual fascistic rhetoric to embed itself and breed in the fabric of the UK- and that’s why when people tell you you’re supporting fascists and authoritarians, they’re right.

If people keep their genitals to themselves what they have shouldn’t concern you, and if you don’t believe trans people are who they say they are you have the legally protected right to think so- but you also can’t go around blustering at people about it because it’s rude- so you have what you want, you can air your views, you already have access to single sex spaces -but if it’s now gotten to the point that you’re dissecting, in depth, what genitals people have and don’t have you truly have walked off the reservation. I urge you to get some perspective and focus on actual tangible issues instead of the concealing of genitalia.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

Partygate: From Democracy to Mockery

By Daviemoo

As the met concludes the investigation they had to be pressured into a vast portion of the country is left asking ourselves: did the met police perform the coverup many of us suspected- and are we now stuck with a dead cat for a prime minister?

In November 2021 when news first broke of parties in Downing Street, there were many amongst our number in the UK who were less surprised that our government ministers would flout vital safety law than shocked it took so long for another scandal to surface.

At the time huge interest was piled onto those who were in the know: Pippa Crerar’s journalistic moxxie turned up evidence that Allegra Stratton, who had already been struggling as the tories’ answer to the UK press secretary in the form of Jen Psaki, had openly joked about the fact that the rules had been thrown off at the height of lockdown, giggling with her colleagues about cheese, wine and impropriety. The video showed what could charitably be referred to as distain for the rules as tory staffers laughed about ignoring safety guidance, especially in the line “and it was not socially distanced”. We wouldn’t have long to get used to Stratton’s face smirking across our screens before a new, HD Stratton video emerged: her resignation, tears running freely outside her house as she assured a raging public that she would “regret her actions for the rest of her life”. But what actions was Stratton referring to: she had merely joked about the rules being discarded by colleagues?
So naturally came the next line of questioning: if the woman who joked about laws being broken at the archaic heart of british democracy was to go- who else would? What would the punishment for this rule breaking behaviour be?

Cut dramatically to bombshell after bombshell: there were MULTIPLE parties! Sunak was at one! And it didn’t take long before the revelation we all waited for: Boris Johnson, prime minister was in attendance at not just one- but several- of these events.

Johnson, for his part had fallen on his usual habit of trying to lie his way out of trouble: after all, he lied his way into Downing Street on the promise of getting brexit done (how is that going, Prime Minister- fixed the border yet?). But the collective weight of grief, anger and appetite for truth (mixed as always with our obsession with scandal) meant the british public would not, as we have been told by a multitude of Johnsons’ staffers, “move on”. At first Johnson denied parties had taken place at all, the idea was ludicrous! Then he gravely assured us he was as furious as we were at the accusations- how very dare his silly staffers hold parties in his residence! Then came the denials that he attended any events himself- then photos of him at said events rolled in, to which he responded that it was not a party, it was a work event- then photographic evidence of him reclining with multiple staffers and his wife and the decorator for his flat appeared- was this a work event, with people who weren’t staff there? Well no, he said, it was a party- but he didn’t know it was a party you see, how could he, for the prime minister who flew from a meeting about Putin’s use of a deadly toxin on home soil to a KGB agent’s son’s party couldn’t possibly know what a party looks like- then when emails confirmed he did know it was a party the tact changed again- yes it was a party, he did know it was a party but he didn’t know parties were against the rules but he was very sorry and he would commission a report into it all so we could see the extent which our democracy was being mocked.

When the Gray report was inches from our outstretched fingertips suddenly the met police leapt into action- despite earlier stating they did not investigate retrospective breaches and predictably the line shifted from “just wait for the Sue Gray report” to “just wait for the conclusion of the met police investigation”. Wait, wait ,wait they said, forgetting it seems that while they threw back cheese and wine and laughed at podiums we had lost two years of our lives to isolation and now we were being asked to wait for justice to be served to those who couldn’t adhere to the same rules we had. Now the Gray report remains the only bastion of hope for holding the government to account – but therein lays the flaw that exposes the deepest issues we have with forcing this government to account for its wrongdoings: you cannot force someone to account for something they don’t feel regret over.

Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, the staffers- nobody feels remorse for their actions: they feel irked that they were exposed and embarrassed, angry that they had to divert resources away from what they actually care about to try and placate what they see as a sea of baying ingorami and confused that they should have to defend their actions. The line will go that “nobody died so who cares”. We are force fed lines about cake and Prosecco and how everyone just wants to be angry and offended. But not one amongst those who helped topple the respectability of british politics understands the root issue.

We- the people- were expected to follow these rules, asked to do as we were told, requested to do what was right, moral, safe- because at the same time as Johnson was quaffing wine and discussing the robustness of cheese with his colleagues, people were sat on the floor of their homes, desperately depressed and alone, mourning people whose chests were filling up with liquid as they drowned- funerals were held with barely any attendees. People were driven to suicide by trying to do the right thing and protect others. Mothers lost sons, sons lost fathers, fathers lost brothers. A million new disabled people, damaged in one or more ways by infection with a dangerous virus, many- most- of whom tried their best to avoid catching the coronavirus. We were told Johnson was only at one event for nine minutes- nine minutes I would have loved to have spent with my newly widowed Dad, or one of my two sisters as we all struggled to cope with the loss of my mother.

The breaking of rules was a big issue because even one slip up, one forgotten mask, one unwashed hand could have meant further spread of the virus that has stolen two years of our life and continues to kill hundreds of our countryfolk a week. Some of us worked hard for two years to ensure we stuck as best we could to the rules laid down by the Johnson government and to see his open flippancy in defying those rules then to watch the met gently chuck Johnson on the chin, employing the notion that Johnson cannot be punished for every event because they happened at his home so he “had” to be there is not our own chuck but a slap to the face.

The Johnson government has desperately tried to amend what it sees as the flaws of British society- wilful disregard and distrust for the office of prime minister- but who can respect a prime minister who drags us, still connected at the artery of Ireland, from the EU and watches us bleed whilst blaming them for the damage- who can respect a prime minister who “shook hands with” covid patients even as the deadliness of the virus was being questioned, the man who enforced harsh rules and penalties on everyone else but never for one moment believed he would adhere to them himself – the man who took away protest, made it harder to vote- the man who has utterly prostrated himself at the altar of ego, heedless of the cost of his own lies even as we paid the price.

Boris Johnson is, I hope, the worst prime minister the UK will ever see. The question now is not is he the worst: it is how long will he remain in post, and until Johnson realises that his desperation for validation will not be sated by a country sick to the back teeth of his embarrassing actions, he will continue to drag us further into the cut de sac of fruitlessness that his worse than lacklustre tenure has provided so far: so to the tories who surround Johnson and seek to protect themselves as much as he, remember this: your days are numbered and you are tarnishing yourselves every moment you remain his loyal lapdog. History is written by the victors and you lose every day you stand by his side. Either relinquish your white-knuckled hold on the hackles of the man who has destroyed you or go down in history as an enabler of the worst prime minister in the history of the United Kingdom.

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

(You can’t) Read all About it- The UK’s Press is Bought and Paid for by a Corrupt Government

By Daviemoo

When news of partygate began to ripple through the UK’s media, broken by the enterprising journalism of Pippa Crerar, the immediate thought was – what else have they done? It had taken a year for partygate to come crashing down around the conservatives & it fell amongst the raft of other scandals that have dogged Downing Street during Johnson’s short but damaging tenure from PPE VIP lanes to the Paterson scandal.
But yesterday’s casual announcement by Johnson’s former aide, Dominic Cummings that the press was quite literally bought and paid for by Johnson and then lent credence by Peter Jukes of Byline Times who shared the article by Brian Cathcart, should have blown the doors off parliament: are the press taking backhanders in the form of covid relief on the proviso that they would write only the stories the government allowed? Or are the government wilfully underfunding those who do not favour them in coverage?
The UK’s press is as complicit in the mire in which we find ourselves as the callous men and women running parliament like a circus- But how does one hold the press at large to account for something the press at large won’t report?

During an age of endless news streams where we are bombarded with news updates from apps, social media, popups, papers and 24 hour channels, it made sense that companies so large would require funding – Johnson’s government insisted on plying the larger, established news corporations with funding they scarcely needed in favour of eschewing the smaller ones who would fall to rack and ruin.
One only needs to look at the Murdoch empire to see a network suffused in cash from the top to the bottom, but the government happily threw them “bungs” as Cummings described it.

One can intimate it is because of the political leanings of said corporations: nobody can deny that the press in the UK, so often referred to as a shark tank is more akin to a bowl of goldfish where the Johnson cabal is involved. Whether this is correct and the government gave funding to press it felt would favour them is a matter for debate- but hardly a debate that would challenge ones faculties, as Johnson is an ex-journo and knows how the system before him works: don’t bite the hand that feeds you- but if you are bitten, the government realised, better a domesticated pet than a scratch from a sharks tooth.

Other smaller news corps were forced with difficult funding decisions to keep reporting and suffered as a result:

Seats on the subsidy life-raft are reserved for the News Media Association (NMA), the corporate press club in which most members have turnovers exceeding £100 million. The rest are being told to swim for it or sink.
This approach privileges the corrupt past over the innovative future; it helps the lumbering legacy brands while allowing the COVID-19-induced crises of circulation and advertising to sweep away smaller outfits that are far more innovative and free-thinking.
The winners here are the sun, the Mail, the times, the Telegraph, the Mirror, the Express, the Guardian- and the big asset-strippers that have so devastated the regional press: Reach, Newsquest and JPMedia

https://bylinetimes.com/2020/05/13/strangling-democracy-millions-paid-to-corporate-press-at-the-expense-of-journalism/

The battle for a fair press has been fairly openly debated in recent years: nobody but the most strident amongst us can deny the open favouritism displayed by the press towards a right leaning government: but it has become confusing to see the press become tantamount to a lapdog under this government. Barely any news coverage that Johnson’s win as prime minister was celebrated by an immediate vacation- at a time when he should have thrown himself into the driver’s seat to wrest the nosedive towards a no-deal brexit, he vanished to the beaches of another country… one you would soon need to take the longer queue to visit or return from. But a holiday upon a victory is hardly an act to win condemnation- his actions since, though, are.

The press were all too happy to tread the waters of government briefing over the advice of scientific bodies: Independent SAGE spoke out against the argument for herd immunity posited by an as then uninformed Sir Patrick Vallance who assumed that coronavirus could not readily reinfect people: once the death rate for coronavirus became clear in the UK population, Vallance along with a beleaguered press frantically walked back their message about herd immunity in favour of protective measures- again ignoring scientific advice from a number of bodies regarding masked transmission rates, including studies which had been long used to justify the common sense of wearing masks during operations.
Large scale media programmes were deployed to combat misinformation, even as misinformation was propagated by the government– Johnson’s long segueing speeches were often met with utter bemusement by the public but vital information was simply suppressed: it was widely assumed the rule of six had been developed by calculations of infectivity vs person to person contact but again Cummings blithely revealed that Sunak and Johnson had thought of it off the top of their heads: and the press repeated the line with the confidence of ignorance.

But partygate is the best example of the cancerous spread of nepotistic favouritism from politics to press.
Several members of the press knew of the “briefing” Allegra Stratton hosted. They knew already of stories of a Downing Street party- the evidence was already free to them. Colleagues who had also been journalists alongside her bantered gently with Stratton who chuckled off an accusation of attendance before wondering- to the press, those waiting to receive information, whether cheese and wine was against the rules: it was.
There was the bomb, ready to go off- but it sank below the tides of worsening infections, death rates, lockdowns. Why?
The fact that our highest officials were freely breaking the laws which had been devised and enacted in the very seat of democracy was a scandal that should have immediately rocked the country. Some will of course say that perhaps the press held back for fear that news of Johnson, Sunak and other staffers breaking the rules would push tired members of the public to do the same, worsening the state of affairs: but it is not for the press to decide these things. The press is meant to be the guardian of the publics collective knowledge around governmental actions and their failure to aid us here cannot be venerated- and only has a limited number of explanations: either the press were desperate to curry favour with Downing Street for access to other stories, they did not care about reporting the truth… or, worst of all- they had been disincentivised from telling the truth via coronavirus levies. If this were proved, the twin pillars of government and press would be met with the distrust it seems they are steadily earning.

I argued recently on a Byline Radio twitter spaces that the BBC is a lame duck when it comes to holding the government to account. Happy to smear Jeremy Corbyn with offensive superimpositions of him in the background of debates on potential incumbent prime ministers or to openly disparage him whilst offering favourable coverage of Johnson was proof enough- but the recent debate around scrapping the license fee headed up by Nadine Dorries who doesn’t understand the funding model for channel 4 who she has helmed the privatisation of. The host stated (incorrectly) that the government DOESN’T fund the BBC- all they do is set the cost and decide whether it should be scrapped. Just like a boss setting salary and deciding whether to keep someone employed.

The BBC is now rumoured to be staffed heavily by conservative leaning members in its upper echelon which has led to a soft touch approach towards any coverage of the government, and therefore cannot be used to scrutinise the government – all because the government controls its funding model and because the BBC is infiltrated by those who all but suppress negative coverage.

It is at this juncture that people will leap on partygate as proof that the press ARE scrutinising the conservatives, forgetting of course the amount of op-eds from right wing pundits stating that the conservatives’ willingness to break the laws they enshrined for protection concluded that there was no way we should ever have been in lockdown- rather than after twelve years of failing governance, perhaps the conservatives simply have become a party in freefall, the front bench crammed with sycophants loyal only to Johnson and the power he brings.

But again, don’t take my word for it: Let us cast our eyes over to the daily mail: the paper that pressured Durham police to reopen an investigation- not into Cummings himself and his ambulatory misdeeds during lockdown one, but into the leader of the opposition, Sir Kier Starmer.
During the initial findings of Johnson and Sunak’s lawbreaking the paper angrily shouted at the public- “Don’t they know there’s a war on?”- arguing that Johnson should be allowed to stay in post and (to coin Johnson’s favourite empty phrase) “get on with the job”.

Then, when the public continued to rail against the man who ensured we stayed home to keep our loved ones safe as his staffers dragged suitcases of wine into his home, they pivoted to attacking Durham Police and Sir Kier for what they called a refusal to investigate and hypocrisy.
This was farcical enough, but when the investigation was reopened, the newspaper began to smear Starmer, intimating that he is a liar, only for him to do exactly what they had asked and confirm that if he was indeed found guilty of breaking the guidance (bearing in mind there was no lockdown at the time), he would step down. Not satisfied, the paper, after eight days of headlines intimating the Durham police were lackadaisical, then accused Starmer of “pressuring the police”… then as a final, laughter inducing crescendo removed any and all references from this trail of events when they realised that doing so would pile pressure on Johnson to follow suit in the footsteps of his opposite numbers actions.

If ever was a tale so filled with the blatancy of media supplication to a government, this would surely be it: from “get over it” to “but HE did it” to “He’s doing what we are” to complete ignorance in the space of 3 weeks.

If it is true that Boris Johnson’s government has been lavishing money on the press, threatening them with privatisation a la Dorries and channel four and more then the government tips over into ticking another tenet of potentially fully fascistic behaviour, by preventing its own scrutiny by what should be a press willing to speak out against their transgressions and the British public are being gulled again into backing a man who is as uninterested as improving the standards of living in the country as he is being honest at the despatch box. The press thrive off controversy and here it is in spades in the form of a corrupt, criminal government headed up by a man who cannot find it within him to be honest to his spouses, much less to a country of those who require his fellows’ help to thrive post pandemic.

If Johnson cannot be held to account by his peers for breaking his own laws, by the opposition who cannot force contrition on a man incapable of feeling it, he cannot be held to account by a press too willing to bay his messages under threats or cash injections it is for us- the public, to become the collective fire in the dark of an abyssal government. If they won’t speak truth to power- we must, or all is lost.

If the government IS actively meddling in freedom of the press with cash and threats… we must expose this rot, root it out and start to regrow.

When law-makers & law-maintainers & are law-breakers, who upholds the rule of law?

By Daviemoo

TW: Domestic abuse, sexual assault.

Last week, the country was treated to more frustration as the long awaited Grey report became the imminently released, redacted, gutted of substance Grey press release- grey is an apt colour for the report, stripped of the colour needed to understand just how deep the rot runs beneath Westminster. And the Met finally came forward to step up to the challenge of upholding it’s already tenuous reputation as investigative officers- but today, a damning report into the institutional misogyny and open disrepute of Met officers casts an even deeper shadow into whether those we are meant to entrust with the rule of law- both to create and to uphold law- can be trusted with those jobs.

“I would happily rape you”

This is a message sent from a serving met police officer to a female officer. Many would ask that we request context- but unless the context is “here is something I would never say to a woman”, nothing can justify this.

It’s been too long and widely known that misogyny is the bedrock of the police force- from a high rate of officers who have committed domestic assault (reported in the US though similar studies mirror this in the UK). Even in this report, officers confess – one stating that he needs to “take the missus out as an apology for backhanding her”. Another officer proudly declares “if you hit a woman they love it. Biologically programmed lol”.

These are the men we expect to enforce the law on fellow citizens who commit these heinous crimes. Another officer makes a joke about how easy it is to get a woman into a bed using a knife instead of a credit card. And of course, we’ll be told “context”, “banter”… but reports by psychologists show demonstrably that misogynistic jokes lead to increased hostility towards women. This culture of “lads jokes” perpetuates it’s own outcome. Women in the force have spoken out about men protecting each other, daily casual sexual comments and inappropriate behaviour- last week, reports of a university lecturer who was misogynistically abused during her arrest… and this very day of publication, a woman stripped naked and left dejected in a cell who was arrested wrongfully.

I’ve long puzzled over why men who claim to love women would also speak about them in these terms. The disturbingly high propensity of men who look at women as nothing but sexual gratification machines is a societal problem and must be dealt with- two years of social distancing has worsened this mindset amongst men already susceptible to these disgusting trains of thought.

But even this deep, dark layer of misogyny and casual admission of lawbreaking is only the surface: Should a force systemically infected by the foetid pus of bent coppery be the ones to hold the shining light of truth up to a government similarly infested with islamophobia, misogyny, racism and of course a derisive attitude to compliance towards safety laws? If the met, too, scorn laws behind closed doors, how does one divest them of the authority granted by the corrupt state?

There exists in depth a wealth of reporting and evidence into how police corruption is obfuscated behind legal loopholes, created in camaraderie with other officers willing to bend legality for others that they simply do not believe applies to them. Similarly, hot off the press is the scraps of the Gray report, which no doubt in the fullness of time will bolster the claims of top to bottom corruption, rulebreaking and a culture of intimidation which allowed the Conservatives to flout the laws that they themselves implemented for public safety- after all, this is not a government known to adhere to legality.

The rot of rulebreaking runs how deep?

The conservatives, like the met, are become the face of corruption already suspected, now confirmed. The entitlement of both civil servants and officers of the law, who feel that they need not treat other’s safety with the seriousness of we mere mortals is a worrying indictment of ageing institutions in need of either an urgent shakedown, a root deep clearout- or an imminent scrapping, to be replaced with those who are willing to uphold the laws they are bound to create and uphold.

It’s a very societally typified fear to dilly dally over changing failing or failed institutions. Politics runs through our every aspect of life, from pricing of goods to working hours and wages- it’s inextricable from the lives we’re currently leading and therefore must be approached cautiously when looking to change it’s facets, to ensure that we do not accidentally create more problems than we solve. But when it comes to the met, policing is becoming a more obviously not fit for purpose drain on public expenditure- record numbers of officers refusing vaccine mandates both in the UK and stateside, the BLM protests and subsequent exposure of systemic racism to people who had previously been allowed to hold the shield of ignorance with impunity and this report which shows an indifference towards public wellness- the huge expenditure of public funding to an institution as archaic as the police when it’s members are so keen on ignoring the laws they are employed to maintain… it hardly seems a good public investment.

Many members of the public support our style of policing without listening to experts in prison abolition- this, of course, does not mean a lack of policing, but a reform of a system that is designed only to punish those who have (or are found guilty of, to be more precise) committed crimes- recidivism (the tendency to commit crime again if you have done so already) is disgracefully high because there is no element of rehabilitation that works functionally in our prison services, and rehabilitation must come forefront in the efforts of law enforcement to actually deter offenders from committing further crimes and to make their lives better, otherwise a vicious cycle is maintained which will only worsen the strain on the system, and those subject to it’s failings.

 But indeed, turning from the police force and it’s deeply ingrained failings to the government, do we not see the parallels? A system created long ago, maintained in its archaic presentation (from lingo to the preference of parliament as the seat of power), a system now subject to the weathered scrutiny of a public who have watched with increasing horror and anger as our elected officials desecrate the office. And powerless are we to change this decomposition of our political probity… or so we are led to believe.

Perhaps there is a reciprocal nature between our institutions – from a royal family scandalised by accusations of racism and sexual assault to a government slowly disappearing into it’s own salacious reports of ineptitude, on to a police force crammed with officers who close ranks on fellows who commit the crimes they are tasked with investigating. And here, at it’s roof- the dislocation we do not wish to acknowledge. Where does that invisible gap between “us” and “them” start and finish- what would we have to do to escape investigation into coronavirus law breaches? Who would we have to be descended from to escape scrutiny for sex abuses? Is it money? Name? Influence? Or simply the you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours of one group of corrupted individuals propelling forward more corruption by protecting another, back and forth like blades of grass, rotting in the same field? And again beckons the urgent question- how do we deal with it?
Let us be honest here and everywhere- let us shine our own lights into the dark and confront it together: we must not be burdened by institutions that do not protect us, that do not enhance our lives.
What is good for society? Institutions that serve to make it better- not maintain, not enforce- improve.

Until we overhaul our institutions, until they work for us, we continue with the foot-on-the-neck obedience of rule by oligarchy.

Police- corrupt

Politics- corrupt

Monarchy- corrupt

And so I ask you reader, as I run out of road- what comes after?

Daviemoo is a 34 year old independent writer, radicalised into blogging about the political state of the world by Brexit and the election of serial failures like Trump and Johnson. Please check out the rest of the blog, check out Politically Enraged, the podcast available on all streaming platforms and share with your like minded friends! Also check him out on ko-fi where you can keep him caffeinated whilst he writes.

The urgent need for accessibility in political discourse- and the case for change

By Daviemoo

The politics of England in particular are facing fracture at an alarming rate. As Scotland gears up for another indyref, as Wales looks at shearing away and as Ireland could reunite to solve Brexit quandries, we must ask ourselves how we break down the multiple walls that brick away political knowledge from tens of millions of people- and make them see that votes without knowledge lead to corruption, failure- and fascism.

I was arguing with a commenter on my tiktok yesterday. I’d made a video stating -factually- that labour is the most credible opposition to the tories at present. The commenter replied incredulously, “Starmer? Credible?” and then gave me some very irate examples of the things that Starmer does that she doesn’t like. I, agreeing with what she was saying but also having the gift of realism, replied with “okay, what would you do then…”

She then went on to rant about how my politics are the problem and that neoliberalism doesn’t work- and both of these points annoyed me- my politics have a central, white hot core which is simply “make people’s lives better”. Please, regale me with how that’s a problematic chain of thought. But the main bugbear I had is that the exact issue I’ve found as I’ve forayed further and further into discourse around politics, society, media and the surrounding issues is that people talk in academic or overly complex terms which immediately put off or cut out the common person from the conversation. I know what neoliberalism is, what nationalism is, because I’ve spent a lot of time specifically researching them. I talk about them constantly because they’re important. But I also try my best to explain to those who may have interest, but have never heard the terms before, exactly what they mean.
In this aspect, I feel like all too many people are keen to have discussions that are important, and by their very nature – exclude people.

This extends beyond simple politics into abstract politics. I keep mentioning the word fascism in my blog posts because I am petrified of our approach towards it- but all the scholars into neofascism are discussing this problem with each other at the most academic level using complex parlance, who then hand it to experts in political theory who discuss it to a lesser extent with fellow experts, then a few keen parties pick it up- and it doesn’t reach the people who most need to hear it as they’re at risk of the radicalisation we fear. People most at risk of radicalisation, of falling victim to disinformation and of voting for parties who will hurt instead of help them are almost always cut from the conversation through various different ways, which i’ll explore below.

The limitations of our current education style

I’ve talked a lot recently about how the archaic system of education still deployed to this day does not help a vast proportion of the population. Education as it stands is designed to churn out people who can either do physical, menial or office jobs with the fewer amongst us going on to do other roles.

Many people would be capable of doing these other, “more important” jobs or reaching a further potential which allowed them to achieve more of their goals, or just live a better, more fulfilling life- but they are barred by the ancient style of education still used to this day, you can and will never progress.

Education styles have been widely talked about over the last 25 years- another of my posts on this blog is directly about this topic.

Additionally, a firmer understanding of topics is then off limits based on the progression to further education- which is now extremely expensive. Which brings us to the next issue.

The paywall of higher education

Locking away knowledge behind further knowledge is unfortunately a by-product of human intellect- you have to develop layers of understanding. So if we solved the first problem by enacting change in the educational sphere and more people were able to digest and learn from differing styles of education, we next have the problem to solve of the simple cost of deepening knowledge- university was expensive when I went. The fees then rose precipitously a few years after I graduated, and I was disgusted to watch the country entomb knowledge behind tens of thousands of pounds of debt. Some people simply do not have the capitol behind them to study because money is a blocker.

Whilst we live in a deeply capitalist society we can always expect that further education will come at a premium, simply to price people out who will then be trapped in the layer of workforce who don’t need a degree or more to progress. But this is a gatekeeping of knowledge so fundamental that it not only prevents people from accessing this knowledge. The other problem is that, as I stated, a lot of the political or socio-ecological knowledge is kept behind this paywall because it also alters those (if they are lucky enough to get there), who get there to be distant from their roots, and therefore make them less likely to be the people so sorely in need of the knowledge, as an irony. Furthering yourself in education often uplifts you automatically from your starting point, but the whole notion I’m driving at is that those AT the starting point are the ones who need the knowledge without the alteration.

The daily disinformation of the media

I’m confident that any person who reads the daily mail, the independent etc automatically thinks they are “politically engaged”. But it’s all too quickly forgotten that UK news sources in particular are written with a deeply political slant in mind, and almost all of the big selling newspapers lean right to varying degrees. With this in mind, those papers even by simply omitting the factual problems of a government like the one so installed now, are keeping people ignorant of key, vital knowledge.

One must truly search to find real political commentary and discourse, and as someone whose entire life has now begun to revolve around untangling the media’s insidious reporting of the Johnson administration, it takes real effort, nuance, camaraderie and time to decode the true meanings of the stories so published, and to find information that the media is all too keen to alter or cover up to protect a government who continues to lean on their necks (lest we forget that Johnson is looking at further curtailing press freedoms by banning stories which “embarrass MPs”.

We’re also bloated to bursting with insipid media which is created for vapid enjoyment and contains absolutely no intellectual merit at all- this goes beyond social media which can be carefully crafted into a tool of mass information dissemination or the antidote to right wing disinformation, but onto lengthy runs of shows with no actual lesson behind them being put at the forefront of viewing rather than those which would allow people to understand the society we’re in.

The final, and biggest problem, though…

Apathy, apathy and more apathy

Actual statistics I was shown recently show that a dramatic proportion of tory voters from 2019 have slipped into political apathy, uncaring of events because they simply do not believe that they can have a tangible effect on it.

The uncaring nature of so many citizens of the UK has lent strength to a party who know that many people will roll their eyes and say “they’re all the same”. When it comes to a reluctance to approach politics radically, any party who wants to win will toe the line of compliance simply to ensure that the fear of radical change will not obscure their potentially excellent political machinations. But this insistence of continuing to apply “the usual business” rules to politics lends itself poorly to an excitement in upholding honesty in politics to those who feel disillusioned- for if the system is broken, continuing to work within those bounds will not excite people for change- and will also allow those who think all politicians are corrupt, to believe that indulgence in that system is complicity.

Politics is for everyone

Ultimately, every single person in the UK is absolutely entitled to be involved in political discourse- as political commentator Supertanskiii said on the podcast recently, “politics is everywhere, it’s there when you go to the shop to buy a pint of milk”. It’s fine to have distaste for the system in which we are enmired- but the only way to clean up that system is engagement, from the widest spread of people in this country. And to do so, to borrow a thought from Orwell’s 1984- the proles must realise that the power is entirely ours, and our lack of assent, our denial of compliance, can and will make this government crumble before us.

The BBC just doubled down on it’s transphobic hitpiece

By Daviemoo

If you read the desperate flailing attempt at journalism that was the BBC’s recent expulsion against trans people, I feel sorry for you- It’s wording is still rattling around my brain and frustrating me. I, and what I take as thousands of other people received a similarly poorly written response from the BBC where they endorsed their own transphobic nonsense. This state sponsored culture war against trans people hurts the LGBTQ+ community and cis women- the only benefactors? Cis men. It’s past time the community and it’s allies take this besmirching with patience- and take the fight back to the media.

I get asked perhaps once, twice a week, “are you trans?” because I spend a lot of time talking about trans issues. I don’t think it matters whether I am or not, I’m standing up for a minority who are being dragged through our offal filled rivers backwards and I don’t have to be part of that minority. The sad fact is as well that people just don’t listen to trans people about their own issues, even if you platform them- they will gasp, exclaim and swear if a cis person explains the horrors that trans people face, but blithely ignore trans activists who speak out.

Which is why I’m so disappointed in cis allies- there are many, many people who agree that this endless gushing rhetoric in the presses about trans people and their allies is wrong, sick, disgusting, inaccurate- and dangerous. For only so long can this thumb twiddling “we’re trying to sit in the middle but here’s another piece about how terrible trans people are and no rebuttal from trans people themselves” narrative be pushed before it will- IT WILL- spill over into physical violence. And how will that go? If the victim is murdered, they can’t speak. If they survive their words won’t be published. And if they fight back- dangerous trans people attack innocent defenders! It’s a tale as old as time, and as frightening to minorities as it may seem- we cannot win for losing. And with what seems to be most media outlets happy to continue to platform anti trans rhetoric, our possibilities of publishing rebuttals, statements- anything that allows a platform for trans folk and their allies- continues to shrink.

Gender Critical people seem to believe that this mainstreaming of their beliefs is a sign that they’re “winning”- forgetting as they always do that hateful ideology is disturbingly available in the mainstream and it doesn’t make it right- or even the moral majority. Racism was widely platformed as racial segregation was rolled back in the US- in the 70s, 80s- the 90s it was common to read anti gay articles.

The parallels that run between the anti gay moral panic and the current transphobic ones are so blatant once pointed out that it seems amazing that transphobia persists in the face of proof that it’s recycled homophobia.

Arguments we’ve heard before from:
“If we accept the gays we’ll be asked to sleep with them next”

“They’re destroying the modern way of life”

“They’re perverts and we shouldn’t have to share facilities with them”

Are these facets of the moral panic proven? No- no proof of any of it exists.

In fact, the prevalence of the opposite side being involved in their arguments against trans people is almost comical. How often anti gay preachers are found in clinches with other men- one has to wonder how many voices against trans folk are simply fetishists of trans people in the privacy of their own home? One wonders how many moral panics are sparked or inflamed by people furious with their own biological urges- desperate to place blame for attraction at the feet of those who simply exist in the bodies and states they have and are.

Back to the media- the regular dirge of stories demonising trans people serves only to enable and embolden a society that conflates “different” with “devious”.

From Ofcom leaving stonewall’s diversity scheme to the BBC’s increasingly frequent promotion of hateful ideology, this problem is widespread, systemic- and being pushed by a handful of loud voices and a smattering of quiet ones.

The idea that trans rights are in conflict with womens’ rights just isn’t true. Starting with the simple fact that over 50% of women in the UK agree that trans women are women, and even more women agree that trans women are not a threat to cis women- but even if you don’t agree, the confusion and stupidity around this debate continues to frustrate those in it’s periphery along with those it directly involves.

If anti trans people believe they should be able to challenge anyone they don’t feel is cis, there will be a great number of women whose looks do not fit this mysterious “not patriarchal but doesn’t fit my idea of feminine”, who are challenged pointlessly- regardless of whether they were trans or not. I have to wonder how the “we can always tell” crowd plan to police these things. Sometimes in public I will see someone and have absolutely no idea what gender they are and the fact and key difference is- I don’t care.

The point that never gets spoken about in detail is that the concerns so regularly espoused by anti trans activists are already addressed. In existing legislation, there exists exemptions where, as a last resort, trans women can be separated- there is this elusive victory the gender critical group want- already delivered. But it isn’t enough, and this is where the obvious lie crumbles whilst somehow still standing. It’s not and it’s never been about a credible argument against trans people: it’s always been about demonising a minority. Every single instance of a trans person failing to be a paragon of virtue is instantly snapped up by a group and banded about, used to justify pre-conceptions. But of course a group as large and varied as trans people has darker elements- should the whole group be castigated because of the behaviour of a few? The frightening answer from gender critical believers is – yes.

The BBC

The article the BBC wrote was terrible in many ways- not the least, poor writing. Cobbled together with supposed months of research, the article is contrived and clearly has an agenda driving it.

I attach below the body of the response to the complaint that everyone who wrote to the BBC received;

The complaint is masterful in only the flippancy and dismissal of it’s tone. Not one point I made was addressed, as my initial complaint asked the BBC why it wished to place itself at odds with trans people and platform dangerous stories which would- not could, but would- increase the threat to them. They particularly focus on the survey they included.

Let’s speak about this survey.

Hosted by “Get the L out”, an organisation formed by transphobic lesbians to pigeonhole trans lesbians and trans women in general, 40 out of 80 respondents confirmed that they had felt pressured into sex with trans lesbians. I can’t speak to these experiences- I don’t know the people involved and I certainly wouldn’t say that no trans people would pressure others for sex- its proscriptive to say that you know how a minority would behave. But does it not perhaps seem a bit odd that the BBC are happy to use a survey, conducted by an already trans averse organisation, completed by 80 people, half of whom agree with the transphobic rhetoric of being pressured into sex? Of course people will agree with the transphobic question if they are part of a transphobic organisation… It’s hardly a reputable source.

But lets examine the respondents further: one of the 40 lesbians who responded confirming they felt pressured into sex with trans people – is a self admitted pervert who has sexually assaulted multiple women, talked women she has had sex with out of using sexual safety products, and with vast corroborative stories from her victims and an apology from her freely available on the internet- so yet again we hark back to my earlier point that the loudest voices are usually talking about themselves. Seems that the “fully researched article” is somewhat hypocritical, as this very important part was either omitted by mistake – or purposefully.

To allow a person who has literally admitted to sexual assault to cast aspersions on others is highly ironic and – I would think we can all agree- admittedly poor journalism. Hardly the type of person whose words can be trusted.

Spurious allegations from dubious sources seems to be what’s accepted for BBC journalism in the current climate – a worrying development but not one unfamiliar to the minorities the BBC have historically worked to denigrate.

Further to this though, more allegations in the article can be debunked: a section of writing is devoted to stickers with the inclusive pride flag as a backing, which state “Genital preferences are transphobic”. This is, as anyone sane in the fight for trans equality knows, a transphobic nonsense phrase. Genital preferences, most trans people will tell you, are not transphobic- stating you won’t even entertain the idea of dating a trans person because of what you assume are their genitals – is. Quite a simple concept. The proof that these stickers belong to the gender critical people is fairly blatant- they are stuck up with other transphobic stickers, even in the photos in the article- but a thoroughly debunked letter stating the same thing was sent to several organisations in early 2020 along with this sticker. The letter was quickly linked back to… a small cadre of gender critical people.

Is this what we now accept as, and what passes for, thorough, rounded journalism? Or are we to accept that our national broadcaster are willing to sell out their credibility because they have been asked to promote and push a ridiculous culture war, aimed at a group of people who are easy to demonise?

My followup to the BBC’s offensively blithe response is below for your perusal:

And worse still than the BBC’s uncaring response: more journalists come out to defend the piece and the writer!

Follow Katy and NotCursedE on twitter!

The overarching problem is this glass shield of “impartiality” which the BBC wishes to stand behind. I have seen no articles by trans people or trans allies denouncing the ties that gender critical people have to the far right – from the confused collaboration of a group of TERFS who started off protesting with – but then were attacked (and one even stabbed by) the proud boys, to Andy Ngo- literal fascist- being given a press badge at the LGB Alliance conference- one has to wonder at what point those who aren’t so extreme may decide that siding with gender critical people puts them too close to the far right.

Where also are the pieces highlighting the problems that trans folk face on the daily, from a healthcare system which seems to actively work against them to allowances the government make in legislation against conversion therapy to allow people -people who will be seeking conversion therapy because they hate or fear themselves and wish to change themselves- to give “informed consent” for therapy – effectively making any bans useless: Nobody can give informed consent to having dangerous, ineffective therapy for something they are castigated for all day every day. Those seeking, or told to go to, conversion therapy, should be intensively protected- not put under the mental strain of this horrific practice. It’s also been revealed as I wrote this piece that the government has been lobbied by a group who perform this evil practice, which is one of the myriad reasons for the delays in banning it!

It’s painfully obvious to anyone, from the very edges of this ongoing tirade against the trans community right to trans people themselves, that the BBC is determined to whip up continuation of this ridiculous and confected war against a minority, as a distraction from the failings of a government who has let down it’s populace more times in six months than most governments during their entire tenure.

Trans people are an easy demographic to blame on the face of things- some trans people become transients, kicked out of their houses by uncaring parents. Forced into sex work to be able to live and then charged by police who even in 2021 do not understand that sometimes life forces people into this avenue, their criminal records are happily displayed by gender critical people as “proof” that trans people are perverted. Context is key, but when you have a hateful agenda to push, anything that sits adjacent to your narrative is sufficient, the full extent discarded.

As this normalisation of hate continues, the LGBTQ+ community MUST set aside it’s petty squabbling and come together- we must be a shield for each other and ourselves, lest we be thrown back to the days where dangerous activism is the only way to be heard. Some of us are not only willing, but ready to embrace a role as a dissident if it means upsetting the status quo- if the status quo is to begin to regularly contain hateful propaganda against members of the community.

I’ve no doubt that a corner will be turned down the line where trans people finally see some light in the darkness, where their acceptance becomes mainstreamed- the question, the reason I sometimes can’t sleep at night, the rock in my stomach worry is – how many of our trans siblings are we fated to lose before people open their eyes to the empty hate spewed forth from institutions happy to foster lies and empty propaganda?