Staff at Northumbria University vote to take industrial action over pay and pensions www.ucu.org.uk/article/14383

End of the postwar order? Potential war? Climate emergency? Cost of living crisis? Nice to see the UK newspapers have their fingers on the pulse

Happy new year to you all. Let’s hope it brings you health and happiness. Looks like a fab firework display down in London (which will keep the Mail and Telegraph in copy for the next week).

Just when you think you’ve seen everything, I wake up to the news that a darts player has failed a drugs test

And just reflecting on the FIFA peace prize award for a moment, I wonder if there will be a gong handed out for best urban redeveloper, or suchlike?

Apologies for linking to the hate site, but I’m increasingly convinced we are living in a rather odd simulation. x.com/adamjschwarz...

Not to be a cynic, but such a scheme could always include more information than whether you have the right to work or not…

I've just used Good Law Project's tool to let Virgin Active know they're following transphobes, not the law. You can do it too here: goodlaw.social/638d25

Plenty of bad things going on in the world, but it’s nice to see E.on Energy lighten the mood by estimating an annual (residential) energy bill to be £22,230

This must be the “dignity and respect” for trans people that Starmer pontificates about. I’m sure those words will provide comfort to those people being lined up against the wall.

For those not paying attention, it was never only about reasonable concerns and safety, but a wider campaign to eliminate trans people (specifically trans women) from the public sphere. Paying Danegeld will never sate the anti-trans lobby

Richard Murphy is right: the rental sector is out of control. I’m not holding my breath that the government will fix it, though.

In news that will come as no surprise to anyone paying attention, the UK looks set to press ahead with its own bathroom ban. Applications for the necessary Genital Inspectorate will be opened shortly.

Otto is right. The Telegraph (Mail, Times, castle-dwellers etc.) have been relentless in pushing anti-trans stories over the past few years. Unfortunately, there has been little pushback against their nonsense.

Have you ever wondered which types of belief systems correlate with anti-trans views? Well, our new paper might have some answers. You can access the paper for free at: compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Interesting article on the role of anti-trans campaigning in the UK. Given how often stories about trans lives appear on the front pages, one might have expected at least one of the major broadsheets or tabloids to cover this. How odd that they haven’t.

"Less lethal" has been the accepted term for years, precisely because there's still a risk of causing death.

You know you’re getting old when you start getting this unsolicited mail through the post…..

Having a nose on Amazon this evening, as one does, and came across the following item. In light of recent rulings, can we assume the message is Supreme Court approved?

Sunday papers tomorrow. I’m sure the Telegraph, Mail, and Times won’t let us down

Stand up for trans rights 🏳️‍⚧️ Join me and @GoodLawProject and help us fight the Supreme Court’s harmful decision:https://goodlawproject.org/s/c41bb8

You have no right to live among us as trans people. You have no right to live among us. You have no right to live

I've already done a letter here, which I plan to send to the Women And Equalities Select Committee and Women and Equalities Unit next week. Can absolutely be sent to MPs too. docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Wrote some words for your silly faces. So get them in your faces👇🏾 myblackface.wordpress.com/2025/04/18/opinions/

Trans people are under threat in the UK. Now more than ever it is time to stand up for trans rights 🏳️‍⚧️ @jolyonmaugham.bsky.social Join me and @GoodLawProject and help us fight the rollback of trans rights in the UK.https://goodlawproject.org/s/851fc4

Jess O’Thomson gives an erudite analysis of today’s UKSC ruling. The following line is particularly chilling and should concern anyone who thinks this will be the end matter: “The reality is that the anti-trans campaigners don’t want trans people to exist, let alone use any public toilets”.

Champers all round to celebrate the definition of a word. The UK is a very interesting place.

So deportation for US citizens as anti-trans laws are being passed across the country 🤔

Tomorrow is Sunday so the Telegraph runs its customary anti-trans hit piece. Those paying attention will note how the ratchet is being cranked once again with barely a peep of dissent. This isn’t going to end at “papers, please”.

🧵Censor, purge, defund - how Trump is following the authoritarian playbook on science & universities. This isn't chaos - it's deliberate & well-established methods. I've mapped 40 actions into 3 categories covering attacks on science, attacks on universities and international collaboration. 1/16

“It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the famously incurious and narcissistic 47th president of the USA is too stupid to realise he is being used by the Kremlin”. Quite.

Ukraine being thrown under the bus, the end of the post-war consensus, the climate crisis, a mobster in the White House, another possible pandemic on the horizon you say? Fear not, the British press still has room for anti-trans stories on its front pages

Professor Snyder sums up quite succinctly, here, what we witnessed in the Oval Office yesterday. Five Failures in the Oval Office (video) open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

Well 2025 continues its downward trajectory and we aren’t even into March yet

The latest ILGA Report is out. The five pages on the UK show how the country has regressed in twelve months. It also makes you wonder what else is to come. www.ilga-europe.org/files/upload...

Another quote seems apt: “Treason doth never prosper, what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it Treason”

Am sure this piece is well intentioned. But if you seek to analyse the pushback against (eg) trans people without acknowledging the *vast* sums the political right spends demonising them you will draw many false conclusions. 🧵 on.ft.com/4ha0Cyt

Some years ago such an exchange would have been dismissed as satire. But after several years of madness we seem to have arrived at a point of Schroedinger’s Trump.

Another jurisdiction just happens to ban gender affirming care. It is an amazing coincidence that this is taking place simultaneously across the western world where previously GAC was not seen as an issue. It’s almost as if it’s coordinated or something.

An interesting read and something to consider when politicians and media figures start talking about the class war www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Not my image, and I can’t remember where I nabbed it, but happy new year

Britain in 2024: puppuccinos and nighttime milk for dogs on the one hand, and huge numbers of homeless people and folk using food banks on the other

Get in Notts Forest, that’s Newcastle storming back up to 12th place

We are now up to 84 universities making staff redundant. A key part of our society is retreating at a staggering pace that would never be allowed if the decisions were all seen and weighed up together. qmucu.org/qmul-transfo...

Has anyone ever bitten into a poppadom only to find that it leaves behind an imprint of K2 from Broad Peak basecamp?

It’s increasingly difficult to argue that we are, in fact, *not* living in a simulation

I try not to go over to the old place given its descent into the mantle, but it can still provide a giggle or two

It seems the Scottish Parliament does not allow the wearing of rainbow lanyards (as they are deemed to be political) but does allow the wearing of poppies (not deemed as political). So what category would Royal British Legion pride poppies fall into? www.poppyshop.org.uk/products/rbl...

Jeez the bird app is terrible these days. What might be an interesting thread has the comments hijacked by bots and blue ticks. Have to hand it to Elon for taking something that worked, albeit with faults, and turning it into a raging cesspit in such short order

Kemi’s next job could be holding the stun gun in the abattoir (she just doesn’t know it yet)