IMPOSTER SYNDROME: I do not know how to use the verb and noun "tender", despite having written them. Never entirely sure whether tendering is the "hey, can you do this thing?" or the "yeah, I can do this thing!"; whether one writes a tender, offers a tender or tenders; tenders to or at;

Isaac is a friend’s kid who I’ve known for five or six years, currently at the sharp end of the UK’s anti-trans culture wars. Please share and support. www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/isaaccare

are there *any* plausible government on these numbers? You either have a minority RW government which would lose every single Commons vote, or a completely frankenstein left-ish coalition which was one plastic bag away from collapsing.

I keep thinking about this and how much spending time in Gaza in 2024 really changed my visceral understanding of what war MEANS.

Every single week, the Beano has a dozen terrible pun-based jokes that the 8yo asks us with great delight, and then after we've all groaned and laughed, she asks what all the words mean.

"Everything is politics...You don't get to make art in a fascist state" CMAT delivering, mar is gnách. 👏 (Same goes for sport btw) #Speirgorm

Has anyone articulated an internally coherent narrative of “sectarianism” thst isn’t just pointing at Muslims and shouting bad words to see if they stick?

It wasn’t even just talking people out of voting for / joining the greens, Starmer literally said the greens didn’t have enough activists or local knowledge to be a threat. get out there everyone!

A remarkable statistic from G&D is that the Labour and Green vote combined was 65%. Reform was on 29%. That means that whoever was the candidate (Labour or Green) that the tactical vote got behind, Reform was going to be second. If the 65% had split evenly, Reform would be third.

I want to read an analysis of the language around voting.

the orange blob is bigger than the white blob!!! This could actually happen. We still need 240 more absolute legends to get on board... leeds.ghost.io

yes, actually, it would!

genuinely wondering whether there will be such a thing as a "safe Labour seat" at the next election, unless the Greens play it very tactically and deliberately don't stand against popular local Labour MPs in order to focus on fewer seats and avoid splitting the vote.

Green win AND pay day. Truly we are blessed.

Matt Goodwin? more like Matt Badloss

The way Labour are leaning in to “our daughters” and “protect women and girls“ is genuinely chilling. You’re supposed to be protecting our autonomy and our access to education and decent lives, not us. We don’t need protection if we have the means to protect ourselves.

Abolish the legal gender marker entirely. No government can be trusted to have a database of which people have changed theirs, no government has any business tracking what your gender is "supposed" to be in the first place.

I would be *amazed* if there weren't people pushing this as Labour policy within the next 5 years. In 2016 the FCO was publishing travel warnings to LGBT people about the bathroom bans in certain US states. Now we're pretending that that's our common-sense moderate policy and has been all along.

omg I try and stop and do a fee scapular pull-ups and leg lifts at the calisthenics park on the way home from work, and the guys doing proper workouts have started nodding to me. I’ve made it.

I’ve seen lots of (super valid land important!) criticism of this from patients‘ point of view, but also: what is the impact on massively overburdened clinical staff in making them agents of the hostile environment for disabled people?

We’re in Harrogate and we’ve just seen a cyclist in her seventies lose it at a driver who went too close to her. Go girl!

so you've probably heard about the London measles outbreak. A lot of people are talking about anti-vax misinformation, but that's not actually the problem here. The problem is austerity. 🧵

one of the weird things about Hannah Spencer Discourse is that the media have spent decades telling us that getting a degree is a waste of time and if you want decent pay you should be a plumber. but it turns out that any sign you actually get decent pay is proof you’re not really a plumber.

The way this fabric is priced is absolutely wrecking my head.

you: AuDHD the languages part of my brain, confidently: this is something to do with GOLD.

Chapel Allerton up the road looks like this (minus the flags and the lack of doors): it’s just that you can only afford to live there if you’re a doctor or a lawyer.

I saw this earlier today and assumed it was about ex prince andrew but no, it’s just an actual quote from the Supreme Court ruling on tariffs. Hahaha oh my god?

Nearly 100k people have joined our call to get dangerous US spy tech firm out of our NHS. Palantir's founder has called for the NHS to be ripped up. Now his company has access to millions of patient records. Tell the government to end the contract! you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/st...

Nicole's piece is INCREDIBLE, it was an honor and a pleasure to copyedit. The acts of resistancw small and large happening at the moment tell me we will win. We are filled with art, creativity, and rage.

this is IMO less unhinged than it appears on first glance. the question "who is responsible for eduating and training the next generation" underlies all of our education and labour force planning policy and it's almost never discussed explicitly.

Dropped my daughter and two friends off at a half-term football session today, and there was a man on the door who started a bit where he misheard all their ages as 28, 27, 22 etc. All of them immediately giggling so hard they could barely confirm their real ages.

proud to be a @unison.org.uk member today!

I've worked on a wide variety of helplines, and still do. Under 16s use social media to access support, including crisis support. Samaritans, childline, WA etc ALL offer live chat/social media outreach. I'm convinced this will get cut off.

Interesting point in today's paper of record. #speirgorm

this is a very good soup recipe, but you are supposed to add a red onion, lemon zest, parsley, and toasted seeds to the bowl when you serve it, which is way too elaborate for something to take to work for lunch. www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vege...

The right to privacy, as understood in Goodwin, the GRA, and the existence of things like the sensitive DBS process has been completely dismissed. Being outed to colleagues has been dismissed as "gossip" that we have no right to protection from. We now have less rights at work that we had in 2003.

this is not the worst thing about this quote, but he‘s either Professor of Political Science (formal job title, capitalised), or he’s a professor of political science. He’s not “the professor” as if we all already know which one he is.

remember that regret is only ever used against women and gender minorities to push us into decisions which suit patriarchy. “regret” is used to stigmatise abortion, waiting until you’re economically secure to have children and gender affirming surgery.

I am one of the most published academics on the childhood social transition, with 5 peer reviewed articles that relate to the topic. There is so much evidence of benefit of social transition. There is no evidence of harm. Not one jot. This will literally kill trans kids. No exaggeration.

“You seem sleepy, love, maybe it’s time for bed?” “I’m NOT sleepy. Jus’ — my eyelids are takin’ over the rest of my body.”

noooo, the original Bramley tree!

Genuinely, if you live in the UK you should so the consultation just to find out some of the unbelievable details of what's being proposed. Even with their spin and obfuscation it's shocking

streeting and mandelson ending their texts with an x is making me question all my life choices.

was once talking to a group of male undergraduates and I asked them what apps they open automatically if they're in a queue for coffee or something, expecting, like, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat. They all said Betfair. I was immediately 90million years old.

I've said on here before, that I love the transformative power bikes have on how people think about interacting with each other🚴🏼‍♀️♥️ Having a bike stolen resets a white US person's understanding of what cops do and do not do Commuting on a bike resets a white US person's understanding of racist infra

first they came for the people who were never mixed up with Jeffrey Epstein but also didn't react with revulsion or horror at putting people who were mixed up with him in positions of power and influence and-- well, actually, I'm fine with that, you should be too!

the particularly disgusting thing about this is making out that somehow migrants have been taking the piss by taking taxis everywhere, when in fact the home office itself has mandated that they see doctors miles away (hundreds of miles in some cases), with no properly arranged transport.