A lot of them do it, we all know it, but clearly some are antagonistic toward Rayner or are they frightened of her, time will tell but the answer looks pretty clear,Kemi is!
She is worse than a greedy, nest feathering politician. She is a formerly working class, single mum. The Telegraph canāt abide proles at the best of times, but they have special contempt for one that refused to know its place.
This isnāt really fair. There are definitely some shysters who are in it for themselves, but they are generally in the minority. Most MPs are constituency MPs, the political equivalent of a GP, and the scope for serious shenanigans is narrow.
That applies to MPs from all parties. You may not agree with their politics, but they do try to serve the interests of their constituents.
You have to look at the individual and ask yourself whether they are seeking power or responsibility.
Yeah, I probably shouldnāt generalise.
There will be decent hard working ones, trying their best for their constituants.
BUT the ones at the decision making end of the stick are on the whole conniving rats
Of course she is fair game, and pointing out her extracurricular little earners in the public interest is fine. But I think she gets it worse than any other politician, and a large part of that is down to the sexist and classist nature or organs like the Telegraph. Have they had anything to say about Farage?
Itās a profession where itās phenomenally easy to justify compromising oneās principles, and then compromising again, and again. And again. Until youāve reached the point what you canāt remember what you ever stood for in the first place.
Hurty words? How about ājust because youāre a fucking ugly, bald cunt with a shit carā?
Two derogatory references to my appearance and one to my financial situation in one short sentence.
Hurty words doesnāt do it justice. Thatās fighting talk between men where I come from, especially when delivered from a few feet away. Except in this case one of us knew there was no jeopardy involved.
And Iād bet my last penny it wasnāt her first rodeo, nor will it be her last. You donāt blow up like that at a complete stranger unless youāre fucking nasty and thatās your nature on display right there. There isnāt a world where my wife or sister would behave like that.
But you think I should just accept that because, what was it, some women are being murdered by their partners? Have you got any idea how pathetic that argument is?
Nobody, fucking nobody, has the right to speak to me like that.
Did I say that? Theyāre your words, not mine. I didnāt say anything was contingent on anything else.
What the fuck has shouting extremely personal abuse at a stranger in the street got to do with domestic abuse or murder? Another nonsense argument.
I expect to be treated with the same respect I show other people, man or woman, and thatās it.
You tell me to āget some fucking perspectiveā. You clearly had your own bollocks fed to you a long time ago. Youāre a hand-wringer, an apologist for the crimes of the white male. Thereās a term for it, vicarious guilt.
As for me,Iāve got fuck all to apologise for. Iāve never abused women either physically or mentally, the same with kids. I never banned women from playing football. I wasnāt involved in the slave trade.
My conscience is clear, I owe nobody an apology for anything and donāt have to attemp to assuage guilt in everyday situations. If you want to go through life loathing what you are thatās on you.
This could go in any number of threads, however, since the major root cause is political, here will do.
From exactly 1 year agoā¦
Currently under a hosepipe ban here. Fully acknowledge this pisses me off, but this post is very much about the bigger picture.
Thames Water has imposed a hosepipe ban after a winter where it rained literally EVERY DAY for several months.
If this isnāt the perfect encapsulation of how a capitalist system (throw in a huge dose of NIMBYism, too) ultimately does not give a SINGLE FUCK about humanityās survival, then I donāt know what is. Coming in closely behind oxygen, water is the most basic human need.
I get why the UK is not best placed to be a global leader in any number of ways, but a lack of water infratsructure is so mind-bendingly stupid I begin to wonder how the British Empire ever got off the ground.
Iām so glad you are back after your ban, having used your two days of reflection to conclude that āyes, actually I do want to dig down on this argumentā
So letās do it properly.
First of all, letās be clear that if youāve described is accurate, she is totally in the wrong. Of course she hasnāt got any right to speak to you like that, and of course youāre right to reflect that probably isnāt an isolated issue, from someone with anger management issues.
However if youād left it there, there wouldnāt have been a problem. I might have noticed the implication in your post that the only reason you didnāt deck this person was that she was a woman, and wonder about your own anger issues. I might have wondered what part youād played in that flare up. I might have reflected that cars are fucking bastards for making people behave in ways that they wouldnāt ever in real life, (however, I have to say that when I experience people behaving like pricks on the road, 9/10 itās a man). But none of that would have made me want to reply. What I replied to is the point where you brought violence against women into it.
You said that I said that you should suck it up because some women are being murdered by their partners - thatās not strictly true. You brought the comparison up when you said this.
I mean, thatās literally your quote. And I appreciate you might not understand the implications of an another opinion fired off in typical Jaffod anger, but you are absolutely making one contingent on the other. If women want to raise the issue of male violence (in your words, ram in down your throat) then you should not have to put up with a women (singular) - who in your world seems to now be a spokesperson for their gender - calling you a bald cunt. That is so fucking dripping in ignorance, privilege, self-centredness, and sheer fucking stupidity that it needs calling out.
Iāve been called a bald cunt by clearly disturbed people, and I hate it. Itās one of the last semi-acceptable avenues of appearance based insult. Itās the reason why I took a dim view on people using his baldness to attack Slot last year. But at the end of the day, itās just words. Itās annoying, and it makes you feel shit, but there is no lasting damage. Last year I politely declined buying a tatty spring of heather from a clearly disturbed woman in the city, who then shouted āFuck off then you bald wankerā after me as I walked away. It wasnāt nice, but Iām happy to say Iāve made a complete recovery from the incident.
(By the way, my instinct was to walk away from someone in a much worse situation that Iāll ever be in, not āthatās fighting talk between men, and sheās lucky sheās a womenā)
And as one last point on this, saying women want ārespectā, is massively understating the issue, and totally mischaracterising what women are calling out. You are demanding a reciprocity of respect, and there is nothing wrong with that at all. If youād said I donāt shout abuse at people, so I donāt expect people to shout abuse at me, there is no argument there at all. But there is absolutely no comparison between your right to go about your day without being called a bald cunt, and a womenās right to go about their day without being raped or murdered.
I donāt know. You brought it up.
Great. Thatās what you should have said originally, and you wouldnāt have ended up getting yourself banned.
And thereās the toxic masculinity, right there. Because Iāve an awareness of the scale and impact of male violence towards women, and a desire to call it out, Iāve had āmy bollocks fed to meā. Brilliant stuff.
I am proudly an apologist for the crimes of men, because those crimes cannot be dismissed as āa few bad applesā, or waved away with blithe ānot all menā attitude, and itās absolutely correct to want to be part of the solution. And your attitude of āwell Iāve never done anything wrong, so stop bothering meā is part of the problem. 20% of women will be the victims of sexual violence. That isnāt trivial, as we see time and time again, given power and opportunity, a fuck of a lot of men will behave abhorrently towards women.
And nobody is saying you should. But just to be clear again, the point at which I stepped in was not to demand you apologise to women for abuse that you havenāt perpetrated - it was to point out the jaw-dropping lack of awareness that led you to disregard the problem of male sexual and physical violence towards many, many women, because one women called you a bald cunt.
Acknowledging a problem within a group that you are part of is not self-loathing. In the same way that patriotism doesnāt mean you ignore all the faults of your country.
There have been plenty of times Iāve found myself walking along a quiet-ish road, and noticed a women ahead of me, taking evasive measures (like crossing over, or speeding up, or one one occasion I noticed sheād put her keys between her fingers). One reaction to that is to get angry and indignant at what she is assuming Iām capable of. How dare she act as if Iām a problem.
However a more rationale response is to understand that while it isnāt all men, itās still a fuck of a lot of men, and assault is common enough that itās a matter of simple self-preservation for women in that situation to proceed on the basis that every man walking behind her is a potential attacker. A million women were estimated to have being sexually assaulted last year.
So while you are not being asked to apologise for this, you are being asked to acknowledge the problem, be part of the solution, and certainly donāt suggest womenās right to demand better of men should be contingent on you never having to put up with the indignity of a random women calling you a name.
I get the Telegraph daily email briefing, just because I find it interesting to see what they are up to (mostly obsessing about Alzheimerās and Property) but I think there is a pronounced tonal difference in how they report on Raynor and Farage. With Raynor there is a much more judgemental, handwringing editorial tone than Farage, who gets a more factual, news based approach.
They canāt just totally ignore Farage, because itās a huge story. But what Iāve read has been a grudging acknowledgment of the story, with opinion and comment limited to what he needs to do next, his heāll survive etc. With Raynor, itās all about what it tells us about the moral decline of the left and the Labour Party.
UKās iconic Jodrell Bank telescope faces axe in science cuts
The funding body, the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) agency, said it had to focus investment on projects that deliver āthe greatest long-term impactā.
This seems massively short sighted for a very small saving (Ā£2.8million). I think itās the ālong term impactā phrase which I picked out, because this sounds like they are looking for research with commercial return, whereas Jodrell Bank and similar facilities tend to do fundamental research which is for the benefit of all mankind. It sounds very similar to the development grant debacle that resulted in projects in London and the South-East getting priority over the rest of the country.
However, I think this could be a massive miscalculation. The huge Lovell Telescope is a Grade I listed building which means someone, probably a government body, will be left with a massive white elephant to maintain. Itās probably much cheaper to keep it in service as a functional scientific instrument.
Iām interested to see what Andy Burnham has to say about it.
Thereās far too much in there to respond to so I wont bother, weād just be going round in circles and a lot of it would be nit-picking and splitting hairs. I also think weāve both mis-interpreted certain things but that happens and again, Iām not going to go into it for the same reasons. Thatās not to say I disagree with everything youāve written, just that itās clear we donāt see eye to eye on most things.
The only thing I want to make absolutely clear is I wasnāt suggesting at any point that not being violent towards women was contingent on them behaving themselves. That wasnāt my intention at all.