AM

Keir Starmer should condemn Trump’s illegal action in Venezuela.

Maduro is a brutal and illegitimate dictator, but unlawful attacks like this make us all less safe.

Trump is giving a green light to the likes of Putin and Xi to attack other countries with impunity.

Two social media posts. The first is from Keir Starmer and reads: “The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela. We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President and we shed no tears about the end of his regime. I reiterated my support for international law this morning. The UK government will discuss the evolving situation with US counterparts in the days ahead as we seek a safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people.” Below it is a post from Ed Davey that reads: “This cop out isn’t good enough. Standing up for international law means condemning leaders when they break it, whether that’s Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump.”

"His most passionate answers" being one of the most benign and bleeding obvious statements with zero commitment to do a single positive thing about it. Sounds about right for Starmer.

Spray paint a plane and they'll detain you without trial and call you a terrorist.

Kidnap a foreign head of state - and Keir Starmer will make it clear we've played no part in it but will wait for the scheduled press conference in a few hours before potentially condemning it

Reform’s ‘Trumpian’ legal threats hint at more aggressive approach to media Ultimatums sent to publications appear to intensify as Nigel Farage’s party rises in polls

If you receive legal threats from Nigel Farage for your reporting of Reform, please get in touch.

We have employed a defamation lawyer specifically for this purpose and would love to help (and we do so on non-commercial terms). www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I think @entirelyharmless.bsky.social summed up Sex Matters pretty well with this:

"UK media: every time you quote Sex Matters on anything related to trans people, it’s the equivalent of quoting the Flat Earth Society on anything related to space or air travel.

They’re unqualified cranks."

If, and please do, you are filling this consultation in I would suggest some things to consider.
✅Where the framing forces you into accept the government's premise that they need to discriminate against one group or another mark "don't know". Don't play to their framing. 8/

🚨The supporting consultation document is riddled with errors, misinformation, and flat out lies, all wrapped up in some truly heinous and biased rhetoric. That seems to clearly be to generate a particular response from people who are not deeply aware of the issues in the existing system. 3/

🚨Based on the Home Secretary's statement that she will implement these changes in/by April and the consultation closes on Feb 12th they would not have enough time to actually go through all responses properly. That suggests that the outcome has already been decided. 2/

Important: Read Dan's thread and then fill out the consultation on the link at the end

It's very important for as many of you as possible to take part

Ex-leader of Reform UK in Wales sentenced to 10-and-a-half years for taking pro-Russian bribes The judge tells Nathan Gill his actions were a

Farage next.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8...

A devastating thread

If the Home Secretary has her way, it will be seized in order to pay for the Home Office Christmas do. Because it isn't enough to blind people - we must also rob them blind too.

More commonly, the UK government just drags the process out for years or decades, often losing the files, hoping somehow that a destitute homeless person with expired or no travel documents will somehow go elsewhere.

The EHRC want to exclude women from femal single-sex spaces based on how "female" they look.

This is off the scale sexism and misogyny.

Millions of women will face harassment as result of this insanity.

But if the government start taxing the likes of Starbucks & they leave, Are we seriously saying that Britain will stop drinking coffee?

£3 billion in UK sales & they don't want to pay tax?

It's time to get of the merry-go-round & use our smaller, local retailers who will pay their taxes.

Stealing refugees' jewellery won't make anyone's life better.
Deporting children won't make anyone's life better.
Making people wait 20 years to settle won't make anyone's life better.

If Government chooses hostility over helping communities, more division and racism are the only possible results.

LibDem party Cmtes basically run on Queer participation, and there's never been a point since the party was founded when there hasn't been well over the minimum representation of Queers on Cmtes *anyway*.

To the point that when 2.6(c) quota was announced as suspended my reaction was... 7/

This is ofc entirely predictable, but for the TERFs their hatred of Trans people burns far more fiercely than any purported desire to protect or aid women.

Also, LibDem Women (our internal Women's org) backs Plus on this. So overwhelmingly that the TERFs left LDW to make their own TERFy club 5/

The real BBC bias story, narrated by Anna Ford

when you are owned on twitter by the prime minister of albania, maybe you should resign

What strikes me is that Pratchett was, at one time, the best selling author in the UK. Yet we are still where we are.

That leads me to wonder how many of those readers read his books as "funny but not serious"...

and not "funny and serious, deeply moral, liberal, and ragingly human".

Opinion | Jamal Khashoggi: What the Arab world needs most is free expression The Arab world needs a modern version of the old transnational media so citizens can be informed about global events.

I will never forget having to edit Jamal’s final, posthumous piece for the Washington Post, after he was murdered.

He was calling for free expression in the Arab world. You can read it here :

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/glo...

YouTube video by Jess of the Shire How Discworld Changed Fantasy

Every so often it's comforting to have someone remind you of the things you love, and why you love them. Like this video essay on Discworld & Pratchett by Jess of the Shire: youtu.be/aSWhUYOslUs

The basic problem with the temporary refugee status policy - especially one lasting up to 20 years - is it leads to very few removals (based on Denmark's experience) but does significantly worsen integration.

Is this what Labour politicians came into politics for?

To get cheered on by Tommy Robinson as they kick some of the most vulnerable people on earth?

How are they not all dying of shame

Oh cool, indentured servitude. Legally recognised throughout the democratic world as a form of unfree labour aka slavery. Also literally how the people traffickers that this legislation is supposedly meant to stop imprison their victims.

Antisemitism is a lot like Qanon child abuse conspiracies in that there’s this real and bad phenomenon and, parallel to that, what can only be described as a large scale mass psychosis about a mostly fictional version of the same phenomenon

Today I met a woman who had come to live in Britain more than 30 years ago.

She told me how her sons, now in their 40s, who had lived in Britain since they were 10 were worried about being made to leave the country.

Reform, and the Labour government who pander to them, should be ashamed.