Anne Burks

Into ceramics, reading, drawing, botany, walking, gardening... Intrigued by Alice and have a weakness for lists.

[Anne Burks @AnneBurks]

Save The Lammermuirs - Stop The Data Centre - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/23GreI1mUD via @UKChange

[Snowleopardess 💚 @snowleopardess]

This is not getting NEARLY enough coverage today.
GPs don't make referrals to specialists without good reason-yet 1 in 4 of these are now not going to take place.
Reduce waiting lists? Wes Streeting and Keir Starmer are nothing more than conmen.

[Ben Sellers @MrBenSellers]

Tony Benn on Peter Mandelson (1987):

“Today we had a meeting of the NEC & the Shadow Cabinet. Kinnock introduced the meeting & spoke for about twenty minutes. We went on to Peter Mandelson who said a few words. I find Mandelson a threatening figure for the future of the Party.”

[Pistachio 🇮🇷 🇵🇸 @HarleyShah]

Travelling by private jet to a conference about climate change is a level of detachment from reality that's impossible to grasp

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

COP30 in Brazil 🇧🇷

A four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest has built for the forthcoming COP30 climate summit in Brazil.

A jamboree of virtue hypocrisy where the lungs of the planet - the Amazon rainforest - is destroyed to indulge COP delegates to meet up to talk about saving the planet.

[Sarah Evans @SarahjevsEvans]

Boycee’s official first portrait

[Harry Eccles @Heccles94]

The British establishment have all ready covered this new Banksy up.

Can we get it Retweeted 10,000 times to show that they can never cover up their complicity in war crimes??

Protect the right to protest! RT!

[Jane Symons @JaneSymons1]

So many young women don't realise how relatively recently the rights they take for granted were won.

[Masih Alinejad @AlinejadMasih]

Where are the headlines? This mother in Iran is about to be hanged and I really feel helpless seeing silence from the big names, the anti-war activists in the West, the feminist leaders, the so-called free world leaders.
Her only “crime”? Fighting for freedom and dignity for her son and a better future. The regime wants to kill her for wanting justice. And the world looks away.

Why are the global justice and feminist movements silent? Where are the protests?
This is not about politics. This is about basic humanity. What does it mean for justice, when those who once marched against oppression turn their eyes away from a woman who seeks nothing but fairness and humanity?

This execution is not only her death sentence, it is a test of our collective humanity.

#SharifehMohammadi

[Dr Tom Montgomery @DrTOMontgomery]

#Badgers

The most impressive badger grooming session you’re ever likely to see.

The British government must stop killing these beautiful native animals.

How many badgers killed in England in just 12 years? ≈248,000

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

🚨 Angela Rayner has given councils permission to sell off allotments to raise money.

8 sell offs of ancient rights have happened so far, including to build houses.

The history of allotments goes back to the 1500s and is tied deeply to land access, food security, and social reform, it’s an ancient right. It’s the bedrock of the right to grow your own food on shared land.

But Labour doesn’t care about citizens’ rights…. Not even our ancient ones 🔥

[Anne Burks @AnneBurks]

🚨🌱 The Chancellor is currently reviewing all public spending from scratch. Please join me in signing the @_CFTA petition to remind the UK Government: the arts make our lives happier and our communities stronger. Now is the moment to invest in them. https://t.co/WE0GLHHXy1

[Hadley Freeman @HadleyFreeman]

Never has so much time, energy and emotion been wasted to confirm the absolute eye-watering obvious 💃

[Rosie Kay @RosieKayK2CO]

The Tate's sorry decline is a chilling lesson for London's museums

Preachy and pernicious ideology is
turning away visitors at record rates

Tonight’s @TheEveningStand by me, Rosie Kay.

[Katie Lam @Katie_Lam_MP]

The Government rejected a national inquiry into rape gangs and promised five local ones instead.

Months later, we still know almost nothing about them.

Victims, survivors and the British public deserve better. They deserve justice.

Please be aware, some of this is graphic.

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

Woman of the Day is Mary Anne Thomson of Carlisle. I can’t tell you when she was born or indeed anything about her other than the fact that OTD in 1832, she was sold at auction by her husband for the knockdown price of 20 shillings plus a dog.

I really wish I was making this up but I’m not. Between 1760 and 1880, about three hundred wives were sold. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Yet it was only possible because in law, the common law principle of coverture held that a married woman was no more than a chattel - the property - of her husband.

In those days, it was very difficult, if not impossible, for a woman to live well without marrying unless her family was wealthy and generous. The average single woman was denied more than basic education, denied access to employment outside teaching, nursing and cleaning, and she was the property of her father.

If she married, she could look forward to ownership transferring to her husband. She had no property or inheritance rights, no right to enter into a contract or earn her own money (if she did, it was his by law), and no custody rights over her own children. They were his property and property can’t own property.

One way for a man to shed financial responsibility for his wife was by selling her at auction. Wife-sales by definition were dehumanising. The woman would be led to a public location (usually a market or pub) with a halter around her neck to remind people that she was the property of her husband, on a par with cattle, and an auction would commence.

There is evidence to suggest that some women actually welcomed being sold off, especially by drunken or violent husbands, but in several cases the woman was sold against her will. The New York Times published this on 2 July 1894:

“In April, 1817, while crossing the cattle market in Smithfield, he witnessed a violent struggle between a young and pretty woman and a brutal and half-drunken ruffian, who was endeavoring to put a halter about her neck for the purpose of selling her. The young woman did not wish to be sold, and the affair ended by both husband and wife making their appearance before the Alderman at Guildhall, who deplored that the law took no cognizance of such cases, and contented himself with binding over the husband to keep the peace.”

It was the 1857 Matrimonial Act that took the first step towards stopping this practice because it finally granted women some very limited rights. Previous WOTD Caroline Norton (1808-1877) of London was instrumental in the passing of this and two other Acts of Parliament giving married women long overdue legal rights for the first time. Her intense lobbying of Parliament and Queen Victoria spelled the beginning of the end of coverture.

But back to Mary Anne.

Her sale was recorded in the Annual Register, an annual reference work recording and analysing major and noteworthy events, first written under the editorship of Edmund Burke (he of Burkean representation fame) in 1758, thus:

"...placed his wife on a large oak chair with a rope or halter of straw round her neck. He then spoke...”I have to offer to your notice my wife, Mary Anne Thomson...she has been to me only a born serpent. It is her wish as well as mine to part forever...I took her for my comfort and the good of my home, but she has become my tormentor, a domestic curse, a night invasion and a daily devil."

"She can read novels and milk cows...she can make butter and scold the maid; she can sing Moore's melodies and plain her frills and caps. She cannot make rum, gin or whisky but she is a good judge of the quality from long experience in testing them."

His asking price was 50 shillings (about £237 in today’s money) but after an hour, it was knocked down to 20 shillings (about 95 quid) plus a Newfoundland dog. The buyer was a farmer from Carlisle and Mary Anne went off with him.

The last recorded wife-sale was in 1913 in Leeds when a woman deserted by her husband took him to court for non-payment of maintenance and gave evidence that he’d sold her to one of his workmates for £1 (about £125 in today’s money).

Coverture was finally knocked on the head of 23 October 1991 by the Law Lords in their famous 1991 ruling in R v R, although I’d like to give a special mention to the women of Dublin who interrupted a wife-sale in 1756, rescued the woman, and put the husband in the stocks overnight.

Mary Anne, I hope you had a better life with the Carlisle farmer than the bloke who drove you to drink. Pass me the gin.

[Caffeinated Opinion @TUGFansMatter]

Stephanie Turner

We see you, beautiful fencing girl taking a stand that you will not compete in unfair competitions against males

Your acted with HONOR and courage.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

Tony Benn would have turned 100 today.

A rare, courageous and continuous voice for peace, Tony was driven by the radical idea that all human life had equal value.

We all have our inspirations – and he was mine. Happy birthday Tony.

[Lynneth1000000 #FBNHS BLM 🏳️‍🌈 🕊 ⚖️ 💙 🍉 🌻 🌎 @Lynneth1000000]

This country owes Jeremy Corbyn a massive apology.

[Women Won’t Wheesht @WWWheesht]

“I’m truly overwhelmed by the love and support from everyone. Your beautiful cards, flowers, gifts and kind words have lifted my spirits during this journey. Knowing I have such incredible people by my side means the world. Thank you all so much!💜🤍💚” - Sandie Peggie