Jenny Walsh

Londoner, socialist, aspiring to read music & sing better

[Timothy Snyder @TimothyDSnyder]

Excellent summary of the present state of relations between Russian and American oligarchical clans. Please read and share.
https://t.co/FMgDAbR8qp

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

Just so you understand the scale of betrayal: first, our "partners" didn't warn Ukraine about the incoming ballistic missiles, so the air raid alert wasn't activated before impact, robbing people of their chance to survive.

​Then, Starlink was restricted to stop working at speeds above 100 mph. This renders useless, first and foremost, our interceptor drones. It doesn't limit our ability to attack inside Russia, it limits our ability to stop another apartment building or school full of civilians from being hit.

​Wow, just wow.

[Peter Apps @PeteApps]

What's going to happen when a generation of private renters start to retire with no housing security?

This week's Substack (an extract from Homesick) asks a question that housing policy is frighteningly unwilling to contemplate:

https://t.co/Qs0pdVffGT

[Sammy @NeuroSGS]

This video highlights a huge issue with using science to justify political ideology.

It all sounds very convincing to the average person. I mean, why wouldn’t you trust “the science” when it “repeatedly” demonstrates that transgender individuals have brains of the opposite sex? Why would anyone deny this supposed “scientific fact”?

The problem is, people often don’t actually look at the studies critically. They see the “media-grabbing” headline finding and repeat it.

Many researchers and academics interested in this debate (myself included) have repeatedly pointed out (screaming & shouting) that much of this literature is based on small samples, confounded designs, questionable analyses and findings that often fail to replicate.

But that nuance gets completely lost.

A difference in one brain region becomes an “opposite-sex brain”. A shift towards the opposite-sex average becomes “brain sex”. An association becomes an explanation...

And before you know it, these claims are being used to justify real-world policy, whether that’s trans people’s inclusion in sport, or arguments around cross-sex hormonal “treatments”.

This is what happens when people blindly “follow the science” when they 1) don’t fully understand the studies, 2) can’t critically analyse them, and 3) take the conclusions at face value.

Science should absolutely inform these debates. But that also means actually interrogating the science, and not attack people when they highlight clear issues with the underlying data.

What did they actually test? How big was the sample? What were the confounders? Did they test the interaction? Has it replicated? And does the evidence actually support the claim being made?

Because “a study found X” and “science has established X” are not the same thing.

This is a dangerous game to play…

[Jenny Walsh @JenW100]

@WeRtheMods Wishing you all luck 🍀

[Reform UK Exposed 🇬🇧 @reformexposed]

Reform UK’s £105m Crypto Donations

Christopher Harborne: £61m
Ben Delo: £44m
Maria Rost: £125-136k
Simon William Smith: £116k
Oscar Townsley: £30k

That’s approximately £105.46m from crypto-linked donors (that we know of).

[Florence Lox 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @floboflo]

A reminder that small boat crossings peaked in 2022 when (checks notes) Suella Braverman was Home Secretary.
She tried to solve this by giving Rwanda £300 million to take 4 refugees

[Alf Dubs @AlfDubs]

I understand exactly what's happening - I've seen it before

[Nick Reeves #RejoinEU #NAFO #FBPE @nickreeves9876]

Farage and Reform UK are in deep trouble. However, after 3 days, @Verbatim_Media's 37 minute video of their extraordinary year-long undercover investigation into Reform UK's illegal foreign donations has only got 161k views. It should have several million.

So please repost this and then share the video.
https://t.co/aUHQimmSm6

[Gilles Chevalier ⚓ @GJChevalier]

La Peste (Albert Camus), épilogue.

Ecoutant, en effet, les cris d’allégresse qui montaient de la ville, Rieux se souvenait que cette allégresse était toujours menacée. Car il savait ce que cette foule en joie ignorait, et qu’on peut lire dans les livres, que le bacille de la peste ne meurt ni ne disparaît jamais, qu’il peut rester pendant des dizaines d’années endormi dans les meubles et le linge, qu’il attend patiemment dans les chambres, les caves, les mouchoirs et les paperasses, et que, peut-être, le jour viendrait où, pour le malheur et l’enseignement des hommes, la peste réveillerait ses rats et les enverrait mourir dans une cité heureuse.

CAMUS, La Peste, 1947.

[@banie01🇮🇪🇪🇺🌍 @banie01]

Ah yes a "National Emergency" along with the suspension of judicial & legislative processes.
The slow of wit & those buying the shit Farage is peddling?
Would do well to read a little German History.
Specifically the #Ermächtigungsgesetz
This is #Fascism https://t.co/GFy49S9n2e

[Prem Sikka @premnsikka]

Medieval Farage threatens judges, civil servants, parliament to obey him or else.

Will declare state of emergency, make MPs sit 24 hours a day for six days a week until he gets his way.

Will end human rights, equality, employment rights laws, and more.
https://t.co/njDS92pYpO

[Susie Dent @susie_dent]

Word of the Day is a reminder of ‘tsundoku’: the pile of unread books you can’t help but add to at every opportunity.

[Mike Batt @Mike_Batt]

Guys, Chris is a wonderful guy, much loved in the business, and a brilliant musical contributor. Sadly he needs our help. (If you can). 🙏🙂 https://t.co/0hwwcZlzZz

[Nordic Model Now! @nordicmodelnow]

A MESSAGE TO LEFT WING MEN

About a year ago, we were asked to provide a speaker for a Labour Party constituency meeting that was having a debate about prostitution policy. Survivor activist, Rebecca Mott, agreed to speak and I went along to support her. Her speech was powerful and clearly made some people see prostitution differently. Here is a tiny excerpt of what she said:

“I only did indoors prostitution – the mythical safe way to be prostituted. I found out the hard way it was never safe, just on occasions less bad. To be inside indoors prostitution, is to be placed in a room with a string of entitled strangers. These punters hold all the freedom of choice. He can choose to be as violent as he desires, or to pretend he is the nice guy. The punter knows his violence will be of no consequence, and there will no outside interference.”

After the debate, constituency members were asked to vote on a motion calling for support for the Nordic Model. Voting was by a show of hands. I was sitting in the front and turned round and was confronted by row upon row of men, every single one of them with his hand up, voting against the motion. I felt a kind of rage. How could they ignore what Rebecca had said about the terrible impact of prostitution on her life? And the wisdom of the other women who spoke for the motion?

And how could they fall for the easy answers and misinformation put forward by those speaking against the motion, all of whom were calling for the full decriminalisation of the entire sex trade, including pimps, brothel keepers and punters? Did the men with their hands up really believe that decriminalising pimps would make the women safer? Did they stop to wonder how it would make the women safer? No one explained that. They never do. Because actual studies in countries that have gone down that road have not found the women to suddenly and miraculously be safe.

Ever since that evening, I’ve been speaking to those men in my head. Recently I thought it was time to get it out of my head and down on paper. Or rather on the Internet.

So this is my message to those men. And to all the other left-wing men – whether you’re in the Labour Party, or the Greens or Libdems, or you’re part of the Extinction Rebellion, CND, or something else. Whatever you’re part of, I imagine it’s because you care about the kind of world we live in. You’re sick of wars and the arms trade. You may be a socialist. You want things to be organised more fairly. You want the environment and the natural world to be cared for and preserved for future generations.

I want you to think about where in that world does prostitution fit?

In Victorian England, the system was so skewed against women, that for many, perhaps most, of those who weren’t married or in domestic service, there was no realistic option but prostitution to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table. Do you think those women would have chosen that otherwise? Really? Please don’t fool yourself.

The unions and the labour movement fought for a better deal. For a shorter working day, holidays, safety standards, a family wage. And eventually better pay and opportunities for women too. That’s the heritage, the victory of the labour movement in the UK.

But if we decriminalise the sex trade, Victorian England is where women will end up. Because decriminalising the sex trade is saying that prostitution is just another job. And if it’s just another job, poor women will end up having no option but to take it. That’s how it works and if you think otherwise, you’re deluding yourself.

So what is prostitution for anyway?

They say ‘sex work’ is just a job. That it’s no different from all the other crap jobs poor people have to do. But think about that. Those jobs contribute something useful, something that society actually needs, even if it’s only a coffee or delivering a parcel. And those jobs don’t require women to take off their clothes so men can grope and ram their dicks into them.

But prostitution – what does it create for society? What social need does it fulfil?

I think you all know it’s not about orgasms for men – because you know you can do that for yourself. No, it’s about ego and flattery for men, and men being able to get their own way, sometimes in really brutal ways. In other words, it’s about male entitlement, feeding male entitlement.

And what’s male entitlement associated with?

It’s associated with male violence, over-valuing men’s contributions and under-valuing women’s, wars, extreme capitalist extraction of natural resources, and so on. Pretty much everything you probably say you’re concerned about.

Is this what you really want to encourage? Is consigning women to be sexually used and abused while flattering the very men who are using them going to help create a better world? Really?

Think about it.

Full decriminalisation of the sex trade is capitulation to all that is worst in humanity. It doesn’t keep women safe.

If we want a better world, men, you need to face the truth. Male entitlement, male sexual entitlement, male dominance, are not compatible with a human, equitable, environmentally secure world.

If we want a more egalitarian and fair world, we must change the law so it no longer enshrines men’s ‘right’ to buy sexual access to women and girls.

We need to make it clear that buying sexual access is beyond the pale. And we need to provide much better options for women and girls.

That’s what the Nordic Model is all about. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.

[Emma 💛💙🇩🇰🇬🇧🇪🇺 @MonkEmma]

This is not misinformation.

That's what I normally cover - something out of context, an opinion quoted as fact, or a deliberate misinterpretation...

This is none of those.

This is full-on disinformation.

Because that is NOT from the Express. It is entirely fake😱

🧵
1/10

[Kenan Malik @kenanmalik]

Grenfell Tower cladding firm Arconic paid almost twice as much compensation to its shareholders for economic loss from misleading statements about the cladding than to the estates of the victims and to survivors of the fire: Report from @Cmmonwealth: https://t.co/2pdWq2e1ch

[Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls @UNSRVAW]

While I endorse most of the message put forward by my fellow mandate holders, I did not join the statement because it describes the situation of women and girls as “gender apartheid” and calls for the codification of this concept.

As I have mentioned before, it is my assessment that the current horrific treatment of women and girls in #Afghanistan amounts to “femi-genocide”: the acts to which they are subjected are intended to destroy Afghan women and girls, who qualify as a national group, in whole or in part because they are female (i.e. biologically female). Females in Afghanistan cannot identify themselves out of these experiences of subjugation and violence, nor can it be denied that Afghan society as a whole associates being female with this level of oppression, marginalization and exclusion.
I am also of the view that the problem is not so much the need to coin new concepts or recognize “new” crimes, but rather the need to apply the legal frameworks and concepts we already have. For example, the crimes of genocide, gender persecution and crimes against humanity are already recognized. All States have a duty to prevent discrimination and violence against all women and girls, and not only against their own nationals. This duty extends to Afghan women and girls as well.

The apathy and normalization of violence experienced by Afghan women and girls is a reflection of the regression in the respect for the rights of women and girls worldwide and their erasure of women and girls as humans that have specific needs and experiences and that are entitled to specific protections based on their sex (intersecting with other grounds)

I close by saying that I of course fully respect the right of others, particularly Afghan women to disagree with my assessment and positions.

[Tim (totally unremarkable and officially stubborn) @forwardnotback]

Tonight I think a lot of journalists should read the @samaritans guidelines before posting/tweeting/writing

https://t.co/Xbyi1lbZjK

[Fire Brigades Union @fbunational]

The FBU have been sounding the alarm for years.

We need proper and immediate investment in wildfire PPE, resources and training for every fire and rescue service in the country.

We need 5,000 more firefighters now.