The Other Half

The Other Half is a new centre of research for practical, workable policy in the interests of women.

[Kirsteen Sullivan MP @kittysull1]

Fundamental questions I have - where is the evidence base to demonstrate the need for this bill and where are the gaps in the existing legislation?

[David Goodhart @David_Goodhart]

Time to talk more publicly about poor communication skills of some of our foreign carers and its impact on quality of elder care, a sensitive issue but a lot of strong feeling out there. My Telegraph piece, grew out of a recent tweet on the ILR climbdown. https://t.co/4tOleZKTsX

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

The bleakest chart

[Sex Industry Research @SexIndustryRes]

"Imagine pretending that women just randomly decided en masse around 2010 that they fancied a bit of sodomy and strangulation."

💯

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

And in 2006 Liz and Sue won.

Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker moved to ban 'extreme' violent porn online, saying it was already illegal to publish or share this material, but "the advent of the internet...means existing controls are being bypassed"

(Note that a challenge was expected under the European Human Rights Convention)

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

@Wecantconsentto 2024: The Cass Review of NHS Gender Identity services says children's exposure to violent pornography and normalised asphyxiation /slapping is one of stressors faces by the large numbers of girls identifying away from being female

https://t.co/gi7fP5xMMo

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

"This is about platforms removing very egregious content.

“We are talking about the normalisation of strangulation, the normalisation of incest, of videos with girls in pigtails with teddy bears, of adults acting out child abuse and that extreme content being pushed by algorithms to the public for profit by porn platforms.”
Claire McGlynn on the MoJ's bizarre ad campaign on the latest strangulation porn crackdown

@harrietgrant
https://t.co/8LLGJACYQ4

[The Cassandra Centre @CassandraCentre]

Not just Russell Brand's barrister. At the trial of the man who killed my beautiful daughter, Cassandra, his defence barrister repeatedly asked about Cassie's underwear and portrayed her as being promiscuous. She was dead. It seared itself into my consciousness and won't leave.

[Jo Bartosch @jo_bartosch]

The porn lobby are in overdrive spreading misinformation about what the new law will mean. But we have been here before.
I remember being perplexed when the lie that face sitting would be banned first surfaced. I even thought about joining a protest against it (mainly bc it seemed like a laugh). But that didn't happen.
Read this thread.

[We Can't Consent To This @Wecantconsentto]

Cigarette smoking in porn to be banned! And burlesque! (It is the 2006 ban on strangulation porn).

On the fractious history of government crackdowns and why we should actually use the bloody law this time round.

[We Can't Consent To This @Wecantconsentto]

One final thought on the long decades of strangulation porn bans.

Campaigners used to claim porn was just 'fantasy' and would never inspire real life acts.

No longer.

Instead strangulation is just 'breath play', or doesn't count if she consents.

Stopping this - making strangulation the sole preserve of the worst deviant offenders again- is possibly the number 1 thing that we could do to remove suspicion and hostility between men and women. It has been totally corrosive to society allow strangling to be inserted into normal relationships.

The 2008 online strangulation porn ban here was not enforced partly because there was little chance of international cooperation internet sites. However that has changed.

On mass scale, all nations with widespread and unfettered internet access have a problem with men who are disinhibited by porn use, and who will use killing-acts like strangulation on women. We know this is true for most European nations, and the Anglosphere.

Is this the case in China (where the internet is heavily regulated), or in South Korea (where porn is banned)?

Will it be the case here in the UK? Only if this time, the law has teeth and is taken to the sites who push this real and murderous sexual violence.

Over to @Ofcom

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

@NottsTheatres @David_Goodhart More on this here - including on the lack of background vetting of care recruits:
https://t.co/NCnVjhYOm2

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

Unfortunately the migrant workforce that came were overwhelmingly not skilled and experienced carers, but instead much more likely than uk recruits to be unskilled (and even if trained, have only entry level training). Then many also had poor English. State/sector agencies are determined not to see the issue - meaning inaction on poor and harmful care.

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

The public were ahead of everyone on this - complaining to the CQC about poor English among care work visa holders in 2022. Unfortunately it took years for state agencies to respond.

It is unlikely there will be much improvement: a 30% uplift in 'global majority' care worker disciplinaries was dismissed this year as 'racism' by govt funded care body.

Engage Care Services employees will likely be among those given a "second chance" to work in care under Labour's care visa proposals.

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

"Some people and their relatives told us they could not always effectively communicate with staff due to language barriers. Some people also told us that at times staff spoke in their native language in front of them. This meant they could not understand what was being
discussed and made them feel uncomfortable."

This care company was run by a Nigerian politician. It invited 426 migrant care workers to the UK, but has been shut down, 2.5 years after the public first raised concerns.

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

#25 Living Glory Social Care's director is Nigerian politician and Swedish national Dr Mary Alile Idele. In 2023 her company gave 426 COS to care work migrants. The @CareQualityComm shut the service down in 2026, after several years of grim reports of care workers unable to speak English, or refusing to speak to people needing care.

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

Really important to face up to this - state bodies like the @CareQualityComm, Border Force and the Home Office know there was a huge issue in migrant care visa holders coming to the UK who could not speak English.

Barbara Rymell died because her carers couldn't speak to 999.

[David Goodhart @David_Goodhart]

Time to talk more publicly about poor communication skills of some of our foreign carers and its impact on quality of elder care, a sensitive issue but a lot of strong feeling out there. My Telegraph piece, grew out of a recent tweet on the ILR climbdown. https://t.co/4tOleZKTsX

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

@CareQualityComm A woman in Portsmouth was fed dog food by her carers, and left in the wet and in the dark for long periods. Her family had to place a hidden camera to find out what was happening to her.

https://t.co/TjUwIh6Y7H

[We Can't Consent To This @Wecantconsentto]

Twenty years ago, the mum of murdered Brit Jane Longhurst won a ban on online strangulation 'porn'. But the law was never used against the sites.

HUGE public support for a new Labour govt to make good on the promise they made. The cost of inaction has been to push strangling onto generations of young women, by men who have lost their inhibition against grabbing women by the throat, a killing-act regardless of its rebranding as "breath play" or choking.

[We Can't Consent To This @Wecantconsentto]

If you are too young you won't know that this is the second "govt is banning blowjobs" campaign. Tactics have evolved.

Campaigners simulated sex acts in the road, the last time the law was tightened in 2014. In 2008 they threatened to go to the ECHR.

The monstering of MP Jess Asato this time round shows young women what happens if you push back.

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

https://t.co/LyUYAz7aoQ

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

More than 100,000 British women have left the care sector since the care visa route was opened. They've been replaced by men on care/graduate visas.

Still, 0.9m British women 'wipe bums' in care. Little mention yesterday of what's "fair" to them - their pay and conditions have slumped, as intended by the policy of opening care visas to the world.

[Miriam Cates @miriam_cates]

Even three years ago it was clear that the care worker visa scheme is a scam. The last government refused to believe it, and this government refuses to believe it.

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

That's just the top 40 care visa sponsors in 2023. Together, the rogue firms among those 40 sponsored more than 12,000 care worker COSs.

None of the people they employed were asked to leave - and if they are still here, can now access the "second chance" route to permanent settlement in the UK.

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

Who are the "second group" of care work visa holders, who will be given a "second opportunity" to work in care, and, after 5 years, stay forever?

Likely most came by rogue firms, which sprang up when care jobs were opened to the world.

Consider the Top 40 care sponsors in 2023.

#1 -#5 are big name care companies...

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

Who are the "second group" of care work visa holders, who will be given a "second opportunity" to work in care, and, after 5 years, stay forever?

Likely most came by rogue firms, which sprang up when care jobs were opened to the world.

Consider the Top 40 care sponsors in 2023.

#1 -#5 are big name care companies...

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 BREAKING: Shabana Mahmood confirms most social care migrants will now be exempt from waiting 15 years to settle in Britain

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

@CareQualityComm @Ofstednews #40