Shy Mummy

So many opinions so little confidence to share

[Shy Mummy @jecrossfield]

@visitnorthyork My Grandfather (who died not long after I was born) worked for Rowntree’s my Nanna, his widow, would still get waste chocolate bars from them.We used to get kitkats that had no biscuit in them and drifter bars just of pure chocolate 🍫.York used to really look after it’s elderly.

[Tyler @cillianblack]

The country is three trillion pounds in debt. We’re giving £10 billion to Ukraine.

By any objective standard, this is insanity.

[Brian Chau @brianchau57]

Corrected scale.

Inspired by @cremieuxrecueil

[Preston Byrne @prestonjbyrne]

Keep in mind that one can cause "harassment, alarm, or distress" in England and Wales by uttering a true statement of fact to someone who doesn't want to hear it, or by offering an honestly-held opinion or belief, spoken or written, which also offends.

[Kel Mansfield @tedkel]

Why were Jonathan Powell, Peter Mandelson and Lord Hermer appointed without vetting?

The answer is that Chagos was a deal Starmer couldn't refuse to make.

Here's a timeline of the key stages of the Chagos treachery.

In 1982, after it became known that the Chagos seabed may contain vast mineral wealth, Mauritius set up a select committee to examine the matter.
However, sea-mining technology was in its infancy, and it was too expensive to be commercially viable at that time.

In 2003, as underwater mining technologies advanced and the value of minerals and rare earth elements soared, mining the Chagos seabed became an exciting possibility again; Mauritius appointed the eminent international barrister Sir Ian Brownlie as advisor for the Chagos Archipelago.

A former member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Brownlie was a good friend of Sir Satcam Boolell, a former Labour deputy prime minister of Mauritius, and High Commissioner in London.

In 2009, Brownlie led the first Mauritius delegation to the Foreign Office in London seeking a Chagos deal.
Among the delegation was Sir Satcam Boolell's son Satyajit, who became Mauritius Director of Public Prosecutions the same year.

In 2010, after Brownlie died in a motor accident in Egypt, Sir Keir Starmer’s “great mate”, Philippe Sands, a leading human-rights lawyer who has publicly boasted of humiliating the UK in international courts, took over as counsel to Mauritius for Chagos.

In 2013, Satyajit Boolell invited Keir Starmer, whom he had become friendly with during Starmer's time as the UK's DPP, to a legal conference at the 5-star Balaclava resort in Mauritius.

During the trip, Starmer discussed the future of the Chagos Archipelago with then Mauritius prime minister Navin Ramgoolam.

After Starmer’s 2013 visit, Ramgoolam wrote that he and Starmer were aligned over Chagos.

In 2015, Ramgoolam was arrested on money-laundering charges when large sums of cash in foreign currencies, suitcases full of brand-new luxury watches, and blank British visas were found in his home.

Also in 2015, Starmer was elected to the British Parliament.

In 2019, Philippe Sands, after a campaign of lobbying the UN, obtained an International Court of Justice ruling (advisory opinion only, and non-binding) that the Chagos islands should be given to Mauritius.

Sands used the ICJ ruling as leverage in the following years in his efforts to persuade the Conservative government to give Chagos to Mauritius.

In 2020, Starmer became leader of the Labour Party.

In 2021, Sands received Mauritius' top honour, The Most Distinguished Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean.

In 2022, Sands made an unauthorized entry into the Chagos Archipelago for a flag-raising ceremony. Sands tweets at the time, “It’s morning on Chagos, where the flag of Mauritius flies."

In 2023, Sands became a Mauritius citizen, but retains his British and French citizenships.

🧧In November 2023, David Cameron replaced James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary and, with the support of other senior Tories, stopped a Chagos deal saying, it’s not in the national interest, as reported in Hansard.

In July 2024, Starmer became UK Prime Minister and just ten weeks after entering Downing Street, he agreed a deal with Mauritius, despite there having been no mention of Chagos during the election campaign, and the Labour manifesto pledging to protect the BOT.

in November of 2024, Ramgoolam was elected Mauritius prime minister again after a snap general election, and took over from the incumbent PM, Pravind Jugnauth, to lead the Chagos negotiations with the UK.

In December 2024, after 14 years in the role, Philippe Sands steps down as Mauritius counsel for Chagos.

In January 2025, Attorney General Lord Hermer recused himself from signing off on the Chagos deal, and declined to say why.

In February 2025, Jugnauth was arrested on money-laundering charges after large sums of cash in foreign currencies and suitcases full of brand-new luxury watches were found in his home.

In May 2025, twelve years after discussing the future of Chagos in Mauritius, Starmer and Ramgoolam sat down in London to sign the treaty that transfers the archipelago's sovereignty to Mauritius.

The Fall Out.

The Chagos deal does🟥NOT secure the joint UK/US military base on Diego Garcia.

The deal operationally hobbles the base, and increases the dangers to the British and American military personnel, and the civilians who work there, and in the wider Central Indian Ocean region.

Diego Garcia's remoteness made it easy to defend in the past. This deal leaves the base horribly vulnerable to the growing threats posed by the new longer-range missiles, and more sophisticated and lethal drones.

When Keir Starmer, Lord Hermer and Vijay Rangarajan, the Director General at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, made the deal it was fully understood that the outer islands of the Chagos Archipelago were by far the best locations to deploy early warning, and air-defense systems, to protect the main base from missile and drone attacks.
Yet they still decided to lease only Diego Garcia.

Andy Burnham, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, and Defense Minister Wes Streeting, know the deal increases the dangers to the lives of British service personnel, and our NATO allies personnel, in the strategically important Central Indian Ocean region.
To double down and push the deal with that knowledge is a shameful act of betrayal.

While the deal leaves Diego Garcia vulnerable to attack, it also renders the base itself ineffective and operationally hobbled.

Mauritius is a signatory of the Pelindaba African Weapon-Free Zone Treaty which bans all nuclear weapons from treaty members' territory.

Pelindaba gives each of the more the 40 countries who have signed it the right to inspect the facilities on Diego Garcia if they suspect nuclear arms are being stored there.

The UK's nuclear-armed Trident submarines will no longer be able to enter Chagos waters, or visit Diego Garcia which is the only island in the region which has suitable anchorage and facilities for maintenance and restocking provisions, etc.

The US's nuclear-armed submarines, ships, and planes will also be banned from Diego Garcia and the Chagos Archipelago's waters.

Mauritius gets complete sovereignty over everything, including control of the airspace above the Chagos Archipelago, which at 250,000 square miles is the same size as France.

The implications of controlling such a vast area of airspace in a strategically vital region are huge.

Mauritius has shown it will ban planes entering its current airspace when China asks.

The Chagos Deal does not ‘secure the base’. It methodically destroys every element required for operations. The text and annexes state it will:
❌Constrain future Ops and use of the base
❌Prevent the placing of sensors and other maritime installations
❌Require us to sight our foes on defence planning
❌Mean we’re unable to use our preferred contractors
❌See us lose of control over electromagnetic spectrum.

[Lily Craven @TheAttagirls]

The Woman of the Day is the Anglo-Saxon noblewoman Godgifu of West Mercia, the only woman to remain a landholder in Britain after those robbing Normans swept in and stole everything that wasn’t nailed down (and quite a few things that were).

Of course you’ve heard of her. You’ve heard of the Godiva Procession which was instituted in 1678 by Coventry Fair to commemorate the legendary ride by the Lady.

Taking pity on the people of Coventry suffering grievously under her husband's oppressive taxation, she called his bluff that he would repeal the taxes if she would strip naked and ride through the streets of the town, clothed only in her long hair. She only agreed on the condition that everyone stayed indoors and shut their windows, but a tailor known ever afterwards as Peeping Tom disobeyed and was struck blind. Allegedly.

It was all bunkum. Absolute bunkum.

Lady Godiva’s real name was Godgifu. She married Leofric, Earl of Mercia, but both she and her husband were major philanthropists and among the most munificent of the Anglo-Saxon nobility until the Norman Conquest in 1066 (and those robbing Normans came along, etc).

In Anglo-Saxon times, in laws dated around 1008 AD, women enjoyed full property rights, from peasant to nobility. They could own land, farms, houses. Upon marriage, a husband was legally required to give his wife a Morgengifu (Morning Gift): land, money, or goods, which remained her independent property that she could sell, give away, or manage as she chose. Women wrote their own wills and left property to whomever they chose including children, servants, or religious institutions, and they didn’t need their husband's permission.

All that stopped after 1066. The new feudal system tied land ownership to military service, something women were barred from providing. Women became the chattels (property) of their husbands if they were married, or their fathers if they were not, a legal state known as coverture. Still, I’m sure the Normans thought they were being progressive and inclusive, two words I’ve come to loathe. But I digress.

Godgifu survived the death of her husband and was mentioned in the Domesday Book, one of the few Anglo-Saxons and the only woman to remain a major landholder after the Conquest.

Godgifu certainly would have ridden a horse but not in protest and certainly not minus her clothes. Still, the idea of it proved quite a crowd pleaser at Coventry Fair in 1678, even though the first fake Lady Godiva was actually a lad. Yes, I know. Some things just don’t change.

In the intervening years, the myth was spiced up by the Puritans to prove a moral point but dampened down by other Protestants to make it fit for delicate ears. Never forget: the objectification of women is eternal, along with its fraternal twin, misogyny. The two generally go hand in hand.

Despite several attempts to shut down the procession — in 1845, the Mayor got fed up with the crowds jostling to get a better view of her, expostulating, “It’s a disgrace”, and in 1854, the Bishop of Worcester protested against “a Birmingham whore being paraded through the streets as Lady Godiva” — it continued as a annual event until the 1960s.

Godgifu’s date of birth is unknown but she died in her mid-fifties in 1067 after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Domesday Book of 1086 notes that the lands formerly held by her had passed to others. Men of course. Chattels are property, and property cannot own property.

Married women finally achieved independent taxation in their own right in 1990. Prior to that, their husbands were responsible for paying tax on their income unless she obtained his signature and consent to claim her own single person's allowance and pay tax on her own earnings. Her unearned income — such as investment or savings interest — still legally belonged to him.

And of course, the "marital rape exemption" — the legal assumption that a wife could not withhold sexual consent from her husband under the marriage contract — was not formally abolished in English law until 1991.

935 years. It only took 935 years in this country to demolish the legal status and definition of Woman as Property, and despite the Supreme Court ruling, we still find ourselves having to dismantle the definition of Woman as a feeling — with political parties, Civil Service departments, with trade unions, charities, retailers, and with sporting bodies.

I know many of us are tired of fighting the same old battles but keep going, sisters.

“We woman suffragists have a great mission — the greatest mission the world has ever known. It is to free half the human race, and through that freedom to save the rest.”
Emmeline Pankhurst, 17 October 1912.

[Shy Mummy @jecrossfield]

@TheAttagirls Wow that’s fascinating -thanks for sharing. Who would have thought that in Anglo-Saxon times women had such rights only for them to be removed by the Normans.

[Emma Trimble @Emma_A_Webb]

Can we have ‘Respect Orders’ live across the English Channel - so that people who cause alarm and distress to British citizens by entering our country illegally can be permanently banned from ever setting foot on British soil? 😇

[The Mercian @TheMercianNews]

🚨JUST IN: 14-year-old left with life-changing injuries after challenging man urinating in Bradford street.

• A 14-year-old boy suffered serious facial injuries in an attack at the rear of Kensington Street near the junction with Willow Street in Bradford on the morning of 22 October.

• West Yorkshire Police said the teenager saw an adult male urinating in the street, challenged him about it, and was then attacked.

• The suspect is described as a tall, fat, bald man with a beard.

• The boy was taken to hospital and required emergency surgery. He will continue to receive treatment.

• Detectives have described it as a particularly violent attack on a vulnerable child and are appealing for witnesses and CCTV.

[Shy Mummy @jecrossfield]

@TheMercianNews This is horrific. How many of us can imagine our own husbands or partners stepping in to help whilst out shopping. Does this mean we shouldn’t try anymore for fear of getting stabbed ourselves. They should be hung quite frankly to send a message.

[Shy Mummy @jecrossfield]

@DonnaLouise1212 @RoundLike I live in a village (soon to be mini town joined up with MK probably) last time my son went to the shopping centre with friends at around 17:30 there was a stabbing that happened whilst he was there. Milton Keynes is not a safe place.

[Shy Mummy @jecrossfield]

@holland_tom Badgers 🦡 how has their population been over the same time period?

[Shy Mummy @jecrossfield]

@historyinmemes Thank you I kept seeing this and never had a clue what it was about 🤨

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

The Spectator has reported that before Jonathan Powell started his role as Britain’s national security adviser, he wasn’t security vetted.

His wife, Sarah Helm, has shown online support for Hamas and Palestine Action.

Outrageous. Heads need to roll for this.

[Andrew Gilligan @mragilligan]

Jonathan Powell was not vetted before being appointed National Security Adviser, we can report.
https://t.co/LgfyXajROJ

[Liza Rosen @LizaRosen0000]

A rare moment of political courage in the British Parliament.

British MP Nick Timothy tells Muslims crying “Islamophobia” to shove it: “Muhammad was a false prophet. Britain is not bound by Islam or Sharia.”

[Shy Mummy @jecrossfield]

@ianarchiebeck I really love your work Ian. There’s one picture you posted of afternoon autumn light of a house and it took me straight back to when I was a child playing outside. It’s amazing that art can take you back in time to a feeling. Thank you for bringing joy to X with your artwork.

[Ian Archie Beck @ianarchiebeck]

September Light, West Dorset: acrylic on linen