So Priti Patel has announced an Inquiry following the tragic murder of Sarah Everard. THREAD
It won't initially be a statutory inquiry - apparently for reasons of urgency - but can be converted into one. I don't find that rationale that persuasive but what you call it is less important than who Chairs it and what its powers and terms of reference are.
The Chair will be confirmed in due course. So will the terms of reference although we have something of a steer...
I see Nick Cohen is again complaining in one of his newspaper columns about the cancellation of transphobes.
Barely a day passes in which one national newspaper or another does not carry a piece decrying how trans people have rendered voiceless the writer or their friends.
Meanwhile, when @GoodLawProject brings litigation asserting that trans people too are entitled to benefit from the foundational NHS promise of universal healthcare there is literally not one national newspaper we trust to carry the story fairly.
"The pandemic was lucky for some – even those supplying facemasks the NHS couldn't use. One can only guess how large a fortune Andrew Mills made – he has changed the status of his companies so that we can't see how much public money went into his pocket.” opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-…
A reminder that civil servants were worried about the consequences of not giving Andrew Mills a contract because he was an advisor to @trussliz.
A reminder that the Department of Health didn't consider conflicts of interest before giving Ayanda a £252m contract. nao.org.uk/press-release/…
Rosie Duffield is here, at best ignorantly and at worst dishonestly, spreading harmful falsehoods about trans healthcare. No one "so young" gets surgery. You can't have it in the UK as a child.
Twitter is a hostile place for all and women suffer more than men. I don't invite threats against anyone. But this gross misrepresentation of reality causes real harm to a beseiged and vulnerable community. It has to be described clearly as what is: a harmful falsehood.
You can't pretend to be a good faith participant in this discussion, you can't pretend to care about the lives of trans people, and stand by silently whilst someone in a position of notional authority, an MP, actively spreads damaging falsehoods.
As we process the news that Wayne Couzens took advantage of his status as a police office to kidnap before murdering Sarah Everard on 3 March, it's worth remembering the warning signs about him that seem not to have been taken sufficiently seriously (policeconduct.gov.uk/news/update-in…).
There is a large enough body of evidence that the police often fail to take seriously violence, including sexual violence, against women that this should come as no surprise. But it is still pretty sickening.
Thoughts and solidarity with Ms Everards' family and friends.
There are so, so many examples: like Shana Grice who was fined by Sussex Police for "time wasting" for reporting the man who then slit her throat shortly after. mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/t…
Well played the media for tone-policing @AngelaRayner whilst ignoring that what she said about the actual Prime Minister is basically true.
And where's the scrutiny of @michaelgove - who attacked not one single politician but the whole "cruel, dirty, toothless face" of the North?
Politics is a tricky business. Anyone who says they know the answers is a fool. But I'm pretty sure they don't include taking advice from those who want you to fail.