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Bearly Politics

@i_iratus

Jun 17

Please note.

Abortion has not been “legalised” up to birth in the UK - it’s been decriminalised.

This is an important distinction, especially when so many are deliberately blurring the lines for outrage clicks.

Here’s what actually happened:

What MPs voted for today was to remove criminal penalties for women who end their own pregnancies outside of the existing legal framework - usually in crisis, often alone.

This follows harrowing cases like Carla Foster and others who faced prosecution under a 160-year-old law. In some cases, women were criminalised after experiencing miscarriage or stillbirth.

That’s what’s changed.

❌ It does not mean abortion is now available “up to birth” on demand.

🛑 Medical professionals are still bound by the Abortion Act 1967, which sets the gestational limit at 24 weeks (with very limited exceptions beyond that, e.g. grave risk to life or severe fetal abnormality).
🛑 Women cannot access late-stage abortion legally without meeting those exceptions.
🛑 Doctors can still be prosecuted if they act outside those laws.

In other words, abortion remains regulated – but women are no longer treated as criminals for making desperate decisions about their own bodies.

This change was backed by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the BMA, BPAS, and nearly every major health body involved in reproductive care. It brings us closer in line with public health best practice and human rights.

Decriminalisation means treating abortion as a healthcare matter, not a criminal one.

That’s it.

That’s the story.

So if someone tells you that MPs just legalised abortion “up to birth,” they’re either misinformed or misleading you.

Either way, it’s not true.

https://twitter.com/godfreydeb6743/status/1935080948170645760

Doctors do still matter.

The amendment decriminalises women - not clinical procedures.

Providers and unlicensed suppliers remain regulated and prosecutable. The aim is to stop jailing vulnerable women in crisis, not to erase safe care.

https://twitter.com/godfreydeb6743/status/1935080948170645760

https://twitter.com/theweeflea/status/1935088349401989269

Decriminalisation removes criminal penalties - it doesn’t establish a free-for-all and medical providers are still subject to regulation and professional standards.

No one is “slaughtering babies at nine months”; that language is inflammatory and detached from clinical reality.

https://twitter.com/theweeflea/status/1935088349401989269

Read 11 tweets

Bearly Politics

@i_iratus

Apr 4

So, you may have noticed that I’ve been online a fair bit the last few days - and you’d be right. I’ve had five glorious days of annual leave to burn through before they disappeared into the NHS ether. Naturally, I’ve used them productively: tweeting relentlessly and yelling into the void of our flaming planet.

The topic du jour?

Tariffs.

Sexy, I know.

Now, I’ve shared a fair few thoughts on this - because it’s a genuinely fascinating subject. But in the process, I’ve also had a few people have a pop at me, questioning why someone “who isn’t an economist” is talking about economic policy.

And they’re absolutely right.

I’m not an economist.

I don’t have a degree in it.

I don’t work in financial markets.

I don’t sit on trade commissions or advise governments on macroeconomic levers.

But here’s what I do have: a curiosity-led brain and a very structured method I’ve used for years to get my head around complex topics. So today, allow me to take you on a little tour through the twisted, very strange circuitry of my brain using my very own adaptation of the 5WH framework.

A thread 🧵

Step 1: What

Start with the most basic question:

What even is this thing?

For tariffs, this meant understanding the basic definition. A tariff is a tax on imports or exports between sovereign states. It’s not a punishment (though it can be used that way). It’s not a silver bullet. It’s not inherently good or bad. It’s a tool - like a hammer or a toothbrush. And like any tool, it’s all about how you use it.

So I kept asking “What?”
- What are tariffs meant to achieve?
- What industries are impacted most?
- What does it mean for domestic consumers?
- What happens when tariffs are retaliated?

This is where the fun begins, because once you understand what something is, you start to separate the real arguments from the performative shouting.

Step 2: Why

Now I get to channel my inner 5-year-old: Why does this exist? Why now? Why this way?

- Why are these tariffs being introduced now?
- Why are certain countries or industries being targeted?
- Why are some people defending them while others are foaming at the mouth?

The “why” helps you dig into intent, motivation, and potential manipulation. Sometimes the answer is economic protection. Sometimes it’s nationalism in a cheap suit. Sometimes it’s just election season cosplay.

Read 8 tweets

Bearly Politics

@i_iratus

Mar 31

Here’s your problem, Mark: you don’t know how death certification works in the UK - but you speak like you do.

Attached here is an actual Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (also known as an MCCD) which is completed by a qualified doctor who has assessed the person who has passed away.

As you’ll note, it asks for the disease or condition leading directly to death, as well as any other contributing conditions, in sequence. COVID-19 only appears here if a doctor believes it directly caused or materially contributed to death.

If someone dies in a car crash but happens to test positive for Covid post-mortem? That’s not going in box 1a, b, c or d. It’s likely not being listed at all, unless it played a role - and even then, it’d be listed under part II, which is not counted as the primary cause of death.

So no - people didn’t die “with” Covid and get magically counted as Covid deaths. The death certification process is evidence-based, standardised, and legally binding. Your myth relies on a complete ignorance of how this system works, and it’s a disservice to the professionals who spend their days navigating it with care.

Next time you want to argue about how deaths are counted, at least have the decency to learn how the most basic steps and processes of the procedure works.

gov.uk/government/pub…

Tell me if I’m getting this right, Mark?

You leapt into a thread discussing COVID death certification in the UK, offered a vague anecdote about a post-mortem COVID test being wrongly attributed to a car crash, and then - when corrected using UK documentation - got huffy because nobody psychically inferred your story happened in Florida?

Then, in a desperate attempt to recover, you flung your mother’s death certificate into the conversation as if one vague disagreement over medical opinion justifies global conspiracy theories about how death is recorded?

Now, there are a few things wrong here, so bear with me:

1. You didn’t specify Florida. You live in the UK. The conversation was about the UK. Your deflection is transparent.

2. “Frailty of old age” is a medical cause of death, especially when comorbidities or decline make other causes unclear. Morphine given for palliative comfort does not automatically override that unless administered in error or malice - and unless you’re levelling that accusation, sit down.

3. The Florida death certification guidance - which I’ve attached for your convenience - explicitly states that clinicians should record causes based on best medical opinion and clinical judgement, not conspiracies whipped up after the fact by grieving relatives with no medical background.

You’re not a pathologist.

You’re not a coroner.

You’re a bloke on the internet who’s angry that your half-baked anecdote didn’t win the internet, and quite frankly, no amount of personal bluster or amateur forensic armchairing is going to change the fact that you wandered into this thread with bravado and left with your own argument in shreds.

Now jog on.

Mark, I understand you’ve run out of arguments, but “go fuck yourself” isn’t quite the intellectual smackdown you think it is - especially not when you’re defending a man who told the whole of there’s “no such thing as COVID.”

You asked who I think I am. I’m a healthcare strategist who worked every single day throughout the pandemic, alongside some of the best infectious disease doctors and virologists in the world. I worked on the ground while people like Neil Oliver played YouTube prophet from the comfort of their living rooms.

So forgive me if I’m not moved by another armchair expert parroting conspiracy cosplay and mistaking volume for validity.

If you’ve got something factual to contribute, by all means, step up - but if all you’ve got is schoolyard bluster and rage at being corrected, don’t let me keep you from shouting into the void.

Read 5 tweets

Bearly Politics

@i_iratus

Mar 17

Your reminder that having a trade deficit does not mean that you are “subsidising” a country, it means that you buy more from that country than it buys from you and indicates spectacular ignorance of how trade works.

No.

That’s not how trade deficits work. A trade deficit simply means one country buys more goods and services from another than it sells in return. It doesn’t mean one side is getting “poorer” while the other “gets richer” - trade is not a zero-sum game.

A country running a trade deficit is still receiving valuable goods and services in exchange for money, which can be reinvested into its economy. The US, for example, runs a persistent trade deficit but remains one of the wealthiest nations on Earth because it has strong domestic consumption, a service-based economy, and foreign investment flowing in.

If trade deficits made countries poorer, the US would have collapsed long ago, and countries with trade surpluses - like Germany or China - would have all the wealth, which isn’t how global economics works.

https://twitter.com/westernsaviours/status/1901562961912611120

Except I do understand that a trade deficit isn’t subsidising a country, and clearly Trump doesn’t.

https://twitter.com/westernsaviours/status/1901562961912611120

Read 20 tweets

Bearly Politics

@i_iratus

Mar 2

I’m sorry, what now?!

You do realise that these “hand-wringing” Europeans have spent the last 70 years turning up to fight America’s wars, right?

Let me take you on a little trip down memory lane - one littered with the wreckage of “American diplomacy” - since your grasp of history seems shakier than Orangina’s grip on a ramp.

Korea? Over 60,000 British troops deployed alongside U.S. forces, along with 5,000 Turks, plus French, Dutch, and Greek contingents. Europeans bled and died on the same battlefields as Americans.

The Gulf War? The UK sent 35,000 troops. France deployed 18,000. Italy, the Netherlands, and others contributed. Europeans stood shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

Afghanistan? The NATO mission - led at various points by “hand-wringing” European commanders like General Sir David Richards (🇬🇧), General Egon Ramms (🇩🇪), and General Jean-Louis Py (🇫🇷) - saw thousands of British, Dutch, Danish, Polish, and other European troops deployed year after year. Britain alone sent 150,000 troops. A European-led force fought in a war the U.S. started… and then, of course, abandoned, leaving the Taliban to waltz back in.

Iraq? The UK sent 46,000 troops. Poland commanded a whole multinational division with 2,500 of its own. Italy contributed 3,200, Denmark 500. These weren’t token gestures; these were boots on the ground in a war built on lies your government peddled.

So tell me, Lindsey, at what point did “hand-wringing” Europeans stop pulling their weight?

When exactly did they become too weak to “defend their own continent,” given that they’ve spent the last 70 years showing up every time America blundered into another conflict?

Was it when thousands of British, French, Dutch, and Polish troops fought in Helmand, Kandahar, and Kabul?

Or was it when European soldiers were deployed in Iraq to clean up the mess from an invasion the U.S. justified with fabricated intelligence?

Or maybe it was when European nations actually upheld their NATO commitments while Trump had an adolescent tantrum about them and Republicans fell over themselves to kiss Putin’s ring?

It takes a special kind of ignorance to pretend Europe hasn’t fought alongside the U.S. time and time again. But then again, considering how the Republican Party now prefers surrendering to Russia over standing with its allies, maybe this historical amnesia isn’t so surprising after all.

https://twitter.com/jenc20thgirl/status/1896117957971058752

Yup 👇

https://twitter.com/jenc20thgirl/status/1896117957971058752

https://twitter.com/penfarthing/status/1895934300471902425

This is worth adding to this thread:

https://twitter.com/penfarthing/status/1895934300471902425

Read 5 tweets

Bearly Politics

@i_iratus

Feb 8

Here’s your regular reminder that diversity includes:

- Disabled people
- People of Colour
- People from working-class backgrounds
- Women
- LGBTQ+ people
- Religious minorities
- Older students returning to education
- Neurodivergent people
- Care leavers
- First-generation university students

If you don’t care about diversity, then you don’t care about ensuring that universities are accessible to talented people from all walks of life.

You don’t care about removing barriers that have historically kept certain groups out of higher education.

You don’t care about competence - because talent exists everywhere, but opportunity doesn’t.

And that, frankly, tells us absolutely everything we need to know about you.

Sally-Anna Misinformation Reporter, you keep talking about competence, character, and commitment as if diversity somehow contradicts them. It doesn’t.

Talent exists everywhere.

Opportunity doesn’t.

That’s the problem.

Do you think a working-class student with straight A’s but no family connections or financial backing is less competent than a wealthy student who coasts in through legacy admissions?

Do you think a disabled student who needs accommodations is less committed than someone who never had to face those barriers?

Diversity doesn’t replace merit - it ensures that merit is actually recognised.

Why is that such a problem for you?

If you don’t want to see my posts, best thing you can do is hit the “block” button.

Writing “not interested” is just going to let the algorithm feed you even more of my writing.

Glad I could help.

Read 23 tweets

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