OK Buckle up, here's a thread & a half, really all written just to get it off my own chest but you're welcome along for the ride.... 🧵

https://twitter.com/AllyFogg/status/1854465987740918240

First, it's clear that Trump won pretty comfortably. His biggest voting bloc was older, whiter & poorer. Blaming one specific demographic seems a bit daft. The blame is in the failure of the Democrats, whether in their tenure or campaign (FWIW I guess more the former.) BUT >

OK since a slightly personal, messy & snide thread last night caught interest, here's a more direct account of my interpretation of An Inspector Calls, by J.B. Priestley.

I invite/challenge anyone who knows the play and/or more about JBP than I do to tell me I'm wrong. 🧵 The play tells of police 'Inspector Goole' visiting a rich ruling class family one evening & tells them that a young woman 'Eva Smith' has died of suicide. He proceeds to explain that every single member of the family has (literally or figuratively) fucked Eva one way or another.

I doubt Tom is really listening but for the sake of others.

1/ A UK Embassy issues visas but the national government (of, say, Cameroon) issues passports & they often won't issue them to persecuted minorities. >

https://twitter.com/tomhfh/status/1735381713889501494

2/ In situations of civil war or violent upheaval people often get separated from their possessions, such as their passports & other documents.
>

Every mention of a ceasefire is greeted by yells of "So how would YOU get rid of Hamas?"

For what little it is worth, here are my own answers to that question. 🧵 1/ Stop giving them exactly what they want. Hamas is a fundamentalist martyrdom cult and their central strategy is to provoke Israel into committing acts of appalling violence & cruelty, because those acts are their own very best recruiting sergeant.

Think it's probably time to once again to talk about WHY the overwhelming majority of refugees, asylum seekers & irregular migrants are young men, and why being a young man does not mean someone is not a genuine refugee or genuinely in need. 🧵

https://twitter.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1688793792021741568

1/ Migrant journeys are extraordinarily arduous & incredibly dangerous. By conservative estimates at least 29,000 people have died trying to reach Europe since 2014. Migrants are at high risk of violence, inc. sexual violence & exploitation, or being robbed to destitution etc. >

At the end of this @caitlinmoran is asked if she thinks there should be a Minister for Men & replies "If it's about equalities, then yes, you need to have both."

This is welcome but slightly off-beam, because fundamentally it's *not* about equalities. Hear me out... >

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1676355395663560705

Men's issues are *not* predicated on equality, they are issues of health, welfare & social policy. (In crude terms, we could achieve equality by raising the female suicide rate & slashing men's wages, neither of which would help anyone.) Men don't need equality they need equity >

I’ve kept schtum thus far in @caitlinmoran’s new book became I haven’t read it yet but cannot contain my frustration at this section from her Guardian piece today. I chair a charity @MBCoalition which strives to do EXACTLY what she describes. We’ve been around since 2016 but had predecessors much further back. Here’s a piece I wrote about exactly this back in 2012 theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

So, back at my desk. Before I face up to checking my email, some thoughts about Costa Rica. First thing to say is we had an amazing time (thanks for asking.) Mammoth 🧵 ahoy If you've seen my other Tweets over the past couple of weeks you'll have seen lots of cute animal & nature tourist pics & that's the first thing anyone notices about the country, but please indulge me while I tell you about the stuff that doesn't show up in photos. >

These are horrific figures and I applaud the Museum of Homelessness @our_MoH for their work in gathering & publicising the data. As so often, however, there's a massively important element missing from the media reporting: 🧵

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1648932450523807745

Of the 1313 people who died, gender was recorded for 789 (60%). Of those, 72.6% - so 573 - were men. (We cannot be sure but it's highly likely gender is more often recorded for women, as it tends to be more salient, so the unknown 40% is probably more disproportionately male) >

It's good that there's been a lot of reporting on this horrendous report from @ChildrensComm, I hope it leads to change. It's worth noting however this this is one of several reports which doesn't even mention the single most dramatic statistical finding > mirror.co.uk/news/politics/… > which is that 95% were on boys. That makes boys NINETEEN times as likely to be subject to this repression as girls. It's really common that journalists ignore this stat in issues like this, because they don't think it's news, it's just considered the natural order of things. >

How To Lie With Statistics, Chapter X.

Looking at one of the most egregious, shameless statistical falsehoods I've seen in a long time, one that thoroughly shames @MayorofLondon & @TenderUK in the recently published Teachers Toolkit on addressing gender-based violence & abuse. For context, there's a widely shared but easily debunked falsehood about domestic abuse, which is that a large proportion or even majority of abuse against males is committed by other men, whether in same-sex relationships or fraternal/paternal family relationships. Actual stats:

Hey, here's some things you can do on #InternationalMensDay

1/ Have a look to see if anything is happening near you ukmensday.org.uk/events/ 2/ If there isn't anything happening near you, start thinking about what you can do to ensure that next year there is
>

Some observations on the International Men's Day debate that's just ended in the House of Commons 🧵 First up, I was one of the people who last year took issue with the focus of @NickFletcherMP in the same debate. Credit where due, this year he made the case really well for a national men's health strategy & a minister for men & raised loads of excellent & correct points. >

Ho hum. You will not be surprised to learn I have a lot of thoughts about ‘The State of UK Boys’ report here boyhoodinitiative.org/wp-content/upl… and discussed in articles here theguardian.com/society/2022/n… and here theguardian.com/commentisfree/… . Buckle up it’s a 🧵 & a half First, let me say there is loads in here I agree with, most of the report is scraped from masculinities research by the likes of RW Connell (which I happily lean on heavily myself), and makes the case that boys are still socialized into restrictive & destructive gender scripts, >

This really does tell you everything you need to know about my home town.

https://twitter.com/BBCScotlandNews/status/1589669024224378882

Perth has three secondary schools. They are called Perth High School, Perth Academy and Perth Grammar School.

YYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAHAhahahahaha

https://twitter.com/StJohnstone/status/1589237001601314816

Get your James Brown jokes in while they're hot.

HUNH!
YEAH!
GET DOWN!
AND TAKE IT TO THE BRIDGE!

A thread of thoughts about this case, with lots of content warnings for sexual violence & abuse. > lbc.co.uk/news/horny-24-… Firstly & most importantly, Imogen Brooke has been cleared by a jury who heard all the evidence & I didn't, so nothing I say is meant to suggest the jury got it wrong, I have no reason to say so. Nonetheless the case has thrown up some extremely important & noteworthy issues. >

Even if there were any truth in this (which I v much doubt) I cannot conceive of any possible harm or negative consequence to this. Have you seen the shit that goes down in early years reading books? Can't believe we're terrifying children with the thought that a tiger might come in at tea-time, trash the house & drink all daddy's beer.

A Cat in a Hat turning up when parents are out and throwing the goldfish on the floor?

Been an interesting week in the campaign for a national strategy to support male victims of sexual abuse, domestic violence & other crimes categorised by the Home Office as 'Violence Against Women and Girls.' Do please hop aboard the thread if you're keeping up. 🧵 First, by way of catch-up, if you're puzzled as to how men and boys can be victims of 'Violence Against Women and Girls' that is understandable, please read the thread(s) here

https://twitter.com/AllyFogg/status/1509451315780497410

I've sat on this thread for a few days because everything is still raw but some stuff needs to be said. Some thoughts on the criminology of school/spree shooters and masculinity. Buckle up, it's a 🧵 All this week I've been seeing a lot of remarks & threads like this one (which to be clear, makes many good & correct observations)

https://twitter.com/boypodcast/status/1529312222786117638

I'm worried about my flock of sparrows. They'd been doing brilliantly for the past couple of years, the more I fed them the more of them appeared. They were happily nesting in the bushes. Then a couple of weeks ago they just... vanished. I appreciate that this sounds like the ominous beginning of an apocalyptic novel. That's because it's very like the ominous beginning of an apocalyptic novel.