I for one am delighted for UAL to be attacked for our sector-leading parental leave policy: six months’ full pay for every new parent.

Our policies apply to mothers, but they also apply to every other new parent and we use inclusive language in our policy to reflect that. (1/?) Biology is real, mothers exist and babies grow in uteruses.

But the assumption that babies are a woman’s job, and that only women should take time off work, is deeply harmful. I have long believed that we will only have equality at work when we have equality at home.

Here’s what annoys me about the Birbalsingh row, in ascending order.

1. What she said about girls not liking hard maths is unevidenced, inaccurate and unhelpful. 2. She holds an important role as the country’s Social Mobility Commissioner and she turned up to Parliamentary Select Committee so unprepared she was happy to make unevidenced, inaccurate and unhelpful claims.

I see Jacob Rees Mogg has invited the public to write to him about EU regulations they want scrapped.

In coalition days, I was involved in the public consultation on the Freedoms Bill and the Red Tape Challenge.

I guarantee JRM will emerge with slim pickings. Why? 🧵 1. This is a very badly designed way to involve the public in policy making. Involving the public is part of our identity @demos - I’m not saying leave it to experts.

But most people are busy, and non-technical in their understanding of policy and regulatory processes.

Put the last paragraph first.

A quick thread on writing compelling arguments about complicated things. It's a technique I learned at university from a brilliant woman, Penny Wilson. I'd written an essay about the use of letters in Jane Austen. Dr Wilson said it was 2.1 standard. She told me to rewrite it, putting the last paragraph first.

I did. At formal marking I got a first.

A quick hit list of remote working thoughts.

Most people who tried it want to carry on.

Most people who tried it also want to go back to the office sometimes. Offices can great for “riffing” and collaborative work.

Offices can be a nightmare for concentration and deep work. Ask anyone who’s ever sat opposite me and been interrupted 5x per hour.

A long time ago, before we had kids, my darling husband got into that state of drunkenness where you don’t quite remember how you got home.

This is a thread about the rights and wrongs of victim blaming. In the morning he couldn’t find his phone, and it was only a few hours later, as the fog cleared he recalled it being snatched from him as he got off the bus.

He felt like an idiot for recklessly putting himself into harm’s way. And I agreed.

I want to tell you about my brilliant friend @RoseActon, who has died at just 28. She was a polymath, a pioneer and an inspiration to all who knew her. Here's a thread of just some of the things she accomplished. Most careers are much longer but few are as diverse or as brave. I learned at her funeral yesterday that as a teenager she won best delegate at a Model UN competition in Paris.

She studied for her degree at Kings College London where she tutored disadvantaged kids at the weekend.

The “hostile environment” mission started in earnest in December 2012, with an inter-ministerial group set up on Migrant Access To Benefits And Public Services (we called it MATBAPS) Right from the start, Theresa May’s mission was to make it systematically difficult to get by without papers.

Of all the policies I worked on in government, housing was the most depressing. (1/14) Initially I was thrilled to be working w Oliver Letwin & James O'Shaughnessy who got it: it was all about supply & rising prices bad (2/14)