This clip was broadcast on ITV News Wales this week.
It’s a staggeringly obvious mess for a whole raft of reasons – a number of completely spurious, illogical and unsupported claims are accepted as facts without any sort of challenge or balancing voice (which has been standard practice on ITV News for a while now across almost any contentious political topic) – but it led us to somewhere magnitudes of crazier still.
My first ever real experience of politics was playing Dictator.
Originally written by Don Priestley for the Sinclair ZX81 in 1982, it was a simple text-based game which subsequently came to other formats including the Commodore 64, BBC Micro, Elan Enterprise and the ZX Spectrum, which is where I encountered it.
Something very odd happened when the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal delivered its judgment – and it wasn’t just the made-up quotes and mangled law.
Call it institutional bias, ideological capture, or just the law doing its job, but what Employment Judge Sandy Kemp’s tribunal delivered was the most one-sided outcome since Butch and Sundance decided to come out shooting. Read the rest of this entry →
Because, y’know, you can call us old-fashioned purists or sticklers or whatever if you like, but government ministers probably shouldn’t openly lie in prepared statements to the High Court in order to pervert the course of justice.
As recently as this weekend, the Scottish Government claimed that it has “made clear it accepts the Supreme Court ruling [in For Women Scotland] and is taking forward the detailed work necessary”.
But as with so much the Scottish Government says, it’s a barefaced lie.
We thought we should keep track of all the issues with the Peggie tribunal judgment, now that Sandie Peggie has officially announced her intention to appeal it.
One must assume from reading the Sandie Peggie judgment that the tribunal was more concerned with discouraging further litigation than with giving full and fearless effect to the Equality Act.
At the heart of this case lies a straightforward question: does a biologically male employee have a legal right to undress in a female-only changing room? For Women Scotland answered that question at the Supreme Court: women-only spaces are for biological women.
Yet instead of applying that binding precedent, the tribunal awarded Sandie Peggie a technical win based primarily on procedural failings and delay, while simultaneously undermining the legitimacy of her core complaint. The effect is a ruling that says: “You were treated badly, but only because you reacted to a situation we pretend has no legal significance.”
The first and most important thing to note about yesterday’s judgment in the Sandie Peggie tribunal is that it’s a very big victory. The tribunal found that Sandie Peggie was gravely and heinously harassed by her employer through no fault of her own, and she’ll be entitled to substantial compensation as a result.
It also ruled, repeatedly and unequivocally, that Dr “Beth” Upton (who’s referred to in the judgment as “the second respondent”) is a man.
The motion completely ignored both the findings of the Cass Review and the Supreme Court judgment in For Women Scotland, but not a single MSP spoke in opposition to it. (Jenni Minto, the Minister For Public Health And Women’s Health, actually broke down in tears at the end because she wasn’t managing to get children’s futures permanently destroyed with sufficient urgency, mainly because the UK Parliament took legislation out of Holyrood’s hands to protect them.)
Disgraced ex-policeman and notorious vexatious serial complainant Lynsay Watson is having quite the meltdown on the groomer-and-paedophile haven Bluesky tonight.
PC Foster on Learning Insanity: “Order of the Bollox Expounders (OBE)” Jan 15, 20:27
Hatey McHateface on Learning Insanity: “Nah, TURABDIN. Wearing a burqa should obviously fall to the minister with responsibility for postal deliveries. BTW, why your capitalisation…” Jan 15, 20:07
Hatey McHateface on Learning Insanity: “Seeing as how Rev Stu has inspired us all by his article to look closely at the real meaning of…” Jan 15, 20:02
Hatey McHateface on Learning Insanity: “Don’t all women experience a tiny frisson of excitement when they think of those mighty pistons thrusting in and out?…” Jan 15, 19:45
dearieme on Learning Insanity: “@Cynicus: I use “female impersonator” and “castrato”. The latter is a bit approximate but, as the Yanks say, good enough…” Jan 15, 17:31
Alf Baird on Learning Insanity: ““SNP Scottish Government has been corrupted and controlled” Yes indeed, as Fanon wrote: the dominant national party is ‘co-opted by…” Jan 15, 16:03
TURABDIN on Learning Insanity: “The great thing about the Burqa is that no one can tell what you are or what you’re hiding or…” Jan 15, 15:51
lothianlad on Learning Insanity: “Excellent piece again Stu. Without you, we would be rudderless. An SNP Scottish Government has been corrupted and controlled.” Jan 15, 14:29
Lorna Campbell on Learning Insanity: “The Jewish American author, Ira Levin, wrote “The Stepford Wives” in 1975. On one level, it can be viewed as…” Jan 15, 14:23
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Learning Insanity: “STONEWALL REPORTS ‘SPECTACULAR FUNDING IMPLOSION’ Stonewall’s annual report reveals its income has fallen by 40 per cent in four years.…” Jan 15, 14:06
Lorna Campbell on Learning Insanity: “Recent studies have found a large correlation between brain and body, James, so it would seem that they are interlinked…” Jan 15, 14:01
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “OT, I see Italy is to change their rules based to indigenous populations preference, as France and many other Countries…” Jan 15, 13:09
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Regardless of my own dyslexia and appalling education I still would not want to be sticking my neck out claiming…” Jan 15, 12:54
TURABDIN on Learning Insanity: “ONE DAY AI might provide the means to be anything or anyone you choose in a cyberpunkish universe. No need…” Jan 15, 12:25
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Not so far fetched a scenario as the Scientist and government already consider experimenting on children, babies in the womb,…” Jan 15, 11:52
TURABDIN on Learning Insanity: “IN DEFINING SEX AND GENDER, it seems hormones and a thing called brian dimorphism are involved…maybe also a touch of…” Jan 15, 11:43
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “In the future scientific world I could envisage the removal of the brain from its wrong body to replace the…” Jan 15, 11:40
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “And I do have a questions, 1: Are the bodies who push this able to define if they were born…” Jan 15, 11:28
James Cheyne on Learning Insanity: “Paid activist, from tax payers money, that no one voted for, Political Phonexology comes to mind. = political evil. This…” Jan 15, 11:05
Cynicus on Learning Insanity: ““I think bollocks is the only acceptable spelling.” ======== Derived from “bullock”, meaning a castrated male calf. “Bullock” and “…” Jan 15, 10:25
Vivian O’Blivion on Learning Insanity: “The John Smith Centre, at the University of Glasgow, announce an upcoming, relaxed conversation, debate format between Deputy First Minister,…” Jan 15, 10:12
Phil on Learning Insanity: “Great analysis of utter bollocks. Sort of off-topic but I’ve just watched a clip of proceedings in the Scottish parliament…” Jan 15, 09:28
turnbulldrier on Learning Insanity: “Thanks for the KLF link. That was a fine start to the morning. As for everything else, “Woo Woo” seems…” Jan 15, 07:31
Willie on Learning Insanity: “This article reinforces, if reinforcement be needed, just how how huge anounts of scarce resources like money and time are…” Jan 15, 07:15
Iain More on Governing For Beginners: “P.S I forgot to add – Get that fuckin Yank NAZI Boat out of the Moray Firth” Jan 15, 01:12
Charles Findlay on Learning Insanity: “I think bollocks is the only acceptable spelling. Anything else would be bollocks.” Jan 14, 22:44
Charles Findlay on Learning Insanity: “I think bollocks is the only acceptable spelling. To spell it bollox would definitely be bollocks.” Jan 14, 22:43
Watching from afar on Learning Insanity: “Should there not be commas between the adjectives? or hyphens somewhere? 😉 (Sven has already pointed out “upon which they…” Jan 14, 21:20
Kate L on Learning Insanity: ““who like all women share an abiding love of steam engines” almost made me spit out my drink. I’ll thankfully…” Jan 14, 20:59
