The Vulnerability Olympics
Last week the property-porn TV presenter Kirstie Allsopp described severely disabled people requesting same-sex care as “demonising male nurses”, although the statistics suggest that they’ve demonised themselves.
That charities have had to develop a way for severely disabled children who may have mental ages of six to eight to say “willy”, “hard” and “squirt’’ evidences the widespread nature of the sexual abuse of the vulnerable and who is most likely to do it.
Instead of trying to understand the position of disabled individuals and their families Kirstie has decided that it is best to ignore the evidence and call us man-haters.
Disability rights is a topic it is unwise to shrug off. Not only should we judge society by how it treats its most vulnerable but disability could happen to anyone. Indeed, 80% of disabilities are acquired between the ages of 18 and 64.
When I was a teenager, still only 17, I made a normal decision, one so many of you have made and one that so many of your children will make. I was invited to a gig and asked my friends to swing by and give me a lift. When I eventually woke up in hospital my life had changed forever and I was permanently disabled.
I didn’t know how had I got there, what had happened, how I was in these pyjamas. I didn’t even know if my mum knew where I was, despite the fact that she had refused to move from my bedside for weeks and had only recently been persuaded to go home.
Then it hit me – who had been undressing me, how had I gone to the toilet, who had been washing me? I lay in that strange bed, in that strange room, unable to communicate my fears. That feeling of absolute vulnerability never leaves you, and it stains your soul.
Then conscious, although highly medicated, and not able to pronounce words properly let alone string my strange noises together, I would wake up because someone had rolled back the duvet and was taking my pyjama bottoms down, or in the process of removing my top. They were doing this to care for me, to change me, to change a tube or the dressings on my wounds.
The nurses do not have time to schedule an appointment, to reassure you before they start their work on you, maybe sometimes they cannot wake you up from your painkillers. That is the reality of requiring care. In the middle of the night you will feel someone else’s hands on you, your body being manipulated and moved, the cold air on your naked skin.
We, women and girls in hospital and disabled women and girls requiring home or institutional care, are right to be concerned. Just this week research by the Women’s Rights Network revealed that at least 2088 rapes and 4451 sexual assaults in hospitals were recorded by police forces in the UK since January 2019. Only 4.1% have resulted in a police charge.
Police Scotland did not bother to provide any figures for the study due to alleged cost constraints – underscoring, I would argue, their indifference to vulnerable women and girls. We just aren’t worth it, except for virtue-signalling purposes. (The website below, launched as recently as 2018, no longer exists.)
Care homes are even worse and the rape and sexual abuse of vulnerable patients in institutions away from their families is rife. A report from the care regulator alleged that in just 3 months, between March and May 2018, hundreds of elderly and vulnerable social care residents were sexually assaulted.
The level of crime against women and girls in UK mental health units and on psych wards is similarly dispiriting. In 2023 police investigated 24 cases of reported rape and 18 incidents of sexual assault at a single 106-bed Kent psychiatric hospital over the past three years – yet none led to prosecutions.
Disabled females receiving care in their own homes also face a bleak outlook. Figures researched by DAME Magazine are frankly terrifying: “Eighty-three percent of disabled women experience rape or abuse, often at the hands of caretakers. And without a way to report their violations, the [perpetrators] frequently go unpunished.”
The magazine’s Victoria Brownworth argued that (in the US):
“77% of rapes and sexual assaults were not reported to police. The enormity of that number suggests that within the context of disability, where so many victims may not even have access to language, or where the person they would report to is the same person perpetuating the assaults (and on whom they depend for their most basic care), the number may be perilously close to 100 percent.”
Lucky for me, when I supported my friend Henrietta Freeman – who is paralysed from the neck down and unable to speak – in her demand for single-sex care, one trans activist reassured me that I was a “TERF waste of cum”.
I have managed to get to a level of independence where I no longer require this care, but that feeling of being at the mercy of others will always remain, and I know that if I am lucky enough to get old that it is most likely in my future. It is my dear friend Henrietta’s daily reality – a friend who trans rights activists describe as “it”, “that creature” and “that thing” when she asks for same-sex care.
They have form. The comedian and strident trans activist Aidan Comerford described me as disgusting and weaponising my disability when I first started speaking out for same-sex care.
(Comerford has two severely autistic daughters who he writes about in his comedy, but I would never be so crass as to describe that as “weaponising” them. One might perhaps expect someone in his situation to have rather more empathy for those with debilitating and permanent medical conditions.)
Henrietta’s carers let themselves in while she is in bed, either awake or sleeping. They have to. Disabilities don’t take time off. We can’t wipe them away or put them in the wardrobe when we feel like it. Those lock boxes you see outside houses aren’t always Airbnb. Sometimes they’re so strangers can let themselves in to strip and wash you whenever they need to.
Henrietta and I frequently speak about the physical aspects of intimate care, how a stranger will touch your vulva, breasts and anus. I texted her the morning of the recent Belfast Speakers Corner event and asked what she would like to say on the topic if I got a chance. Hen responded:
“People need to realise that intimate care has an emotional side. It’s knowing the carer you need to support you in the middle of the night when your scared or confused is a woman. It’s not being afraid to fall asleep because you may wake up with a man you don’t know in your bedroom.”
If politicians like those in the Scottish Government want to talk about feelings and make laws and policy around feelings, then consider how disabled women and girls feel. Consider how our minds will race every night if we don’t know if an unknown man is going to come into our bedrooms while we are sleeping and undress us because you removed our right to choose a woman.
Consider that if we’re at the stage of needing that level of care, everything physical has been taken away from us and now your policies would strip us of our last remaining scraps of agency – our dignity and right to choose. Consider your kindness when we stew over if something bad did or didn’t happen because our memory and medication prevents a clear picture.
Consider that if you had been sexually abused, you’ll require the same care tonight and it may be the same man who is sent back.
So when the likes of Nicola Sturgeon say that trans people are among the “most vulnerable” in our society and that it’s “quite disgraceful” for others to object to giving them a free self-IDed pass into single-sex situations like the intimate care of the severely disabled:
…then that is clearly the crass, ill-informed and thoughtless judgement of someone who has no idea of what real vulnerability is.
Spot on Dr EM, I can only hope that those in power hear you! Sadly, it may actually be a Tory government that saves the dignity of all women, including those who are unable to advocate for themselves, while the Scottish government burns the rights of women on the bonfire built by some individuals in the Trans community.
I’ll never forgive the SNP for using my independence for a better Scotland vote to plunge disabled women into a living hell.
The 86 MSPs who voted thru self-identification must be punished at the ballot box.
Thank goodness for Salmond’s Alba party.
Ignoring your human rights appears to be the right of those in power in Scotland – they are as disgusting as those perverts known to the BBBC but not reported to the police.
I am utterly sickened by the arrogance and foolishness of Kirsty Allsopp – one assumes she might reconsider if she or one of her children were in such a vulnerable position.
What has happened to a once sensible , conservative( small c) country ? And from where have all the peculiars emerged?
Fantastic post but incredibly disturbing. I just can’t understand the level of entitlement displayed by TRA’s.
I attended the big SNP bash at the Hydro after the referendum and that was the beginning. I’d never seen so many colourful heads. I now look back and realize just how much it seemed like 1930’s Germany. Unfortunately I don’t know how to fix the problem because violence seems to be all those freaks understand.
Dr EM,
Thanks for writing that piece. It takes a lot of courage to speak out and a lot of cowardice to ignore these things.
As a husband, father of two daughters and two grandaughters I will always be on your side. I support the rights of every woman to privacy and security.
Good luck in everything you do.
Very well said Dr Em, we have to make governments listen.
Kirstie Allsopp’s a celeb who’s confused fame with thinking her opinions are worth hearing. Block and move on.
And to your point – I wholeheartedly concur, as I suspect to most right-thinking humans. Those who need care should in any case have some say over who cares for them, in any event.
The bile and viciousness on Twitter on this and other subjects strikes me as coming from deeply damaged individuals who look for any reason to attack others.
Thanks for writing this, Dr EM. The willingness of privileged women to force this on the rest of us because they know they’ll never be in that position themselves is the biggest betrayal.
So-called “feminists” giving a free pass to privileged, aggressive men, and pretending THEY’RE the ones in danger?
Disgraceful behaviour, and a betrayal of every vulnerable person in the country.
Thank you so much for this detailed insight. I am simply stunned at the level of abuse you have endured. All of our politicians should be made to respond to these extremely VALID concerns.
We are all with you I am sure, as any decent human being would be.
Our politicians, councils, public “servants” of all kinds are completely beyond our control. As Robin McAlpine pointed out the other day.
We have no mechanism to make them behave in a responsible, responsive way – whatever the strength of our case, such as the one Dr EM describes, we are powerless.
It will take independence AND the restoration of the old Scottish constitution under which the people are sovereign over parliaments and judiciary, before our plight can be remedied. So if anyone hasn’t yet signed https://liberation.scot, please do so now.
Well that is the last time I watch KA on TV. Jimmy Savile would love this business. “Today as a porter at Stoke Mandeville I identify as a girl. Any girls need intimate care?”
It has occurred to me that the people who don’t see the issue are privileged in their health and wealth. Not a issue for KA or say Caroline Nokes MP. (Among many other MPs – mostly Labour/Liberals/Green/SNP etc but I single her out as an example of the ruling party of the UK who has bought into this crap). They are not vulnerable and have no need intimate care. They are rich and can afford to sleep in hotel rooms, not YHA hostels. They can buy up a whole sleeper birth on a train or ferry and not need to share with a trans woman. they are unlikely to end up in prison or a woman’s refuge.
The other thing that flashed through my mind was power. A woman teacher at a 20K private school in England addressed
her pupils as ‘girls’. The next day they appeared wearing pronoun badges and demanded she apologise for mis gendering some in her class. The wimpy head teacher made her apologise to these teenage bullies.
It reminded me of the Salem witch trials. Teenage girls and a black woman slaves had zero power in 17th century Massachusetts. But suddenly they had power. They could identify witches. So powerful adults – professional men, elderly respected widows were identified as witches with terrible consequences. Adults in the community were terrified of these girls.
Or Maoist China. Read Wild Swans by Jung Chang. She recalls berating and beating teachers and old men playing chess for their wicked bourgeoiseness, or adherence to wicked western capitalist science.
Those male prisoners identifying as women, or the guy who identified as a baby (wanted his hand held by prison officers, nappy changed, food mashed etc)are seeking to over turn authority and indeed humiliate police, prison officers and others by their demands.
I was angry…now I’m angrier.
The SNP/Green TransCult Club are the cause of most of it.
I can’t comment on this – I keep being told I’m submitting a duplicate comment?
Thank you for writing this emotional reality from a disabled persons perspective , it is literally a horror story that has been ignored deliberately by scum politicians in an attempt to LOOK progressive and caring
The reality for these moronic self serving troughers is that they will never have to face the consequences of this abomination they have voted through, most will have private health care and very able pensions which we graciously pay for which would enable them to select the carer of their choice, and quite honestly when you look at the decisions they have been making it would come as no surprise to me if they did in fact RELISH being looked after by some DEVIANT or PERVERT, are you missing your pal Beth Mr Cole Hamilton
In case Dr EM doesn’t read this, Rev, could you pass on the suggestion that she send a letter to the Scottish newspapers so everyone gets to see what is happening.
OT but I see STV news reporter smearing those who object to the 20 minute neighbourhood fantasy as ‘conspiracy theorists’. Yet another stenographer/government mouthpiece masquerading as a journalist.
Those accounts are very disturbing. I have to confess that until accounts like these revealed the awful truth I hadn’t thought of this happening, I’m ashamed to say. I suppose I thought vaguely that disabled women would automatically be allotted female carers. Such is not the case obviously in our present world where transwomen are supposed to be regarded as women ‘for all purposes’.
Every time some novel aspect of this trans madness comes to light one begins to wonder at the crude emotional approach of legislators, bureaucrats, politicians and bleeding hearts in the entertainment industry. They cannot claim to have common humanity or decency if their empathy is so limited that they can only understand the proclaimed pain of trans people but ignore those who suffer collateral damage as a result of this blind bigotry that insists that males who self-id as women become in some magical way, ‘women’.
The late lamented Barry Humphries wrote to support Graham Linehan and joked that he himself had been banned from the Melbourne Comedy Festival (which he had founded!) and warned that he was up against ‘a powerful and malign foe’. Something malign has been released in a society which lacks empathy but can pretend to be ‘kind and progressive’ while being implacable in their indifference to those who are truly vulnerable in our communities.
I can’t begin to articulate the frustration, the fear, the helplessness that I felt reading this, so I can’t even comprehend how it must feel for disabled people in these real life situations.
The disgust I feel towards the TRAs comments contained in this article is off the scale.
We’re told that hate doesn’t solve anything, but I can’t help but hate the people behind all this.
I have, and will continue to try as hard as I can to help defeat this tyranny.
How did we even get here? To read this?
I now know how easy it was for Nazism to take hold in a civilised country like Germany in the 1930s.
Now that I see how quickly the insanity of self-ID was allowed to take root in Scotland and rUK, I now see how Nazism enveloped Germany.
Sorry, I should have said, thanks to Dr EM for being brave enough to post. I wish you well in whatever the future holds. I’ll be showing this to my wife. It looks like we’re moving to Scotland and I’m dreading it. I never thought I’d ever have to say that.
As a former professional allied to medicine I was absolutely disgusted by KA statements . A tube , an empty vessel that makes a lot of noise .
Forgotten in the analysis , disabled people are also a protected characteristic but never , ever are they a priority and rarely does a celebrity stand up for their rights .
Many do not have the correct funding to access the equipment to carry out activities of daily living or essential adaptations . There is no acceptance of their disabilities on their own say so when it comes to accessing benefits . Not to mention the gross abuse of the system of people who ramp up minor conditions and remove funding from people with much greater need. There are very little work opportunities and socialising is severally limited due to additional cost of transport .
But they will never be a priority. They have no collective voice , no effective advocacy and there is only one explanation. It comes with a price . All other groups do not cost the government and a perfect smokescreen for any government.
KA does not know the humiliation of receiving personal care from anyone at all as far as I am aware over a prolonged period of time . The continuous turnover of staff. The inexperienced workers or the employees who are only filling time till a better opportunity with better pay arrives . Care that’s supposed to come at nine May turn up at lunchtime .
But she may get the opportunity as life goes on as sadly it affects most families at some point and casual indifference and callous allegations can suddenly come home to roost . Even professionals gain deeper insight when family are suddenly on the receiving end despite their best intentions and hard work .
Her words sent a shudder down my spine . She spoke in ignorance . For her own stake I hope that’s where it remains for her . But I do think the way she spoke against a protected group renders her unsuitable for employment in the media . She needs to go !
It’s unacceptable in a modern society to hold such regressive views regarding people with a disability .
This needs to be seen in all media
The SNP’s priorities are there for all to see.
They would rather go into a coalition with the Green Party and Wee Pat’s Pervs, than a possible coalition with Alex Salmond and his Alba Party.
Was the SNP bought over by – and sold itself out to – some very powerful international lobby groups with very sinister agenda? It looks like it to me. So that the SNP no longer belonged to its own members, or to those who believed in independence and voted for it on that account. Indeed, it no longer belonged to Scotland. It even thought Scotland belonged to it, and its high-heid-yins could sell it off to whoever they wanted to, and to whatever crazy, deranged and evil cause they liked.
Scotland for sale – to the highest and most evil bidder that can be found.
It really is time that the Scottish people woke up, and hit back. This Nu-SNP robbed us of everything, even our country. It transformed itself into its own opposite: The Scotland No-More Party.
They are quite deranged, Dr Em. That is the truth of it. Totally out of their trees. Disabled females, females with mental health issues and ill females were all ‘represented’ supposedly in the so-called SG ‘consultations’. Our politicians simply do not care about female people. Not a bit. No one who has a brain could have voted through the GRRB – no one. No one who is not a sadist could have voted down the amendments, and they have the bloody nerve to say that that the UKG should have discussed amendments with them before going for the S35! That is the level of intelligence of the soggy neeps who command large salaries in our parliament. Someone in the thread mentioned costs. Well, we should publicize what the SG spends on the various ‘trans’ organizations. Keeping these sexually incontinent and, frankly, mad men out of our spaces, jobs, healthcare, sports, etc. is a must, not a matter up for discussion. That larping man in the Edinburgh RCC should be first out by the hair of his head. Keep them all out. If the GRRB/self-ID passes, any man and all men will be able to access a GRC and that will afford them ‘legal womanhood’. All these countries where self-ID has already been introduced are having no problems, we are told. Aye, right!
Craig Murray has launched a £30,000 fundraiser to lodge a complaint over his imprisonment with a United Nations committee. See his blog to donate.
“That is the reality of requiring care”.
Putting an ideology above reality has led to this fiasco.
When a petty, corrupt little tyrant says that ordinary people’s concerns are ‘not valid’, dismissing the lives of hundred of thousands of people with a gesture, then you know this ideology has captured the state.
We’re now supposed to fall into line to protect ‘Scottish democracy’ but that isn’t what’s going on. This ideology is driving the s.35 challenge not the wishes of the reality of Scottish voters.
Dr EM’s article is one of the best I’ve read on WoS. If people are unmoved by reading of the real plight of vulnerable people, and if they cannot SEE the need to protect vulnerable people because this ideology is blinding them, then all there is left is to do is to fight back all the time.
Hi AnneDon at 6:30 pm.
You typed,
“I can’t comment on this – I keep being told I’m submitting a duplicate comment?”
You have a comment at 6:06 pm.
It can take anywhere between 2 and 20 minutes for a comment to appear on the page, after you click on the “Submit Comment” button.
If you try to click on the button again, you will get the ‘duplicate comment’ message. Be patient…
This column is truly heartbreaking, I have never been in favour of self ID but this adds another layer to the reasons for never agreeing to it. Thanks for highlighting it.
Thanks for this insight into your experiences and how it affects your views. It’s just incredible that trans activists can be so callous towards you. Hopefully things are changing now, and these extremists will get called out as such by the rest of society soon.
This is the scandalous practical reality of the manufactured hierarchy of oppression – with some groups permanently allotted the lowest and others the highest rungs of that hierarchy – which has been forced onto Western society by its elites using clueless celebrities and naive youth as its useful idiots.
So let me get this straight. Female carers can do both male and male care, but men can only do male care, cos they’re all potential rapists. I do agree that people should be able to choose the sex of the person looking after them, but, let’s face it, there are some damned dodgy, uncaring, abusive women working in the caring profession as well – and I have met some of them.
Just ask Lucy Letby.
Then you gave the creepy older women who ENJOY having younger male carers, but let’s not ever go into THAT skin-crawling subject and the things said and done, eh? Creepy sexism runs both ways – always has and always will.
Things TRAs struggle with/ignore/block you when you bring it up:
Providing any evidence whatsoever of their claim they’re so vulnerable/at risk.
Brilliant and articulate as ever, Dr Em. Everyone should see the receipts in this piece and think about them before bleating on about the “most marginalised and vulnerable trans community”. Much love & solidarity to Henrietta and to you XX
Comerford has two severely autistic daughters who he writes about in his comedy, but I would never be so crass as to describe that as “weaponising” them. One might perhaps expect someone in his situation to have rather more empathy for those with debilitating and permanent medical conditions
I did not know this about Comerford. It makes his attacks on vulnerable women even worse and marks him as an even more dangerous person than I think he is at the minute. Imagine being so in thrall to an ideology that you’d be willing to turn a blind eye to women & disabled rights that’d risk your own daughters just because you want to pacify men and keep your career going.
An excellent piece overall and one that should in a better world have a wider reach than just WoS as disabled rights are not a priority for most people until disability comes calling then suddenly the reality of a daily struggle to just do normal things you used to becomes your life. So when Trans people say they’re the most vulnerable it is complete bullshit. We have a minority here amongst the safest in the world who’ve managed in an astonishingly short time got themselves in positions of power and managed to change things to suit them while disabled people struggle for things like ramps on every building.
The truth is that if you’re a trans-identifying male and you work yourself into a position where you can give intimate care to women and girls then you’re potentially a rapist. I know nurses and carers. They hate giving intimate care but know it has to be done for the patient. These Trans activists want to do this. They want TiMs to infringe disabled rights. There’s only one reason for them to do that.
Disabled rights are not negotiable. Women and girls rights are not negotiable. The Trans movement puts this up for debate because they want to colonise these spaces & if they can abuse some people in the meantime they will as we’ve seen so often.
If the likes of Comerford or Allsopp cannot see what they’re enabling then they’re part of the problem.
CUILEAN 6:46pm
Looking at the Nazi era as the ascendency of a depraved «cult», that cult penetrated the éducation system reducing it to a level of conformity in which independent thought was «discouraged».
The state of universities in the anglophone west comes very close to that in many humanities disciplines, and the sciences are not immune. Schools have to contend with so called personal «identity» matters which have nothing to do with the acquisition of knowledge. The «cult» infects everything it contacts, editing, revising, reprograming. Political life is drowning in it.
sarah says:
24 April, 2023 at 6:36 pm
In case Dr EM doesn’t read this, Rev, could you pass on the suggestion that she send a letter to the Scottish newspapers so everyone gets to see what is happening.
Don’t worry, they’re all watching now. This site has a special bookmark all on it’s own. It may even be their homepage. And we’re watching you.
Totally off-topic but I learned something interesting yesterday. Somebody that I hadn’t seen in a long time was telling me about their daughter’s job. Turns out they work in a BT or Openreach call centre (They recently changed from one to the other). Nothing remarkable there, I hear you say. Except it’s not your normal call centre, oh no, not the one plebs like you and I use, it’s a special one that’s only given out to lords, ladies and the like, so they don’t have to wait half an hour to speak to somebody in Mumbai who treats you like shit.
That’s right, there’s a secret call centre for special first class forelock-tugging service for the ruling elite. I’m not surprised, but by God that doesn’t stop me being raging!
Rant over.
We have a non-verbal autistic son thank you for the article. Every human must wonder what monster in the SNP thinks up these laws and rules. Enforced by the nodding clapping MSP seals who vote all the mumbo jumbo in …jeeeze! and its all OK?. Time the SNP got back to their roots of defending normal human values male and female. Then again probably better if the SNP just went burst nothing worth saving I’m afraid to say.
Evil no other word for the SNP.
This must be one of the most harrowing things I have read and it is clear that no one who voted or advocated for this has read it, or any other opposition.
As a female who has a disability, I can communicate with others and have the ability to refuse something if needed. It wouldn’t bother me if a male nurse in the hospital was tasked with my personal care, that’s because I am fully cogent and it would be very hard to abuse me. That though is not the case for everyone and to me that’s what has been overlooked.
You can’t have a blanket policy on care, it’s not pups we are speaking about here it is human beings who deserve to be respected and listened to, especially in relation to personal care.
Another main issue is the time that carers, whether in hospitals, care homes, or home carers have to actually provide care to an acceptable level that provides the level of care required for the person needing assistance. Everything comes down to money and what happens is people are rushing with one eye on a ticking clock to fit everyone in.
In a caring society that wouldn’t happen. It certainly wasn’t the case many years ago when councils employed home helpers. They did what it said on the tin, helping where it was needed. This included cooking, a bit of cleaning, shopping, help with dressing/undressing, or whatever the person required that day.
There was no ticking clock, people weren’t afraid of losing their job if they weren’t quick enough. I know many women (it was mainly females, with a few exceptions) who worked for the local council and loved their jobs.
Now we have an underfunded sector whose staff are being run into the ground to make profits for their bosses. Carers allowance needs a complete overhaul. If a family member/friend provides care they are paid £76.75 for a minimum of 35 hours per week, £2.19 an hour so well below even the minimum wage never mind the living wage.
They are allowed to work in another job but only for under 16 hours earning no more than £139 a week.
Meanwhile, care homes can charge thousands of £weekly for each resident. A very lucrative income, so popular we have some companies with several care homes.
This sector is set up to make money out of the elderly and disabled, it is immoral.
No one could afford to give up their job to provide home care for relatives or friends and live off of a carer’s allowance.
Surely it would be better to give half of what it costs to keep someone in a care home to whoever the person wants to care for them?
The benefits would be twofold, spaces in care homes would be released for those whose only option is this service, and money would be saved by local authorities as they would be paying half of what they did before.
Some people have to fund all of their care, however, they would still benefit and have the comfort of living in their own homes with the carers they choose.
As I said it is a very lucrative earner for care homes so opposition against the current set-up would be hard fought and supported by politicians who also happen to have a vested interest in care homes.
I honestly never thought I would see the day where the Tories in Scotland are the voices of sanity in this GRA insanity.
I am truly sickened at the entitlement of these “men” that demand that those are the most at risk to STFU and put up with it.
I note that “Lucie’s” twitter account is temporarily suspended, about time these accounts were held to…erm, account.
How the hell did we even get here?
I saw Dr EM live in Aberdeen, and she was excellent. Most people will not even have considered disability carers being abusers, just as most people will not have thought female prisoners could be housed with males. When this is pointed out they will be horrified. Whilst the elite will assume it will never affect them. Please keep bravely speaking out Dr EM.
Well,well, well , it appears that ‘Infosys’ the IT company behind yesterday’s ‘National emergency alert’ was founded by Rishi Sunak’s father in law , Narayana Murphy. link to en.wikipedia.org
I wonder what makes the ungainly, largely uneducated and untrained daughter of Charles Allsopp, 6th Baron Hindlip and Lady Fiona Hindlip, think she is at all qualified to pontificate on real-world issues such as this? Were she or hers to meet with some misfortune that left them so exposed no doubt the carers would be carefully selected and vetted; because one can do that when one s an over-privileged, loaded, Sloaney airhead!
So touching….and moving. So effective in helping us begin to picture that fear and those concerns.
Sturgeon and people like her…..are selfish clowns…and a danger to the public.
Powerful testimony.
I recall Johann Lamont speaking about this in the chamber before the last election and couldn’t disagree with a word.
The modern SNP – making Johann Lamont look good.
In other news…
link to news.sky.com
No more new slippers for the team. Shame…
Thanks for writing this. It made me cry. This is what real vulnerability is.
robertkknight says:
25 April, 2023 at 4:40 am
In other news…
link to news.sky.com
No more new slippers for the team. Shame…
£1.2 million incentive to get your accounts submitted… Nope. Cannae be done. Too difficult.
Nevermind Murrell and Sturgeon wrecking the SNP as a political force, it’s now a Piñata for Unionists.
Take a bow Sturgeon.
“SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn warns the only way to defend devolution is to ‘strengthen it’ amid calls for more energy powers….”
Can somebody remind me why the Independence Party would want to strengthen Devolution?
I want more powers too, starting with powers to impeach a bunch of troughing charlatans who only mention Independence when there’s an Election in the wind.
“Life is what happens to you,
while you’re busy making other plans.” – J.L.
Indy politicians ain’t very busy!
If marching is the extent of the plan, ain’t much gonna happen!
A hard row to hoe
yes, it’s a long way to go
but in the meantime.. ?
SNP won’t miss a paltry £1.2 Million Short Money. Have you seen the new SNP fundraising Merch?
£800 for a designer pen which can’t write numbers.
£14.55 for a
Sharpie Permanent MarkerSNP Transparency Highlighter Pen. (Available in Black only).£10:50
pSNP Pencil with eraser tip. (for writing manifesto pledges and auditing Accounts).Send your cheques, valuables, and used notes only, to the SNP Stationary Department.
This speech by the now fired Tucker Carlson is very relevant.
I came to the same conclusion a while ago. I think it was when they started advocating for abortions up to the point of birth.
This is not politics anymore.
twitter.com/TexasLindsay_/status/1650543460057853963
Access to justice for the disabled:
Someone sued a Scottish council for disability discrimination.
The Council is insured. The insurance company is a multi-billion dollar, multi-national company. They hired one of the top solicitors in Scotland in this area of law to defend the claim, which they are entitled to do.
However, One of the first things the council’s insurance company solicitor did was write to the Scottish Legal Aid Board and request legal aid is denied. SLAB then refused legal aid. SLAB gave zero consideration to the victim’s ability to have effective access to justice without a solicitor. Neither the council nor SLAB had informed the victim of the the application to SLAB to refuse legal aid.
Result: no solicitor for the victim. The council represented by highly experienced solicitors and advocates.
The person was left sitting crying in distress in court struggling to read her case to the Sheriff as she had no representation. The Sheriff asked the person what they wanted to do now. Through her tears the victim asked the Sheriff to keep the hearing going. The Council’s solicitor suggested the hearing to be continued to a later date. The Sheriff continued the case to a further hearing and charged the victim the expenses of that hearing.
So, I have zero faith that any abusers would have much fear of being caught and punished. I have zero faith that disabled victims would get all the help they deserve to get justice if abused.
The Scottish Establishment is rotten to the core. The rot is from the head ( Scot Govt) down to local councils and health boards.
My experience is “professional” abusers are protected and disabled victims face further discrimination if they seek justice.
I got an understanding of how abusers can get away with abuse for years, as those around close ranks to protect reputations or are scared to speak out due to management cover-ups.
Mac, thanks for that – I have only just heard of this man and I was mightily impressed by that.
BREEKS
The major boost for independence might come as a result of that demeaning term «devolution» and its «thing» being binned.
A constitutional crisis needs to be engineered within the Union structure.
Power lies in Westminster not in a provincial council and it is from Westminster that it must be reclaimed and taken forcefully.
What was undemocratically surrendered must be restored by whatever means possible. Whether the «law» of Westminster agrees or not. This matter is not standard party politics as Mr Flynn appears to suggest.
Marie says:
“You can’t have a blanket policy on care, it’s not pups we are speaking about here it is human beings who deserve to be respected and listened to, especially in relation to personal care.
Another main issue is the time that carers, whether in hospitals, care homes, or home carers have to actually provide care to an acceptable level that provides the level of care required for the person needing assistance. Everything comes down to money and what happens is people are rushing with one eye on a ticking clock to fit everyone in.”
The time that carers have may be measured in minutes. As in most areas of modern life the question is not “how may we do it well?”, but “how little cost can we do it for?” This applies especially to the provision of home care by carers who have to travel from one beneficiary to another, eg through Glasgow traffic. Councils outsource care to care providers ostensibly on the basis of “best value” and not on the basis of lowest cost. Commercial care providers, look to make a profit. This includes the Church of Scotland owned Crossreach which is the largest non-NHS care provider in Scotland. These various factors create tensions at all levels, a hurried carer, stressed managers trying to get the best from carers, companies trying to make a profit, councils trying to balance budgets, all with constraints of time, money legal, medical and human relationships. (There is no time for a chat for carer and care beneficiary.)
Goodness, what a powerful post. Sharp intakes of breath as I read it. Whilst WoS is always forensic, sometimes I read the posts on here for their darkly comic side, but not this one.
Dorothy, he has been a stand out for a number of years. I am amazed he lasted so long. His recent Jan 6th reporting was key as well. His reporting resulted in them releasing that poor Shaman guy they were persecuting. He was a real thorn in their side.
He started off pretty average as well and then just started dropping bombs in more recent years, very courageous guy IMHO. He will find another platform for sure.
Everything he says in that speech is absolutely spot on and the two definitions he gives (for G&E) are 100% correct, that is exactly what they are, and I realized that (almost word for word for what he says) many years ago now.
We are in battle right now. Whether we realize it or not does not matter because we are in it anyway, there is no escape from it. But to have any chance of winning the battle we first have to recognize we are in one. That it exists.
Where woke politics has appeared and taken hold defines the geographical boundaries of conquered lands and conquered people, most of who don’t even know it.
President Xiden.
Sunak’s wife has a stake in the company valued at over $900 million dollars, we can expect more and more of these alerts.
Sunak’s wife has covered her own back on this one and here’s how.
The UK Government awarded the contract to Fujitsu who subsequently sub-contracted the work to Indian company Infosys.
Colin Alexander says:
25 April, 2023 at 8:59 am
Access to justice for the disabled:
Someone sued a Scottish council for disability discrimination.
My view is that government funded organisations should not have access to an unlimited pool of money to defend themselves against complaints by the public. Both sides of the case should b funded by the defence side, eg NHS, Auchenshogle Council, Edinburgh Trams, and so forth.
I have come bored with spokesmen for State organisations reiterating the silly expression “lessons will be learned”, after losing a court case that has cost the taxpayer many millions. The people involved are supposed to know what they are doing, not still be learning, or failing to learn.
As regards the NHS, settlement of claims could be simply done by agreement, and damages paid without going to court.
The targeting of smaller nations continues apace.
link to irishtimes.com
Breeks says: at 8:42 am
“SNP won’t miss a paltry £1.2 Million Short Money. Have you seen the new SNP fundraising Merch?”
I’m minded of this comment from a few years back, but the article is worth a read as ties in with current events, and of course yet more taxpayers’ money being spent on legal as they contest GRR.
link to wingsoverscotland.com
Antoine Bisset @ 10.28am
Good comment. Public bodies know many (most) civil cases will (eventually) be settled if they drag it out till the victim is so emotionally / financially drained they will drop the action completely or settle out of court with no admission of liability from the public body.
The additional stress of legal action is too much for many people to cope with – especially if they have health / disability issues and have been the victim of abuse and so already suffer anxiety.
Solicitors / insurance companies / public bodies know this and use it to their advantage.
brass neck scottish labour & tory refusing to publish membership figures
do you have a ballpark figure stu ?
The Indy ‘velvet revolution'(non-event) is going splendidly, for the same ruddy faced politicians, keen to indulge in the self-determination bandwagon.
Don’t forget the picnic baskets on the 6th May!
No danger of black smoke and burning effigies at the Indy BBQs.
Blisters for indy!
Wonderful bit of writing – thank you.
link to politico.eu
this made me think of a scene from Trainspotting (dialogue paraphrased)
Begbie (on the lam), SickBoy (doing deals) are down in London harassing Renton, dossing at his flat. All three sit on the bed eating fish and chips (Renton, chip poke in hand is not eating, but staring); in front of them is an empty table where a portable television ONCE was
Renton : I can’t believe you just did that …
SickBoy : got a good price for it … probably rented anyway …
Renton : BUT IT WAS -MY- FUCKING TELEVISION …
all the lovely eurotrash and anglo-trash had a little shindig about all the windpower they are going to generate, half of it from our waters.
Too wee, too poor – but there you have the lie made obvious; England/Europe is going to feed itself on our windpower, just like they did on our oil/gas. Always understand the difference between real-wealth (oil, gas, gold, electricity, manufactured goods) and claims-on-wealth (pieces of paper, electronic data); the latter can be made ad infinitum and the former, not. London and the SouthEast has NONE of the former, and as much of the latter as it wants. Who is rich and who is poor and who is being robbed?
– this was the life you were denied; a country where the word “Anglo” was a derisive shorthand for – beggar/thief/r3tard/ingrate – and our debates on diversity were about how many temporary visas we issue to SouthEastEnglish to come in and clean our toilets for 1 Scots Pound an hour, while keeping an eye on the english ghettoes, like Govanhill, which have become crime-ridden shitholes.
Instead we allow them to come up here, buy us out and make themselves little New Scots lairds.
Ragged Kilted Philanthropists? or just total fucking idiots.
Under Sturgeotti, a study was done on medical negligence claims though the report came out a few months after she had been moved to make way for Alex Neil. There was talk of moving to a No-Fault system of compensation in Scotland but it didn’t happen.
There are some really odd things in the report i.e. a bar chart showing costs associated with claims under £5,000 over a 10-year period steadily being eaten up by legal costs, so that at the end of the period a claim of around that £5,000 figure would represent a third of the claim with two-thirds legal costs on top. This was not happening at the start of the 10-year period. The only possible conclusion is that claims were being dragged out to enrich the lawyers. Claims under £5,000 should be very straightforward and not require £10,000 legal costs.
There was also a quote from someone at NHS Forth Valley where (from memory) they were saying effectively that if you’ve got a complaint, come on down, and we’ll send you away with £1000 no problem, something which has never happened in the history of NHS Scotland ever. It was actually disgraceful that that quote was left in the report.
Anyway, anyone interested can read it here,
link to gov.scot
No doubt, it will be 404-ed soon so download it today!!!
So Tucker Carlson is now being touted as someone to be impressed by on Wings…Jesus wept.
‘Tucker Carlson’s Great Replacement
When Fox settled the defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million, the conventional wisdom was that it would alter little about the way Fox News operates. “Don’t Expect Fox News to Change After Massive Dominion Payout,” said a Vanity Fair headline. “Will Fox Settlement Alter Conservative Media? Apparently Not,” said The Associated Press.
Maybe the settlement didn’t change much, but it increasingly looks as if the lawsuit itself did. On Monday, news broke that Tucker Carlson, Fox News’s highest-rated and most demagogic prime time host, was out, and wouldn’t even get a final show to say goodbye. The Los Angeles Times reported that Carlson was defenestrated by Rupert Murdoch himself, and that his exit was related to the discrimination lawsuit filed by Carlson’s former head of booking Abby Grossberg. Grossberg alleges that Fox coerced her into giving misleading testimony in the Dominion case, and has said she filed the discrimination suit, as well as a separate lawsuit, after fearing that the network was going to make her a scapegoat. The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported that Murdoch was incensed about insubordinate remarks Carlson made about Fox management, which were revealed during the discovery phase of the Dominion case.
All this suggests that Dominion was responsible for shaking loose the information that brought Carlson down. The end of his Fox News tenure should be a reminder to people on the left not to surrender to the cynical illusion that, to revive a Trump-era phrase, LOL nothing matters. Sometimes the terrible elements of our political culture seem so immutable that it’s tempting to give in to despair as a prophylactic against perpetual disappointment. But it turns out that it is in fact sometimes possible to shame the shameless. Once in a while, justice is delivered.
Grossberg’s lawsuit had seemed, before Monday, to be at most a footnote to the broader Dominion drama, even though the behavior detailed in it was disgusting. Grossberg describes an environment in which women of all political persuasions were constantly discussed in terms of sexual desirability. One of Carlson’s bookers, she alleges, was told that she should sleep with Elon Musk to secure an interview. She claims that Carlson’s executive producer Justin Wells, also fired on Monday, called her into his office to ask about the sex life of her previous boss, the Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. In a statement, Fox said that Grossberg’s accusations were made following a critical performance review, and said that it had hired “an independent outside counsel to immediately investigate the concerns” she had raised.
If indeed Carlson was fired in part for workplace misogyny, he will fall into a venerable Fox tradition. The network has a history of tolerating the abuse of women until revelations become too inconvenient, at which point even figures who’d seemed irreplaceable, like Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly, are tossed overboard. Contempt for women was part of Carlson’s brand at Fox News; his infamous “The End of Men” special urged men to tan their testicles to ostensibly increase testosterone and thereby rescue society from collapse. It would be fitting if contempt for women is what finally derailed him.
But Carlson had contempt for so many. He was the Trumpiest of Fox News hosts, even though we now know, thanks to discovery in the Dominion case, that he hated Donald Trump “passionately.” Like Trump, he and his producers mined the white nationalist internet for narratives, promiscuously spread wild conspiracy theories, and hinted at the need for violence to take back America. After Trump was indicted last month, Carlson said, “Probably not the best time to give up your AR-15.” He created, as Nick Confessore wrote in The New York Times, “what may be the most racist show in the history of cable news — and also, by some measures, the most successful.”
The similarity of Carlson and Trump’s sensibilities might derive from the similarity of their resentments. Both were children of privilege — Carlson was kicked out of a Swiss boarding school — who sought the respect of the establishment but never got it. It’s worth noting, given his loathing of the putative deep state, that Carlson tried to join the C.I.A. but was rejected. He shifted his ambitions to cable news, but before landing at Fox News, he struggled to fit in. In a 2021 interview, Carlson described having a “kind of meltdown” after being fired from MSNBC in 2008, the latest of a string of failures, and having to sell his house. Speaking of the television industry, he said, “I was living in that world and I was not succeeding.”
Like Trump, he would find success by catering to people who despised the world that had spurned him. He made revenge into a career.
It’s impossible to know what happens to that career now that Carlson has achieved the rare cable news trifecta of flaming out at CNN, MSNBC and Fox. He has an intensely loyal following, and could easily start his own venture or join a would-be Fox competitor like Newsmax or OAN. It would be a tremendous irony if Fox News, which aired lies about Dominion because it was afraid of being outflanked on the right by Newsmax, now finds itself losing to Newsmax thanks to the fallout from the Dominion
But other Fox hosts have seen their relevance rapidly diminish after being deprived of the network’s platform. Glenn Beck is still performing his 21st-century John Birch Society routine at his company Blaze Media, but he’s speaking to a much smaller niche than he once did. Bill O’Reilly, once the face of Fox, has a podcast and a string of best-selling books, but he’s no longer a particularly important cultural figure. Maybe Carlson will be different, though the text messages exposed by Dominion suggest an intense awareness of his own vulnerability. After the viewer backlash over Fox News correctly calling Arizona for Joe Biden, an enraged Carlson texted a producer, “We worked really hard to build what we have.” And now it’s gone.’
link to nytimes.com
Thank you for your post DrEM – Fight on!
This story came back to mind:
//
Nurse who sexually assaulted woman in coma caught by DNA evidence after she gave birth
link to mirror.co.uk
ByKate BuckNews Reporter
14:51, 3 Dec 2021
Picture of perpertrator at link above.
A male nurse who sexually assaulted a patient in a coma in a long-term care facility, resulting in her giving birth, has been jailed.
Nathan Sutherland, 39, will spend the next 10 years behind bars after pleading guilty to sexual assault and vulnerable adult abuse charges.
Police were called to Hacienda Healthcare in Arizona, when a patient went into labour, despite having been in a vegetative state for over a decade, ABC News reports.
The nurse who called police in December 2018 said during the call that staff were not aware she was pregnant.
According to court papers, Sutherland “worked around the victim and treated her on numerous occasions and thus had direct access to her for an extended period of time.”
cont..
//
K1, no-one is ‘touting’ him as anything. I had never heard of him before but I was impressed by that speech – he had something to say and said it, seemed straightforward to me.
Happily Fox news has never encroached on me and is unlikely to in the future – it’s bad enough having the BBBC/STV/ITN/Channel 4.
Yes, without adding mouthpieces from Fox to the list of bbc/STV/ et al Dorothy. Tucker Carlson is Fox personified, happily or not you were encroached upon.
Alert readers would surely check in on his credentials and the audience for that little clip, who it’s aimed at. It’s the same sordid right wing crap aimed at evangelical republicans, he’s speaking their language.
To simply watch a clip like that and not know the background of who is speaking which is the very least that we’ve learned from years on Wings, surely? Which is to research and understand the agenda of those we view/read etc, before literally just selectively going along with a clip that somehow agrees with one’s own opinion in a very selective and narrow way is my point.
And a I rather reject your opinion that ‘no one’ is ‘touting’, the original poster who put the clip on, replied to your ‘impressed’ self, lauding the guy even more. That’s certainly is touting.
Very very powerful, though it has left me seething.
How can the right to choose the sex of your carer be any way in question, let alone disputed, challenged and weaponized against you.
Unbelievable that we’re here.
A rather upsetting article/report, but well done!
Personally I just cannot understand those who oppose the fundamental right for a woman or girl, disabled or able-bodied, to be cared for by another woman. Is it a generation thing?
[…] put in the bed next to you. You might prefer a female nurse to do your mammogram, you might have a disability and require female intimate carers. If the female nurse or carer turns out to be a man, you must […]