Westminstenders: War and Weirdos

[RedToothBrush]

With weirdos set to run No10 and Trump seemingly having started a new war in the Middle East, 2020 already looks set to be a cracking year.

To start off your year, it turns out that chinese curse about interesting times is actually a fallacy...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times

Happy New Year.

May we make 2030...

Meanwhile, while we were distracted, womens rights went back a few decades:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/05/secret-family-courts-judges-rape-evidence-sexual-assault?

When is rape, you know, real, proper rape?
Shockingly, in our family courts, it seems it’s only when you put up a fight and have the injuries to show for it.
.....
Judge Robin Tolson ruled that^ because the woman had taken “no physical steps” to stop the man from raping her, “this did not constitute rape”,^
and consequently ruled against her.

Legally speaking, this means that when it comes to that same judge deciding whether or not, say, it is safe for a father to have contact with his child,
claims of sexual violence will not be taken into account.

Because, in the eyes of the court, that rape simply didn’t happen.

I suspect the main reason is we'd struggle to find housing for an extra 400 soldiers in the UK at short notice, but heigh ho

I think you are perhaps being a tad too cynical there DGR. I imagine that most of them have families and homes back in the UK.

It was worth reading the whole of Johnson's statement, which was more measured, which you would never have guessed from media headlines.

I think you are perhaps being a tad too cynical there DGR.

I'd hope so too ....

Judge Robin Tolson ruled that *because the woman had taken “no physical steps” to stop the man from raping her, “this did not constitute rape”,

Where do they dig up these old cunts ? Is there a special school somewhere ?

It's almost a parallel of that twisted US fuck who tried to say women can't get pregnant from rape.

I really can't apologise for my sex enough at times.

BCF I'm very glad to see that article because it chimes closely with a situation a friend is in. My friends dealings with the family courts are something else. She is clearly being coercively controlled by her ex through the courts.

I've spotted it and put a name to whats happening to her, because its been adding to the ordeal she is going through and how the whole thing is unsettling the children involved. I don't know whether it will make a difference but she know has other avenues to persue and I've been telling her about what the law actually states and doesn't.

The legal advice she's been given has been nothing short of appalling too in that respect.

DG Don't apologise for your sex - Î'm fuming at how so many ambitious women throw other women overboard

Now, Labour leadership contender Jess Philips
either wants to force women to stay in a marriage if their husband transitions to a TW,
or hasn't thought through what "spousal veto" is:

it's not stopping any man from transitioning;
it is just a veto on changing the marriage or partnership to a "gay" one.

If the bloke doesn't want to remain a husband, then he can always divorce

Jess Phillips MP@jessphillips

I helped write the document that demanded changes in self ID.
I literally was part of the group of MPs who wanted change.

Spousal veto for example is awful

I suggest renaming "spousal veto" as "forced REmarriage"

TRAs - and their follower like Philips - are demanding that any TW should be able to legally register a change in their marriage or civil partnership to a gay one.

The records would be changed, so that even if the original ceremony was religious,
history will be rewritten that it was a gay one that took place at a registry office

Another vote-winner for Labour ?

DG Don't apologise for your sex - Î'm fuming at how so many ambitious women throw other women overboard

One could argue it's a form of maternal drive - wanting the best for your genes, over and above other peoples genes.

I think it's time to refine the "nature abhors a vacuum" trope to "nature abhors imbalance". Which covers the "vacuum" thing, but also suggests that things are doomed to oscillate between extremes, and that any respite in the centre is only transient, as we swing the other way.

It used to be fashionable to present the development of writing, printing, radio, television as advances to the human condition.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest they are not advances, but disturbances, and that after a while things start to settle back to the state of lowest energy they were roused from.

I should start my own YouTube channel to promote it. Unless it really is possible to die from irony.

Another vote-winner for Labour ?

Shrug.

I'm not a member. Never have been, never will. I "lent" them my vote in 2019, and it seems they've given it to someone else .

red I don't know anything about family court or how often such oppressive decisions happen

It's grim if the definition of rape is quietly being pushed back decades in family court,
rather than just one old throwback long past his judicial shelf life.

BCF I have been shocked by what has been happening to my friend and how the system isn't flagging it as coercive control. Part of the features of coercive control is to use the system against a victim.

I won't go into any of the details of what is happening, but this guy is bombarding the authorities with vexatious accusations against her, all of which have been refuted beyond doubt. We aren't talking one or two things but absolutely everything to the point she now documents pretty much her whole life in case he makes a complaint.

It's beyond me how the family courts are allowed to run without proper specialist training to try and spot coercive control and to intervene when it becomes apparent someone is using the system to coercively control a former partner. Its fairly obvious to me that the system can and is being regularly abused by individuals in this manner to the detriment of former partners and the children involved.

My friend got to the point where she no longer trusts the system and got rid of her legal representative (in my opinion looking at what I've seen retrospectively, her legal advice made the situation worse for her).

It's eye opening to say the least and how the system is so inconsistent and flawed with absolutely no transparency.

It needs a complete overall and better accountability.

If you consider this is where many ordinary people come into contact with the courts and think family courts are the same as criminal court it's important because of the impression it gives people of the justice system.

Meanwhile ...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7856463/Iranian-adviser-drops-chilling-hint-attacks-Trump-properties.html

... Hesameddin Ashena shared a link to a Forbes article listing all of Trump's properties in New York, his hotels and resorts across America and golf courses in the US and Britain. ... The list included the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, where the president was when he ordered the hit on Soleimani, as well as the Trump International Hotels in Washington and Las Vegas and his New York Tower ...

I can see a slew of people (mainly Americans ) cancelling their golf holidays at Trump resorts.

One wonders if their insurance covers "acts of idiocy by the CEO", or if theirs a "rogue POTUS" exclusion somewhere ?

If you consider this is where many ordinary people come into contact with the courts and think family courts are the same as criminal court it's important because of the impression it gives people of the justice system.

At my age, I have already formed my opinion of the "justice"* system, and passed it on (in spades it seems) to DS. Very little in day to day reporting makes me think I've got it wrong in any way, shape or form.

It's really a legal* system. If there is any justice, it's mainly by accident, and best not highlighted in case someone notices and fixes it.

Horrifying red and the family court system seems stacked against women - the vast majority of us who aren't weathy enough to pay lawyers every day for years

PMK (sorry nothing useful to add)

the family court system seems stacked against women

One word too many in there, I think.

Generally the legal system is 200 years behind society ?

Thought for the day: would you want to work for a man who can't keep his arse on the inside of his trousers?

Hmmm my Mum always used to say you can tell a good man by his shoes...

Hmmm my Mum always used to say you can tell a good man by his shoes..

Big shoes ... big feet ?

So, the new Labour leader will be announced on April 4th

is anybody paying £25 to vote in the election ?

Family court system - is frightful , have a friend who it took years - about 5 I think - I lost count to rid herself of her partner - weren't married , but had been together over 20 years, multiple children. Clear use of coercive control on his part. The only thing that actually forced the end of the situation was a GBH conviction of partner on not only my friend, but their vulnerable adult child. Police were amazing - and only because they were amazing did it finally come to an end. He tried to pull the same shit with them that he had been doing in the family court and they were having none of it.

About women hamstringing other women ..... my best friend is a surgeon, her husband is a barrister. She was working part-time (about 36hours for a surgeon) she had to give up her Public Health Service work (this was in NZ) because the senior female surgeons would schedule her lists - that meant that she would be operating until 8 or 9 at night. She was meant to relieve the nanny at 6:00. The senior male surgeons were really supportive - but not in charge of the lists. She said it was like because they basically had had to give up seeing their kids grow up, they weren't going to allow her to have the choice. In the end - it's the patients that lost out as she is a brilliant surgeon.

Bloody hell
that photo of Cimmings going into No 10 with his bare buttock showing 🤮💩

I get exasperated with the ridiculous ceremonial dress that Parliament and the RF churn out at every excuse
but this is going to the other extreme of lacking all respect for govt offices

I've lived in some pretty grotty places,
but going into any house or office with your bare arse hanging out would always be regarded as disgraceful and / or showing you have serious personal problems that need fixing.

I'm a labour party member (since about a year ago) but don't feel very welcome in the party right now and probably won't vote. I will support whoever they pick, though. Labour infighting has been absolutely horrendous.

Does it seem like a good day because no -new- wars or climate disasters have happened?

I've been signed off work for another three weeks. Feel like this must be rock bottom, but I'm sure it isn't. Sick with guilt.

horrifying stories of oxygen rationing from my one of my friends this week. mainly I have nightmares about patients dying while other people laugh at me. All over the country we are sleeping patient in A&E corridors, 6-8 hour waits to see a doctor, handing over 30+ per shift, everyone feels like they're doing a terrible job all the time.

This is not normal. This is not fine. This did not need to happen. This was a choice. But what is the point in saying anything.