Gorton and Denton, what have you done?

[Imdunfer]

You have elected as an MP to stand in the UK&NI parliament a person who said in a panel interview with Annabel Tiffin from BBC Northwest Tonight that the Manchester Arena bombing was caused by people sewing division by questioning immigration.

That statement is so outrageous I don't even know where to start.

My question is still why though? Female changing rooms still have cubicles, so how is it different to the unisex changing rooms at the pool?

I'm not trying to upset you, I'm genuinely interested why you feel so strongly about it

Perhaps Reform lost because they didn't put out a leaflet in Urdu? To try to engage with a portion of the voters in the area where they were canvassing. Oe did they think they could win the Muslim vote by ignoring the issues that concern them?

You're not upsetting me at all. I just don't understand what you don't understand!

I don't have any issue with mixed changing rooms where there are individual cubicles which afford sufficient privacy. But some changing rooms have no individuals cubicles, just a communal changing space. I don't want men in those spaces.

I also don't want men in women's prisons, women's refuges, women-only social activities or in roles which are supposed to be reserved for women.

I don’t think they wanted the Muslim vote, they didn’t want any other party to have it either.

Oh for sure! I think tactical voting will be with us for a while.
I only meant in this specific case if you assume (if) that some people wanted to vote Labour but voted Green for tactical purposes then you can play around with the numbers and "take away" some Green votes and "give them back" to Labour. So as the Green votes go down, the Labour votes go up and first Labour overtakes Reform into second place, then it overtakes the Greens so you have Labour 1st, Green 2nd, Reform 3rd but with tiny margins, then Labour 1st, Reform 2nd, Green 3rd.

Basically if the hypothetical tactical Labour voters hadn't voted for the Greens but had stuck with Labour then it might have changed the margins or the winning party but it wouldn't have been enough to give Reform the win.

But that's a by-election, in an election with higher turn outs it could be different and a lot of the voters were swing voters anyway. Some of the Green voters could swing Reform next time. Everythings very fluid.

It shows that Reform didn't understand the community in the same way that the Green party did

Ironically saw a vox-pop where they interviewed voters and one of the interviewees was a British-Pakistani man who said he was "giving the Greens a chance this time but might go Reform next time if it doesn't work out". So maybe if they'd tried harder they could have scooped up some votes. But the post election tantrumming probably won't help them with that.

I see yes I think it was solidly a left, used to be Labour seat, so that wasn’t going to change that much.

I think Reform hoped that they could pull a lot of the disillusioned Labour voters over to them but even though some probably went over (looking at the results), it wasn't enough. Maybe if it was a different candidate. I don't like Reform but I also think Goodwin was a bit of a disadvantage to them. It's not the "posh Southerner" thing so much (no-one can help their accent) as the fact he comes over as quite supercilious and didn't have much connection to the area. There are likely many Green politicians like that as well, but Hannah Denton isn't one of them.

The racism and misogyny probably didn't help.

I think they thought it would though
"We know what you working class Northerners want. A whippet, a pint of ale and some good old fashioned racism".

Reform mainly picked up the Tory vote plus some from the left.

Yup, which was never going to be enough to win.
And "the traditional working classes of the UK have been let down by Labour and are no longer a represented by the Left" is a key part of their narrative. Their whole strategy is to position themselves as the party of the white working class and to do that they need to take on former Labour voters. They didn't and I think part of the motivation for their banging on about Sectarianism is an attempt to distract from that.
Labour are in trouble too of course.

How can businesses support the £15 per hour min wage, a 4 day week, and no zero hours contracts.

I think the local elections will give more of an indication of which voters cross to where.

It leads to an increase in incidences with e.g. phones pushed underneath cubicles, teenage boys messing around and looking over the tops of cubicles at teenage girls. Older men being pervs. The cubicles are by design small and pretty flimsy. Most people are just trying to get changed themselves but there is always a portion of the population who are peeves or worse. It only needs a small number of people to cause issues or just mean people feel less safe/comfortable. And it only takes one incidence of e.g. a boy trying to photograph a girl getting changed to put someone of swimming/changing rooms for a long time. And that's not fair on women. And very easy to prevent by having seperate changing areas.

It's not a big existential issue but it still matters to lots of people. I still go swimming. But I feel annoyed about it.

Because this is your job and so you already know it well?

I will be really interested to see how pp responds to this...I was going to write something similar to your post, but decided it probably wasn't worth it!

Hollinrake was the minister in charge. I don’t remember him effectively saying he couldn’t manage without her help.

Eh?
When I genuinely achieve something I celebrate it. If I do a little towards someone else achieving something, I celebrate them.
If I were Minister for Women and Equalities and a report came in with recommendations on how to address CSA and I did precisely nothing with it I’d be so fucking ashamed I’d never show my face in public again.

He agrees with me - she 'makes things happen', 'decisive leadership'
Next.

Being in a partnership heading up a team, driving forward a result like the Horizon Act isn't an achievement? 16 other ministers tried and failed, but ok.

yes!

I wonder how the Labour back benches will respond?

Migrants’ right to permanent asylum in the UK will be scrapped from Monday in the most significant overhaul of immigration policy in a generation.

Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, will change the rules so that migrants arriving in the UK after Monday will only be eligible for temporary refugee status as part of sweeping reforms to deter illegal immigrants.

Ms Mahmood has decided to fast-track her reforms despite a rebellion by at least 30 MP’s, largely on the Left of the party, who claim the reforms are “unfair”, “unjust” and “harsh”.

That isn’t quite what you said but ok. Impressed by your Twitter memory though!