Did anyone see the ITV News piece about of water bills on customers?

[inkjet]

https://twitter.com/PaulEmbery/status/1674332639921045505

Yes this is the feminism board. Paul Embery clipped it but I wonder if anyone saw it in full? He says the piece was about the impact of soaring water bills on an everyday mother. The voiceover calls the person a customer but the customer calls themself a mum. On the Twitter thread someone points out that the customer works for the TUC and is an economist who has been published in the Guardian. I think it’s fair to say the customer is neither a mother nor an ‘everyday’ one.

Crikey. Is the writer of this piece in 2008 the same person?

https://electronicintifada.net/content/continuing-struggle/7344

Running through the dark streets of Palestine throwing stones and dodging bullets is not something any mothers I know have done much of. I wonder why?

Omg, that's horrific. It's a pretty unique name. I hope Mossad don't watch ITV. There seem to be a fair number of ex-army types who transition.

I'm very concerned for Rosie Duffield following that tweet. The TRAs have missed the point entirely - not to mention so many deluded people up in arms because 'how does she even know Mika is trans'.

They assume it is a personal attack but it really is not. She has thrown a light on something really important and they are coming for her harder than ever.

He's typical of social justice activists, moving from one cause to the next ( from that article):

"African-American author and activist bell hooks describes rage as “a necessary aspect of resistance struggle,” but what to direct it at? These feelings don’t translate into writing a letter to my MP, or taking part in a demonstration. The continuity in daily life fuels the fury, demanding a rupture, a break in our privilege and comfort of pubs, movies, shops — life and business as usual.
Honestly, I don’t know how to live with my grief and rage. The only answer I have is: if our political struggles are effective and fulfilling, to throw ourselves into them wholeheartedly. Together with our friends who are still alive and feeling, to hold each other up and carry on fighting.
The world is faced with oppression and occupation from countries like the UK, US, and Israel. Death and murder have been, and will be felt by many of our movements for liberation and justice. Mostly, when these struggles take place in England, we have the privilege of our friends not being gunned down beside us. Not so in Palestine, Derry and Belfast, Bolivia, Nigeria, or Iraq. We will lose more friends. There will be grief, fury, and rage with no outlet, but that’s part of struggling for a better world, I guess"

Mika Minio-Paluello is a community activist who lived and worked in Balata refugee camp between 2003 and 2005, supporting balatacamp.net and the Balata Film Collective. He currently lives in London and can be contacted at mika AT balatacamp DOT net.

I doubt very much he has children.

Definitely has a young child

O.k! But he's certainly not the child's mother. Just blatant cos-play.

I wonder whether their children are told to call him mum?

There seem to be a number of men who transition around or not long after their partners/wives have given birth and become a mother. No connection there at all. Absolutely none.

Rosie Duffield’s tweet looks to have 2.5m views. No wonder they are incandescent. Here’s KJK discussing it on GBNews.

I just wonder about the gaslighting of Mika's children here. They might be little and unquestioning but come on, bringing your children up to say you are their mother, not their father?

It's just magical unicorn land. Another social experiment on kids with zero common sense and utter narcissism.

I'm curious, how do TV companies pick the people who will appear in these reports?

Interesting tweet

It's one of the end games - remove the words mother, women etc from women and hand them over to certain men to colonise as their own.

The Spectator's take
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-the-tuc-understand-what-the-word-mum-means/

The looney left attacking a slightly less looney left aspiring PM, over a sane woman pointing out to a looney left union, that a man isn't a mother as known by everyone, bar the looney left.

What a great illustration!

It'll be some connection with someone in the production team. Sure as hell won't be because they knocked on doors in Random Street supplied by Thames Water and asked householders if they'd like to comment as struggling mothers on rising water bills.

I was approached many years ago by a newspaper for a comment on something from a particular 'angle'. They didn't pick me randomly from a list of people in the relevant sector or through any research or publicly available information. It was because the journalist was a friend of another reporter at a different paper who I'd had some brief contact with through work and who still had my number scribbled in their notebook. Yes, it was that long ago.

This person has appeared several times on TV shows, so there will be various contacts who have their details on file.

'the idea that a biological male can be a mother radically changes what the word mother means. It empties the word of its biological, relational and social truths, of its historical essence, and rules that from now on anyone can be a mother. Male, female, neither, whatever: if you feel like you’re a mum, you’re a mum. ‘Mother’ no longer describes a real person, a real relationship; ‘mother’ is now a mere feeling, as likely to be felt by a man as by a woman.It is hard to think of another word as important to human society as mother. If we let them redefine even this word that binds families and communities together, then we are granting them dominion over reality itself. The power to overhaul a word like mother is a power no one should enjoy. It is cultural autocracy.'

From O'Neill's Speccy piece upthread.

That article absolutely nails it, thank you for sharing. Language and words have power - and no, we didn't all agree collectively that the word 'mother' could be redefined.

He says he get's whistled at (or cat called) & called a laydeeeeeeeeee 😂

.

Quite. I'm an amoeba now. And a giraffe.

It's because men ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN WOMEN.

KNOW YOUR PLACE MERE FEMALE....

I'm guessing in this case it was directly via TUC. ITV would call TUC press office to say they're doing a story on Thames Water/cost of living/inflation, can the TUC provide a quote/spokesperson/case study. Press office would then call Mika. But that's where it gets weird. You would expect them to say "Mika, can you speak about your policy area as a spokesperson?". But it looks like somehow that turned into "Mika, can you have the camera crew round your house to film you pretending to be a "struggling mum? ". Very odd. Don't know what the TUC were thinking. This was never going to pan out well.

Mika was smiling quite a lot for a struggling mum in dangly earrings and a swishy skirt putting a load of washing on. I don't find it that much fun tbh.

Yeah , considering that this family are supposedly struggling to pay for "what the kids need" ....why the fuck are they putting on such tiny loads of washing that it doesn't even fill a washing up bowl?