This is Northumberland Calling 28.4.23

If it is Friday, it must be the start of a Bank Holiday weekend edition

This is Northumberland Calling

If it is Friday, it must be the start of a Bank Holiday weekend edition

Today marks the start of the first May Bank Holiday (there are 3 in May – early May 1st, King’s 8th and late May 29th). Never knowingly missing an opportunity, there are also several teacher’s strikes and transportation strikes. The Nursing strike was called off because they failed to ballot members properly. Apparently a number of families have taken advantage and gone on cheap holidays. Surprise, surprise.

Local elections are happening in certain parts of the UK which means politicians are either 1. Opening mouths and inserting various body parts  -- Diane Abbott’s ‘first draft’ letter to the Observer where she proclaimed a hierarchy of victimhood – Abbott is now suspended and will most likely be deselected and unable to run as the Labour party candidate in any General Election – Starmer making it clear that there is no such thing as hierarchy of victimhood in the Labour party https://archive.is/nWZKp  This was Tomiwa Owolade’s response to her original letter, pointing out that writing a letter to a newspaper is not a thoughtless exercise. https://archive.is/As2P1

Hadley Freeman’s take on it in the JC https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/all/the-profound-wrongness-of-diane-abbott-6O15EcsIhDBGpYwzMHMNkX?utm_source=sharebutton&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=top

The Times columnist Deborah Ross used humour to explain why Diane Abbott should not be easily forgiven for her crass remarks. https://archive.is/RoS0M

 Or 2. Rolling out various family members/adopting  potential voting winning policies. The Telegraph has done a huge background piece on Sunak’s Mother-in-law, apparently the power behind the throne in the company his father in law controls (presumably to appeal to the So Asian population which normally votes Labour but might be tempted to vote conservative) https://archive.is/AEnVP and Sunak proclaiming that he supports the bi-partisan efforts of Miriam Cates and Rosie Duffield to protect women’s rights https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1762180/rishi-sunak-womens-rights-express-campaign .  Not to be out done the Labour  shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper also called for a ‘common sense’ approach the whole  question of biological sex v legal gender.  (Hint it is not a left v right divide in the UK). The If you want my x, respect my sex campaign which started last year has made some inroads.

Parliament will debate whether or not to make the Equality Act clearer about biological sex v legal gender on 12 June 2023. The era of ‘no debate’ on this subject is over in the UK at least.

Not that you would know this at the University of Edinburgh where Trans Activists were able to shut down a showing of the film Adult Human Female for a second time. Health and Safety reasons according to Security. As Edward R Murrow said in Dec 1941 the freedom of speech must include the right to listen to others speaking. It is about the right of dissent aka the right to be wrong – the right which goes first when a nation stumbles down the road to totalitarianism. https://archive.is/bQuIQ

The Coronation will be a ‘beacon of diversity and inclusion’ with the list of people taking part in carrying the ceremonial regalia indeed reflecting the diversity of Britain. https://archive.is/7eqXl However the silly season is upon us. Chocolate busts, memories of other coronations and the royal tat plus the marketing opportunities for various companies.

The newspapers are also doing articles like  this one about Andrew Parker Bowles, the Queen’s ex-husband and  the quintessence of a British cad  if ever there was one. https://archive.is/vSMFi

As some people might  be wondering what do the British think about Biden running again? The Peter Brookes cartoon sums it up  – geriatric. ‘Not so  much for the running but the shuffling’ https://archive.is/kiKpt

Is America a country to be govern by old men? The Soviets tried that angle in the 1970s…and it is largely credited with contributing to their decline.  https://archive.is/8ERNh

Satellite imagery shows that the Roman historian view of how Petra came to fall into Roman hands may have underplayed the violence which occurred. Fancy that: https://archive.is/GptuH

And the Picts did not come from some exotic place and their descendants still live in Scotland and Northern England – aka they were not migrants but came from the British Isles according to genome testing analysis. Again, really? This accords with history. Because I have written historical romance set during the end of the Pict era, I know that is not really earth shattering news. However there was a good murder of the last Pictish king Aed circa 868 (official records state unsolved)  https://archive.is/0olsf

Diabetes 2 can be combatted/reversed  by a shake and soup diet , the latest study proved  Prof Roy Taylor’s method does work. It is the 800 calories for 8 weeks. My husband did a version seven years ago and has kept the weight off. It is not easy but it does get your blood sugar down (and removed liver fat). He then went on to the 2 day a week diet and maintains his weight now through exercising – rowing. The diet is now to be rolled out across the NHS.  https://archive.is/qXPov

A row developed over a biological male who decided to tick a box saying female and run as a female during the London Marathon, having previously run marathons as recently as last November as male.  The British Athletic rules did apply and he had made no attempt at testoreone suppression. There was a non binary category for people who felt the traditional male/female did not include them. He simple chose to tick female. If running for charity as he claimed, he could have chosen the male category but didn’t. And in doing so, he broke the rules and disadvantaged 14,000 women who didn’t break the rules. He has now apologized. https://archive.is/OC6vB

Because it appears from over the pond that certain people want to say the divide on gender ideology is a left v right, I offer up the Black Women’s Caucus statement against gender ideology. https://womensdeclarationusa.com/black-womens-caucus-statement-against-gender-ideology/

Why ‘We just want to pee’ isn’t a right but a claim right (ie an attempt to a legal duty on other people) . https://thecritic.co.uk/trans-rights-and-wrongs/

Finally, I discovered that my name appears on the infamous transphobe  people  who understand how biology works list https://github.com/bethylamine/twitter-archives/blob/main/transphobes_screen_names.csv  which now has 42k and counting names including the BBC and the UK prime minister. I figure I am in excellent company of people who have actually made a stand for the material reality of biological sex but it is all very McCarthy era. I did complain to the company hosting the list and apparently ‘they are investigating’. As a general rule of thumb people who publish lists  of political opponents with a view towards silencing them rarely end up on ‘the right side of history’.