That was back in November of 2022. Actually it's 'irreplaceable' isn't it?
And apologies, this will be a quite long, largely unillustrated, and not very happy post madly stuffed with microlinks, but if you click on only one of those links this last day of Pride, please let it be THIS. Thank you. I always liked you.
Okay. Probably the biggest, if not the only, historical development I've derived any genuine
joy and hope from this century is the shedding of my own
trans-skepticism as friend after friend of mine found the answer to who
they were and came out as trans and non-binary. In the growing light of their revelation the world seemed to me, in this one sense at least, to become better, and richer,
and more user-friendly and less exploitative. Then the party I voted
into office turned that light out because they thought it's the
Government who should decide what human beings are and not human beings. I've heard no one this year
wish each other a Happy Pride. So no, I can't say I've grown any fonder of Sir Keir Starmer since I posted the picture above.
But now Labour is finally finding a replacement, and perhaps the knots in my brain will loosen. However, as the man himself said:
"while this is an important moment it is not one for celebration. It is one for reflection. On how a party that has always prided itself on its anti-racism, its commitment to equality, its belief in a better, fairer Britain could have fallen so far as to betray its own principles, as well as the principles of the country. This is also a moment to apologise once again. To all those who were hurt, to all those who were let down, to all those driven out of our party, who no longer felt it was their home, who suffered the most appalling abuse. Today, on behalf of the entire Labour Party, I say: sorry."
Now obviously that wasn't Starmer's resignation speech. That was the speech he gave in February 2023 after the Equalities and Human Rights Commission said they would no longer be monitoring the Labour Party for anti-semitism – the speech from which the quote "If you don’t like the changes we have
made, I say the door is open and you can leave" has so often been taken out of
context, that context being it was an untreated stream of white crud. Because, two years later, this same Equalities and Human Rights Commission's devastatingly under-researched guidance on who should be allowed into what toilet prompted some of these trans friends to seek out, in the words of one, "a plan and a passport" as the UK plummeted to 44th place out of 49 European countries in its recognition of trans people’s gender identity. In plain sight and to the accompaniment of countless unmarginalised commentators who genuinely don't seem to know what the word "trans" even means, the British Government became more vocally hostile to the gender non-conforming than I can remember in my lifetime, contributing oceans of piss to a rising tide of trillionaire-sponsored abject cruelty with the openly transphobic trustee of Sex Matters becoming the Prime Minister's director of communications (before resigning over Mandelson)...
Oh yes, Mandelson
... and, at the very opening of this Pride Month, Wes Streeting's replacement as Health Secretary going on the Today programme to pronounce that a trans woman is a man in a dress, an interview I have literally woken up thinking about most days since. (His exact words were in fact "I wouldn't say trans women are women", but what are they then, fucking UFOs?)
Sorry, wrong picture
And obviously – actually I'll take that "obviously" back, because so many seem to miss it – Starmer-mandated cruelty wasn't just reserved for the trans. Look at Woolwich Crown Court: With plans still in place to speed up "access to justice" by ending a person's right to trial by jury, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson recently set a couple of unorthodox precedents, firstly by intitiating a prosecution for contempt of court against defense lawyer (and veteran of inquiries into Grenfell, Hillsborough, and the murder of Stephen Lawrence) Rajiv Menon for daring to remind a jury that they were allowed to vote with their conscience, and secondly, by sentencing the four Palestine Action activists left to defend themselves to a total of twenty-five years in prison for a crime they'd neither been charged with, tried for, nor found guilty of. What all four had been charged with was "criminal damage", specifically: taking a sledgehammer to Elbit Sytems UK "products" intended to be tested on Palestinians before being marketed globally as "battle-proven". (Who knows what "products"? Helmets probably.) What they were jailed for however was terrorism, with the backing of a Court of Appeal who had, in deference to the Government, reversed the High Court's overturning of Palestine Action's proscription.
But that's a tangent really, as is Starmer's appointment of the guy who used to run the UK's most notorious monopsony as a new monopolies regulator, as is the constant downplaying of Russian interference even when it's arson attacks against Starmer's own property, as is anything Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood does, or anything I was ever planning to write about Morgan McSweeney, the not nearly famous enough Liberal-hating, Socialist-hating, Gary-Lineker-hating former Chief of Staff who put Starmer into power with undisclosed donations to Labour Together and a campaign of surveillance against journalists. I'm just getting all these brain-shredding grievances down here now because I don't ever want to write about Keir Starmer again.
But no, they're all tangents, because the only thing compelling me to write any of this at all was there was meant to be a mass lobby of MPs to reject the EHRC's "bathroom ban" last Friday, but it had to be cancelled because of the heat and so I was hoping we could all write to our MP instead (particularly if any of you live in Makerfield) and here's that link again please. I also hope whoever takes over as Prime Minister has a plan for the heat, and the hatred,
and the battle-proving, and I hope it's more than just letting it play itself out or whatever.
Finally, since I hope never to write about Starmer again, I'll use this post to share his very last interview before resigning, given at the G7 summit. Chris Spargo is a fairly new YouTuber to the scene, whose other videos include "Why is this bin everywhere in the UK?", "Do you really need to preheat the oven?", and "I just want to show you some weird stones". I love Chris Spargo. And Callum, Emma, Sib, Griffyn, Harry, Amanda, Ashley, Billie, Sarah, Alastair, Maya, Pippa, Jack, Jas, Jordan, Jay, Es, Ozzy, Miranda, Mamoru, Oli, I love you too. Happy Pride x
