I wonder what first attracted such a person to Scientology?

OK, if Starmer wanted someone dodgy to take on someone dodgy, then he is asking for someone that would inevitably fail security checks which would have to be overruled to meet such a dodgy request.

This defence is still putting Starmer in it.

Sounds like a dumb lie but this is the guy that thought we could cure COVID by shining a light.

Can Hannah Spencer read his original speech while he quietly fumes in the background please?

We wouldn't be in a cost of living crisis if the world was fair and just. Systems are unfair and some people unjustly benefit from them at the expense of others. Recognising this and asking politicians to do something isn't wrong.

Meme of a young woman looking bored as a young man talks close to her ear in a nightclub but dogs.

Meme of a young woman looking bored as a young man talks close to her ear in a nightclub.

I've seen this before.

That might be what you mean but it's not what conspiracy theory means.

Of course, if only they could organise themselves, align along similar political interests to affect things.

Elon Musk's base son is at it again.

And they can only do basic shapes, the alphabet seems completely beyond them.

It's perfectly reasonable to criticise people with significant agency and influence continuing to silently use and benefit from a privileged system. Especially in a public conversation about how out of touch and unmotivated to improve things they are.

No one blamed them for using the only system they have. I'm making the point that it's no accident that it remains a privileged system despite being reigned in recently and adds to the entitled environment that keeps them out of touch with most people's financial problems.

It's more controlled than it used to be but still, as you admit, loose enough to allow them to employ family should they be brazen enough.

It's a system that is still well beyond any system a normal employee enjoys and could be placed outside of their hands completely.

Yep. Constituency offices provided. Staff vetted and paid for directly an independent body. An expenses system whereby they alone decide the solution and price, then claim back is unnecessary.

I understand a need for a system to provide the means for them to do their job effectively.

The point is that the system that has been arranged for them is like nothing a normal job provides, even if they use it in a more ethical and honest way, its nature puts them out of touch with most people.

Even with justifiable expenses they are still allowed to claim for things most employees can't (travel, rent, utility bills) and then on top of that sneak in stuff no one could justify. Then there are the highly subsidised restaurants and bars. Second jobs. They work in a way most people can't.

Naturally a campaign journalist who is influencing and leading their stories would instinctively explain negative pushback to those campaigns as being equally motivated to contrive and intimidate and somehow centralised.

"Matt's not owned, Matt's not owned" insists Alison as she transforms into a couple per cent of a corn cob.

Yeah. Typical US pilot system show.

Weird that your Policy Exchange headshot is your Times headshot. Actually not weird at all.

I wondered if the 'different school' in the subhead was ironically intentional but I don't think Birbalsingh or Telegraph do self-awareness or irony.

You laugh but that elderly supply teacher now sets major Tory policy.

Oh, you wouldn't know them, they have been "moved to a different school by their parents".

And yet the evidence shows that there are more factors and possible outcomes than just height, weight and strength. You can appeal to her stats all you like but weightlifting is like all sorts in that it's what you do in the competition that counts, not the reputation you bring to it.

The fact that on another day, in another event things went differently is not news to any thinking person. It's how competition works. This fact would only be a surprise to someone who thought there were guaranteed inherent, stable biological advantages leading to consistent outcomes.

Oh, it's not implying that the best a trans athlete ever did in the Olympics was come last. It's certainly not misleadingly implying it. The original comment is very much stating it as a fact and you very much know why. The upvotes are not accidental or misguided but confirming a salient fact.

Again, coming last is a fact - it's not ignorant to state a fact. Not running through her career highlights is a weird hang up you have. She got to the Olympics, that shows she is competitive and is implicit whenever someone points out she came last in the Olympics.

How are you missing this stuff?

You didn't offer it as context but a better argument. Even if it was just context it was pointless as the fact that elite sport has marginal gains and many changing factors influencing outcomes at different times was already understood, covered and undermines the idea of inherent advantages.

Hubbard being the only trans competitor is cited more than her performance. Her placing is relevant when people suggest that 'male born' traits are an unchangeable advantage as if HRT is nothing.

... and further defended this by trying to suggest it's unfair to point out evidence that undermines your simplistic worldview you'd like to hold to regardless. That is bigoted. (2/2)