The idea that being able to diagnose the problems in your rival’s positions on various problems is the same as knowing how to solve those problems is a general one in British politics.

You're not wrong but outright defamation like this is still pretty wild

I don't think it's that peculiar. There's a difference between seeing unpopularity in polls (which could yet change) and seeing friends/colleagues crying on national television because they've lost their jobs

I agree - it is a peculiar but undeniable fact that even when the polls make it obvious from space that a party will do terribly in local or devolved elections, the losses actually arriving still have an impact.

WHAT THE FUCK???? How the hell can a BBC employee get away with calling someone a sexual predator with absolutely no fucking basis?????

Tweet by Martina Navratilova. "Predator. That is how he should register. A sexual predator…" quote-tweeting a tweet by "Biology Rules OK" about Dr. Beth Upton, a trans woman

This tweet is highly defamatory and Martina Navratilova should be fired from BBC Sport for it.

It demonstrates an horrendous level of hatred for a trans woman (who was cleared of all wrongdoing in a recent tribunal) because she is a trans woman.

What has a slightly longer lifespan than a lettuce? I need one for an editorial project I am working on. Details to follow.

Not to defend Anas Sarwar (because I dislike him very very strongly), but shouldn't Labour people be looking at themselves now and thinking "huh maybe we should have done the coup when he stuck his neck out"

Not to be a broken record, but why on earth is Ed Balls there interviewing his wife's work colleagues about a scandal involving the government department she currently runs?

You can actually see the moment Ed Miliband thinks, what's the point burning through whatever political credibility I've got left energetically defending a man who's going to be gone in a matter of weeks.

Not necessarily true, sure, but it is one of the more obvious ways to start trying to take 60 seats from the Lib Dems

This is segregation plain and simple. The only logical conclusion is that the people backing this don't want trans people to exist in public. Which is to say: they don't want trans people to exist

Putting the awfulness of this aside... I genuinely dont understand who this is supposed to appeal to and why theyve made it so clear.

The number of people who this is highly salient to is <5%, most of whom won't ever vote Labour. Its division for divisions sake

You’ll never guess which party he means

Just checked and this is real - Scottish Labour’s manifesto refers to trans people using slurs and commits to a policy of explicit segregation in public life

Not in Scotland but want to make sure all levels of the Labour party hear your voice against this?

Got a local Labour councillor?

Write to them today and tell them anti-trans politics like this aren't winning your vote in May:

www.writetothem.com?a=council

Very funny now to think of the Scottish Green Cllrs who defected to this crackpot outfit

For the avoidance of doubt, following the publication of the explicitly transphobic Scottish Labour manifesto this morning, I will not be campaigning for any Scottish Labour candidates in the upcoming election, and I will not be voting Scottish Labour either.

#NoVotesLabourInMay #TransRightsNow

I've joked before that Anas Sarwar has lost the Mandate of Heaven but genuinely if you lose the Ultimate Scottish Labour Poster you might as well suspend the campaign and resign as leader now

I know passionate supporters of LGBTQ+ equality in Labour who have felt increasingly marginalised in the party and unable to support the leadership's view.

But to see the manifesto include anti-trans policies rejected by their own party conference must surely be the last straw for many.

I am shocked, SHOCKED, that after the Tories closed down all the youth centres and non-commercial public meeting spaces under austerity the teens are going to *commercial* public spaces to socialize and thereby scaring the Daily Mail editorial writers

If TIG:FCUK has been TIG:FCUK! they'd have won a majority

I believe it's correct that the Tories have never fallen to a single-digit Scottish vote share in any election at any level ever, including council elections during their lowest ebbs and even the disastrous 2019 Euros (the only worse Scottish share for Labour).

They can find a couple of dozen people in any given year willing to kill a classroom full of school children, and they'll defend their right to own the weapons to do so. Can they find someone willing to stand up to a deranged President? No.

There is no way to get election modelling perfect, that's simply impossible because nobody can see the future, but at least non-MRP models are clean about their shortcomings: MRPs get presented as special, insightful methodology that is remarkably accurate and is sold as giving you local detail.

MRPs ahead of the 2024 election made some quite poor predictions, e.g. that Labour would win Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk or the SNP would win Orkney and Shetland, and both of those done for Holyrood so far have been, I would say, "suspect".

The application of oh-so-clever MRP modelling to the Scottish Parliament election has all the energy of that moment in the 2021 campaign when some clever Canadians decided the Greens were going to get 2 in "Fife" but only 1 in Glasgow, whilst Lib Dems would get Glasgow and "Centre" MSPs but not West

One thing I've noticed about many media conversations is a kind of unexamined background assumption that the news will get out *somehow* -- that if MSM crumbles, someone will take up the slack.

But as Lawrence says: maybe not! Maybe we just won't know what's going on.

Fucking hell

It's ok, at least we're not on x now