I now will not, can not, vote for Labour in May. There are good people in the party but it no longer matters. Anyone who stands on this manifesto should be utterly ashamed. Hateful.

The adoption of this policy, alongside other transphobic policies on the NHS and prison service which directly contradict expert advice in these areas and will cause serious harm, means anyone who supports trans people's rights cannot in good conscience vote for Scottish Labour candidates on 7 May.

At Scottish Labour Conference in Feb 2025, a leadership-backed motion to adopt a transphobic policy on single-sex spaces in schools was defeated. Party members and affiliates voted it down.

Today Scottish Labour's leadership put that transphobic policy into its manifesto for May's election anyway.

Archive April 3, 2026
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Accidentally muted an account here then spent far too long trying to find out how to unmute it again! 🤷

jk rowling spends money she makes from harry potter on stripping rights away from me personally. this is not a hypothetical scenario. that's where it goes if you buy wizard crap.

Leaving aside it's other flaws, in hindsight the fact that TFA ends on a cliffhanger you have to pick up immediately was a sign Abrams and the people above didn't get the assignment. Time passing, change, and unseen adventures between the films is such a smart idea Lucas built in to the movies.

I know I say this fairly often: people are right to complain concerts are too expensive, but they got that way because a lot of artists started to make almost no money out of their actual records. We have to look really hard at how we pay for music.

"Everyone is 12" theory going strong

Munich, of course, famously a great place for British PMs to get an easy win that saves their career.

It’s the next four years of how a country that’s quite poorly run is going to be governed. Despite what the Labour Party in London seems to think, it’s quite bloody important if you’re living up here!

I have no love for Sarwar, but he’s probably about to come third to Reform for reasons that seem to me to have more to do with what’s happened in Westminster in the past 18 months than anything else. Why wouldn’t you want to roll those dice before May?

Does Starmer just not read his speeches and take five minutes to think about them before delivering them? How is that line still in after this week?

“Yes, we are being hostile to immigrants and making life harder for persecuted groups while cutting public services too but we’re looking sad while doing it and trying to make bananas cheaper. Vote for us?”

Keir Starmer PM and political genius, 2026.

I think you might be overstating his abilities there. 😕

Yeah, it seems like an entirely understandable decision made for entirely logical reasons. It probably pushes Starmer closer to the exit door with his party but then, so would going the other way. He’s made such a mess of being PM he has no good decisions left.

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(Err… Sorry, not sure where the rant came from, given it’s nothing you’re to blame for and I really respect your opinions on here. Apologies.)

Not sure what I’m meant to take from it other than the government are transphobic, anti-immigrant and dislike disabled people. (Just naming three things are important to me specifically.) They’re not giving me a whole lot else to hang on to here. It’s exhausting.

Are they ever going to take a stand on anything? When are they going to learn that every time they try to make something go away, passively or otherwise, it just blows up in their face? This is particularly personal to me but it feels like this has happened repeatedly for the past year and change.

I’m not a great political analyst, but I do feel Labour have made a tactical error by opting to be cunts.

So much of what they've done seems predicated on the belief that they'll be given the benefit of the doubt because they're "the good guys" and the other lot were "the bad guys" as opposed to people just judging them on their actions. Which seems insanely stupid to me if true.

The fact that Starmer just lets him carry on like this is maddening. Back when you did the Origin Story ep on Starmer I was fully on board with you and Ian that if nothing else at least there was a decent man there. I don’t think I could’ve been more wrong. There’s nothing there.

What I don't get about McSweeney is that he seems to hate most Labour members, most Labour MPs and most of the people who actually voted Labour or want to vote for it. Why is he there? Why does he seem so unable to accept that it's not the wider Labour movement that's the issue in this, it's him?

Well, that missed word is annoying.

A timely (and timeless) listen.

I see Labour are doing their level best to promote the podcast for you again. You should McSweeney on commission.

Archive November 8, 2025
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Never thought about it Pip Torrens is an absolutely brilliant shout. He’s perfect for Rear Admiral, merchant banker, civil servant, cabinet minister or Imperial officer in Star Wars. The classic British establishment roles.

I never thought of it as simply as that before but if your left wing base and the people who voted for, and want to vote for you, think you're not a left wing government but everyone else does, maybe just try being a left wing government and roll the dice.