Bigmouth Strikes Again: Carrie Marshall's blog

Carrie’s books | Carrie’s band

Author: Carrie

  • The ministry of bigotry

    Many people believe that the Conservative MP Liz Truss is stupid. She may have said many stupid things in her career, but she isn’t thick. She’s much worse than that.

    Truss was previously the UK’s Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, where she was responsible for defending the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law. So when the right-wing press began demonising judges and calling them “enemies of the people”, she did… nothing.

    As The Secret Barrister wrote at the time, calling for her resignation:

    A starker, more blatant attack on judicial independence is hard to conceive. It is one thing to criticise court rulings. Or to draw attention to judicial decisions where they fall into error. But when the legislature and executive join forces with the media to launch rocket after rocket of personal, unwarranted abuse that is intended not to criticise or inform, but to demean, undermine, unnerve, terrify and intimidate independent judges who cannot answer back, we have a genuine constitutional crisis. The separation of powers is not just breached but scorched to the ground.

    …so what we have is the Rule of Law being roundly trounced and judges being threatened for having had the audacity to apply UK law to a UK legal question and conclude that the UK Parliament was supreme.

    And our cowardly, charlatan Lord Chancellor, cowering in the good graces of her Prime Minister and a rampant, ugly tabloid media, sitting meekly by and watching the world burn.

    This time last year, The Guardian’s Zoe Williams described her as a “self-aggrandising, sub-Thatcherite, Ayn Randophile Tory” who “represents the new Westminster at its Trumpian worst.”

    It’s hard to imagine a worse candidate for the job of equalities minister, a role that’s supposed to be about protecting society’s most vulnerable people. Naturally, that means Truss was appointed the UK’s equality minister in September.

    One of her first announcements was to dismiss so-called “identity politics” – minority groups asking for equal rights – and to suggest renaming her ministry to the “Ministry for Freedom”. That’s “freedom” as in “freedom fries” and “religious freedom”, not “freedom from discrimination.”

    You can tell a lot about a politician by the individuals and organisations they follow on social media. Truss doesn’t follow any of the key human rights organisations, organisations representing disabled people, organisations representing muslim people, organisations representing Jewish people, organisations representing Black people and other members of ethnic minorities. She follows just one LGBT+ organisation, the LGBT+ conservatives account; no LGBT+ charities or advocacy groups, no charities representing LGBT+ kids.

    She does, however, follow some of the most rabidly anti-trans organisations and individuals – organisations and individuals roundly rejected by the LGBT+ community; organisations and individuals who campaign against equality, who promote dangerous and discredited conversion therapy and who orchestrate campaigns against gay and lesbian people who dare criticise them.

    Yesterday, Truss’s office removed government support for schools anti-bullying guidance because it included protecting trans kids. The guidance was designed to protect all LGBT+ kids, not just trans ones; the anti-trans groups are celebrating because to them, gay and lesbian kids are simply collateral damage in their obsessive campaign against trans people.

    Truss isn’t stupid. She’s much worse and much more dangerous than that.

  • News isn’t about making you feel better

    Ruby Lott-Lavigna in Vice:

    Journalism is not supposed to be a fluffy PR machine for the government (unless you’re working in North Korea, or, I don’t know, the Sunday Telegraph news desk), ready to boost your mood on a less than jolly day with an uplifting story of a dog who saved a duck from traffic, or a picture of a waving seal. It is a tool to interrogate power structures and inequality, serve the public interest and, occasionally, provide readers with something funny to read. Unfortunately, spiralling death tolls, falling stock markets and government failures – as depressing as it might be – are news, and need to be reported on.

    …the media has never existed to provide a soothing mood-booster or cheerlead the government. Now is exactly the time we need challenging, difficult questions asked, even if they’re hard to hear. The waving seals can wait.

  • Money keeps you safer than masks

    Yet more evidence that we really aren’t in this together: the Office for National Statistics reports that the Covid-19 death rate in England is more than double in the most deprived areas compared to the least deprived.

    In the most deprived areas the death rate is 55.1 deaths per 100,000 population; in the least deprived, 25.3. In Wales it’s similar: 44.6 to 23.2 deaths per 100,000.

    That’s partly because poorer people tend to live more closely together, partly because poorer people tend to have worse health, and partly because poorer people are more likely to be in jobs classed as “essential” that they can’t do from home.

  • This is not a lockdown

    It’s May Day, the day when we celebrate international workers’ day. But in England many workers have nothing to celebrate: what the papers call a lockdown isn’t stopping employers from forcing people to come in to work non-essential jobs.

    Caroline Molloy, in OpenDemocracy:

    we don’t actually have a lockdown. The government has allowed people to continue to go to work – and allowed bosses to make people continue to go to work – far more than we’re being led to believe, and far more than most of the media seem to have noticed.

    And as openDemocracy has just exposed, across large sections of the economy, many workers in ‘non essential’ jobs are being forced to show up to potentially dangerous workplaces. And some have already got sick. And some have already died.

    51% of the people currently working are not working from home.

    In England, unlike in Scotland and Wales, the government has not even introduced any new legal sanctions if offices, call centres, factories, construction sites, warehouses, and so on, don’t enable social distancing in the workplace. English bosses are expected to “make every effort to comply” with social distancing, but not legally mandated to do anything. Indeed, as “lockdown” progresses, the non-binding guidance has been watered down

    It’s hard to disagree with Molloy’s argument that the reason the media isn’t highlighting this is yet another example of a myopic media class: if they can’t see it, it can’t be happening.

    The baristas and bookshops aren’t there, and who really knows anyone who works in a call centre, factory, or warehouse?

  • Glasgow is going to lose another historic building

    To paraphrase The Onion: I can’t believe this is happening in the only city where this regularly happens.

    Glasgow is set to lose another iconic building, the ABC in Sauchiehall Street. The music venue – one of my very favourite places – was badly damaged by the second Art School fire and has effectively been left to rot since despite promises of its rebirth; it is now in danger of collapsing. That means the previous block on demolition is almost certain to be lifted.

    That’s rather convenient for the developer, because the ABC was a major obstacle to plans to build yet more student flats.

    The entire block in which the ABC sits is owned by a single developer, and the developer’s plans for a seven-story block of flats on this prime bit of real estate were rejected in 2017; the developer appealed to the Scottish Government and was turned down again. The flats would be “detrimental to the historic environment”, which included the Art School’s Macintosh building and the ABC.

    That “historic environment” went on fire (for the second time) in June 2018. As the A Thousand Flowers blog reports, the developer promised to rebuild the ABC as “a world class music venue” but submitted no plans other than an application to completely demolish it.

    The all too frequently toothless Historic Environment Scotland chipped in to say that, “It is our view that the applicant has not made an adequate effort to retain and preserve this C-listed building (or any part of it), and has therefore not met the tests for demolition”. Garnethill Community Council have said it would “devastating and totally unacceptable” to lose the building. Omnipresent heritage fan and MP Paul Sweeney pointed out in his objection that the building hosted Glasgow’s first ever public film showing, in 1896.

    Glasgow School of Art have also objected to the demolition, pointing out that there are currently no plans for the site’s redevelopment and that the ABC building, with temporary props, is under no imminent danger of collapse. Conveniently, their letter also reiterates that student flat plans for the neighbouring building have been rejected several times and that the ABC’s facade is an effective and important part of the streetscape. We can, perhaps, read between the lines here.

    One pretty sure-fire way to destroy a damaged building is to leave it open to the elements. That appears to be what’s happened to the ABC.

    ATF:

    If the owners are granted permission to flatten the ABC, how long will it be before the student flat proposals for the neighbouring block emerge out of the ashes?

  • LGB Alliance fundraisers closed after campaign of abuse against gay MP

    PinkNews:

    The anti-trans lobby group LGB Alliance has had not one but two fundraising pages taken down, following an abusive campaign against gay MP John Nicolson and “violent and abusive” language from its supporters.

    Fundraising platforms JustGiving and GoFundMe have both permanently removed pages set up by the pressure group.

    This follows weeks of targeted harassment and abuse from its supporters against gay SNP politician John Nicolson, who attracted the attention of the fringe group when he began publicly voicing support for the trans community.

    …The funds from its supporters – which include neo-Nazis who the LGB Alliance has refused to denounce – have paid for newspaper adverts opposing trans rights and calling trans women “predators”, as well as a much-derided logo redesign, a pop song and a February conference in Scotland to which it invited a confirmed homophobe to speak about how LGBT+ clubs in schools are dangerous to girls.

  • A matter of Pride

    If you’re straight and cisgender, you probably don’t give Pride events much thought: they’re just parties, right? But if you’re LGBT+ you know that they’re much, much more than that. They’re places where, however briefly, you know you’re not alone; places where you aren’t hated or tolerated, but celebrated.

    Pride events are among the many casualties of coronavirus this year. Spiller of Tea explains why that’s sad for LGBT+ people.

    I’ve read a lot recently about how straight people are missing pubs and restaurants and cafes. This is entirely understandable, and I do sympathise, but imagine if your pubs were the only places in which you could safely relax your mannerisms, speak freely about your home life, or hold your partner’s hand. Then imagine that you lived in a city that only had one pub. Maybe go on to imagine that this single establishment only opened two nights a week, from 10 pm until 6 am, when the majority of old bastards like me are tucked up in bed. One place in the entire locality where, if you don’t like sticky floors, banging music and drinking until it’s light, you’re basically excluded anyway. That is the reality for huge numbers of LGBTQ people in the UK, and Pride is one of the few precious moments of relief we are allowed from this frustrating, constrained existence.

    The outside world may have stopped, but homophobia, biphobia and transphobia haven’t. The trolls have more time on their hands, so they’re more vicious than ever. The newspapers continue their assault on trans people (just yesterday The Scotsman ran a column claiming that it was “a biological fact” that trans women are men) and politicians continue to court the bigot demographic. As I was reminded yesterday, people still stare and glare at you in the street.

    You may well be bored and lonely, but you probably don’t have people wishing you dead on social media or calling you a deviant in the press.

    …in these most difficult of times, when LGBTQ people are facing all of the physical, emotional and financial issues cis-het people are facing, they present an added burden to people who, like the rest of you, are already fast-approaching breaking point.

    …This crisis has, distressingly, not even begun to put an end to the attacks our community is so often forced to endure, but what it has achieved is to rob us of one of our most vital coping mechanisms in the face of those attacks. And for that, I will unashamedly mourn its loss.

  • “How discriminatory do you have to be before you’re called out?”

    Helen Belcher of Trans Media Watch explains why UK trans people are really scared right now.

    For some time trans people have understood the current media debate in the UK isn’t actually about the Gender Recognition Act. Instead, it is about our basic rights to live and move as full members of our society.

    …Most trans people I know in the UK are now absolutely terrified.

    They understand an arcane procedure for changing legal gender is probably going to be maintained in some form.

    But they realize their ability to function in any meaningful way as members of our society is about to be removed

  • Hormone treatment for Covid-19

    I’ve mentioned before that coronavirus appears to be deadlier to men than to women, and that because of that difference some anti-trans bigots have been deliberately hounding trans people with the virus and wishing them dead.

    The trans women may get the last laugh, because it’s possible that the hormones they take are helping them battle the virus. Here’s the New York Times.

    Men are more likely than women to die of the coronavirus, so scientists are treating them with something women have more of: female sex hormones.

    …Last week, doctors on Long Island in New York started treating Covid-19 patients with estrogen in an effort to increase their immune systems, and next week, physicians in Los Angeles will start treating male patients with another hormone that is predominantly found in women, progesterone, which has anti-inflammatory properties and can potentially prevent harmful overreactions of the immune system.

    Nobody’s suggesting that estrogen and progesterone are the only factors here. Men take more risks, are more likely to smoke, wash their hands less, and so on. And as the article points out, the difference is also evident among women who are decades past menopause. But it’s interesting nevertheless.

  • Using coronavirus for a culture war

    Rachel Shabi in The Guardian:

    the key issue in the right’s current culture war is the lockdown, which is being presented as a freedom-sucking con – much like the EU. Mirroring the dynamics of climate denialism, those challenging the overwhelming consensus of global expertise cast themselves as lockdown “sceptics”. And cleaving to a rightwing populist script, these sceptics say their legitimate concerns are being silenced.