Tim 🇬🇧🇦🇺

@NadiaWhittomeMP Step into the real world, please.

I have been contacted by many constituents about the harm caused to children by social media - from viewing inappropriate content and the risk of grooming, to bullying and the impact on mental health. I share these concerns, but I worry that a blanket social media ban for under-16s isn’t the answer. Firstly, it’s unlikely to work. Young people will either find ways to access these sites, or they will be pushed to even less regulated and darker corners of the internet. But fundamentally, a ban like this lets Big Tech off the hook for creating and profiting from these harms. What young people, and all of us, need is safety by design. Experts have spent years calling for algorithmic accountability and default protections to be built into these platforms, alongside stronger regulation.

@Ben_Bradley_32 @RobertJenrick @reformparty_uk What counts as a British worker? Someone born here? A British citizen? How will this work for essential services such as healthcare?

This morning @RobertJenrick announces @reformparty_uk tax policy in government will actively reduce taxes on employers hiring British people - scrapping Rachel Reeves' NI increases for British workers - and make it more expensive to rely on foreign workers. About time!

@PaulaShaw1203 @montie Announces unfunded policies, rants untruths about indigenous populations and harbours vaccine conspiracy theory nut jobs. She’s vile.

@Tim_Merrey @montie No she isn't

Populism isn't retreating. Across the West it remains on the rise.

@PaulaShaw1203 @montie She’s an absolute numbskull who can barely string a sentence together.

@montie She's brilliant

@JWinslow4Harlow “Patriot” can’t even be arsed to iron his England flag.

@torysc_mout @GeoffWrigh3712 @PolitlcsUK No PM has a mandate as an individual. Johnson didn’t despite his claptrap denials. Starmer has always been less popular than Labour. Worth remembering that.

@GeoffWrigh3712 @PolitlcsUK Starmer had the right to govern for five years. It’s his mandate.

🚨 BREAKING: Another Makerfield by-election poll has been released 🔴 LAB - 45% ➡️ REF - 40% 🟣 RES - 8% 🟢 GRN - 3% 🔵 CON - 2% 🟠 LD - 1% Via More in Common, 515 sample, 28 May - 12 June

@maxcownie_ He doesn’t want to be PM. He wants to agitate.

Realistically, why would he want to be PM? Risk failing on his promises. Ending his legacy as a failure. Giving up his multi millionaire lifestyle to work 16 hour days and live in a tiny flat Be sat in endless briefings and interrogated every week. Nah

@jackmrankin You are totally unserious. Having a country without a defence secretary would be catastrophic. Someone has to be dutiful to do it, even if just for a short time. Grow up.

Imagine how much of a self-serving, snivelling sycophant you'd have to be to take the Defence Secretary job in these circumstances.

@MrHarryCole Yes, they’re so comparable. You moron.

Carry no water for Elon’s political forays but this is such a dumb arse argument. How many rockets has this sniffling knowall put into space? If Musk was having any trouble locating anywhere on earth, he could check using one of his 10,000 satellites.

@Chappymaggs @DreyfusJames Also thank you for everything you did. I’m just angry by James’s total denial of reality by saying “no trans person helped ever” when it is widely documented that they did.

@Tim_Merrey @DreyfusJames I was nursing in Edinburgh during the 80s when it was the "AIDS capital of Europe" . Can`t remember one Trans person nursing anyone. Plenty from the LGB community though , and many straight nursing professionals . Not saying there were 0 Trans helping but not as many as you say

Nice to be lectured by someone barely out of Pull Ups. You are aware I was an out gay teen in the 80’s? I lived it. You, my friend, have sat on the internet. Hush now.

@Chappymaggs @DreyfusJames I didn’t put a number on it and I specifically say in the threads that a lot of the activism was in the USA with ACT UP and also here in the UK but with much of it behind closed doors. And yes, lots of the LGB community. My point is James is the one saying none helped.

@fear_the_kitten @DreyfusJames Not true. Plenty of historical cases of it. More so in the USA than the UK. As I said ACT UP is a key example. Trans people have always existed, regardless of what “pirate” faceless profiles say.

@Tim_Merrey @DreyfusJames Mate there literally were no trans people helping gay men during AIDS, in fact you were lucky if you saw a single trans person in public back in the 80’s and 90’s and rarer to see them in the LGB community

@Altst @DreyfusJames @AledMitch The first HIV/AIDS ward wasn’t in Brighton. I’m also talking about the advocacy work and the ACT UP agenda. Trans people were heavily involved in that. You’re also correct that people were ostracised and many were afraid of advocacy for the stigma. Two things can be true.

@Tim_Merrey @DreyfusJames @AledMitch You are talking rubbish. My mum worked at the first Aids ward in Brighton UK. There were NO trans people there. Her and her colleagues were ostracised for what they were doing. In those days Queer was an insult. You can't change history to suit your agenda.

Oh, for goodness sakes… it was a film about a GAY MAN DYING from HIV. It’s NOT an “LGBTQ” film. Even Denzel Washington had to be persuaded to do it because he was worried about it limiting his career, because it was specifically about homosexuality & AIDS. Stop it.

@AndreaCrowther1 @Ledginge1945 @DreyfusJames @AledMitch And you are entitled to your opinion and I am entitled to mine. LGB with the T thanks.

@Ledginge1945 @DreyfusJames @Tim_Merrey @AledMitch LGB without the T. No more hanging on the coat tails, it's time to get rid of the drift wood barnacles!

@bluemoonjules @DreyfusJames Obviously not what I said, silly woman.

@DreyfusJames @Tim_Merrey Tim nice but dim thinks the drag queens did it all, I think. Silly boy

@DreyfusJames That is obviously not what I said. I said different people had different experiences and you just went mental because you’re hate filled and other reported experiences are irrelevant to you.

Can you imagine living through, say, the Blitz ‘40-‘41, then 20-30 years later, some kid wanders up to you, proclaiming your recollections are incorrect, you’re lying, &/or misinformed because they “did a dissertation on it”…? ‘All you need in this life is ignorance & confidence, then success is sure’- Twain. (I’d better make it clear that it’s MARK Twain, before someone comes along & informs me I misquoted Shania… because they “did a dissertation on her” 🙄)

@miffythegamer He’s horrendous. He’s also very wrong.

@Tim_Merrey Blocking James is an eminently sensible move. He’s an idiot.

@maxcownie_ Amazing they put him out on the media so much. His nervous gulps make me cringe.

Easily the worst shadow cabinet minister

@_lliesl_ @DreyfusJames Well, trans people in many communities did. Can say it as much as you like, doesn’t make it true and you don’t have a monopoly on lived experience :)

@Tim_Merrey @DreyfusJames Threats and abuse? From who? Have you and idea what it was like for gay people in the 80s. They actually did get threats and abuse Heterosexual male tra**vestites did NOTHING for gay men in the 80s. NOTHING

Yes. Astonishingly convincing argument… 🙄

@Altst @EnglishLaydee @DreyfusJames @AledMitch Which is why I stipulate its reporting of other peoples’ experiences.

@Tim_Merrey @EnglishLaydee @DreyfusJames @AledMitch But you weren't there?