Booklover

Scotland's anti-trans bigots sometimes attempt to say their hatred for trans people only extends to those who they say practice violence against women. But then a wholly unobjectionable trans person is elected to the Scottish Parliament and they go into a frenzy of bigotry.

@CrossMagic @esuoHwoC @ForWomenScot True, though I'm fairly sure that parliament is full of members with dodgy views. It's not actually against the law to say something stupid now and then. If voters object, they can vote for someone else.

@esuoHwoC @Tonklives @ForWomenScot It's hilarious when you point out truths and their response is "he's not as racist as someone else". Like... WHAT 😂

We appear to be in agreement with Ian Blackford: “Quite frankly this should be an automatic vetting fail as a candidate on a student visa does not satisfy the ability to enter into full-time work...The Greens are treating the electorate with contempt" thetimes.com/uk/scotland/ar…

@CrossMagic @ForWomenScot You misunderstand the meaning of ill advised.

@Tonklives @ForWomenScot He is breaking the law. It is illegal to work more than 20 hours on a student visa. The job he now has is a £70k per year full time job. They also weren't 'ill advised' tweets. Nobody told him to tweet them, and they were absolutely racist.

@bellaforindy @ForWomenScot If he is breaking the law (and I maintain he is not) then there will be consequences. The rules concerning this msp cannot be outsourced to the online equivalent of a baying mob of peasants with pitchforks.

@ForWomenScot @Tonklives Who judges the worthiness? Not the electorate if they are deliberately not given all the facts.

@ForWomenScot In other words, you reserve the right to reject candidates whose opinions *you* disapprove of. He simply needs a different kind of visa. Your false equivalence of an anthropologist to a spy is really over the top.

So you think eligibility should be determined on whether you approve of them? Would you be happy with a Russian connected to Putin who was over on a student visa? He doesn't have leave to remain, how can he serve as an MSP? If you allow rules to be bent for those you think are worthy, others will take advantage. And, for and "intelligent & thoughtful person", he's also appallingly sexist & praised a man who traumatised rape victims.

@CrossMagic @ForWomenScot He's not breaking the law in Scotland. Accusations of racism are easy to throw about and hard to prove. I believe he sent a couple of ill advised tweets. Nowhere near Farage levels of proven racism and he's a Westminster MP.

@Tonklives @ForWomenScot He's a racist and is breaking the law

@GriftReport @Seumas1314uss He is allowed to do so, as others have. He also seems like a very thoughtful and intelligent person, and heaven knows we could do with more of those in parliament.

Scottish Greens admit their new transgender MSP could be forced to quit Holyrood because his work visa isn’t guaranteed Q Manivannan, a biological male who identifies as non-binary/transgender and uses they/them pronouns, was elected as a Green MSP for Edinburgh & Lothians East just days ago. He is currently on a student visa and does not have permanent UK residency. Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay confirmed he will need a new visa renewal during the parliamentary term and admitted it is “a process that will have to be completed”. Manivannan has already asked colleagues for financial help to cover the £2,000+ graduate visa fee and then the £5,000+ global talent visa fee.

When Allyson Felix became pregnant, Nike threatened to cut her sponsorship contract by almost 70% because of her pregnancy. They told her: “You should know your place… and just run.” Amid all this, at seven months pregnant, Allyson had to undergo an emergency C-section due to a serious complication. Her baby girl spent over a month in the neonatal intensive care unit. But two years later, Allyson qualified for her fifth Olympic Games, with her daughter in the stands cheering her on. Allyson left Nike. And she founded her own shoe brand: Saysh One. At the Tokyo Olympics, she ran wearing her own sneakers, carrying the motto: “I know exactly where my place is.” With 11 medals, she surpassed Carl Lewis and became the most decorated American track and field athlete in history. And to all women, she gave this message: “I raised my voice and built this company for you, so that you’ll never have to train at 4:30 in the morning, five months pregnant, just to hide it from your sponsor.” ❤️

Don't vote for Reform liars tomorrow, Scotland!

HES BACK!!!!!!🔥🔥 Welcome back to Jacob Fearnley🇬🇧 who will return to tennis to play in qualifying for the Rome Masters tomorrow against Shintaro Mochizuki🇯🇵 in the first round💪🏼 Let’s go Jake🇬🇧🙌🏼 📸@the_LTA

@Gaz3putt It ambushes you from time to time.

Not really sure why I'm even saying this, but lost my mum just over 6 months ago now. Handled it okay. On a rooftop bar in Portugal last week, on a golfing trip with the lads, I absolutely lost it because it's the sort of time I'd have sent her a photo. Grief, bloody hell.

Less than a week to go and it is vital people turn out and vote to protect #Scotland’s unique #wellbeing policies, delivered by ⁦@theSNP⁩ @scotgov - don’t lose what we have!

@Jennnyyyyyy 13 kg

What is the weight of Wolf? 🤔 Difficulty - Hardest 😉

A lot of positives to take from this week in Madrid 🙏🏼 Great to be back on court and competing again. Thank you all for the amazing support ❤️ Roma next 🇮🇹

The Nigel Farage Guide to Being a Working-Class Hero Step 1: Be born to a City stockbroker. Step 2: Attend Dulwich College, fees currently £53,000 a year. Step 3: Skip university. Become a City commodities trader instead. Step 4: Run one of your metal broking firms into insolvency. Step 5: Get elected to the European Parliament. Spend the next 21 years drawing a salary from the institution you're paid to dismantle. Step 6: Claim £15,500 a year in expenses for an office your party was given rent-free. Step 7: Put your wife on the EU parliamentary payroll. Take her off only when the rules force you to. Step 8: Get investigated by the EU's anti-fraud office. Eventually have half your MEP salary docked to repay misused public funds. Step 9: Throw a Brexit victory party at the Ritz. Decry the "professional political class" to a room of millionaires. Step 10: Take £450,000 in personal gifts from Arron Banks. House. Car. Lifestyle. Step 11: Take £5 million, undisclosed, from a Bangkok-based crypto billionaire. Days later, announce you're standing for parliament after all. Step 12: Win Clacton. Take the £93,904 MP salary. Add £1.2 million a year from GB News at £2,300 an hour. Become the highest-earning MP in the House of Commons. Step 13: Speak in parliament fewer times than any other party leader. Fly to America at least nine times in your first year. Refuse to hold in-person constituency surgeries. Holiday in France while parliament is sitting. Step 14: Tell the working class you're one of them. Tell them to vote against their own interests, over and over again. Pint, mate?

In a little over a week the first freight trains will leave the brand new West Fraser terminal near Inverness. Over the next year, these trains will remove 20,000 HGVs from the A96. That's greener shipments, safer roads, and economic prosperity. We can do the same in Buchan!

@lynn67704 @itslinklauren He is Equerry to King Charles and was formerly Equerry to Queen Elizabeth. I think that means he guards them and also arranges their day, introduces people, makes sure all is as it should be. He is also a Lieutenant Colonel in the army (Highland Regiment).

@itslinklauren American here. Can somebody tell me who this handsome gent is? I mean what does he do etc

Major Johnny Thompson is here!

In the grounds of Chillingham Castle in Northumberland, behind a wall built in 1270, there is a herd of wild cattle. They have been there, in that specific park, for approximately 700 years. They are white. Small. Horned. They look vaguely like the cattle on a medieval tapestry, which is roughly what they are. The Chillingham herd is the last surviving population of genuinely wild cattle in Britain, and genetically the closest living relative of the aurochs, the wild ancestor of every domestic cow on earth. When the estate was enclosed in the 13th century, a group of cattle was trapped inside the wall. Nobody moved them. Nobody bred them with outside stock. Nobody managed them. The wall went up, the cattle kept being cattle, and the door, essentially, was never opened again. Seven centuries later, they are still there. No selective breeding. No herd improvement programme. No artificial insemination. No supplementary feed beyond what the park produces. They eat the grass. They calve unassisted. The bull fights for dominance. The old are taken by winter. The young grow up in a social structure nobody taught them. They have the lowest genetic diversity of any mammal on earth that isn't officially endangered. By every textbook in conservation genetics, they should have collapsed a dozen times over from inbreeding depression. They have not. They are, by veterinary standards, extraordinarily healthy. Disease resistance better than modern breeds. Fertility steady. Calving success high. They carry on regardless. What can be learned from Chillingham. The first is that a cattle population, left alone on land suited to them, finds its own equilibrium. No committee is required. No spreadsheet. No grass-measuring device. The cattle work it out. They have worked it out for 700 years. The second is that the park itself is a functioning ecosystem, maintained by those cattle. The wildflowers, the ancient oaks, the soil structure, the bird populations, are all shaped by continuous low-intensity grazing by a small wild herd. It is one of the most biodiverse small landscapes in England. The third, and most inconvenient to the modern argument, is that cattle and wild land are not in conflict. The Chillingham herd is wild cattle, on wild land, in steady state, for longer than most European countries have existed in their current form. They are a living contradiction to almost every modern claim made about bovines and ecosystems. They are not on anybody's emissions chart. They have never been invited to a conference. They are behind their wall, in Northumberland, quietly doing what cattle have been doing since before the Norman Conquest. They will probably still be doing it when the current debate has been forgotten.