Sheepy

@cineworld Thanks, however, it was more because the cinema is about an hour away from home and there are only a few seats left. Didn’t want to risk getting there and it’s sold out. Never mind.

@CowGateScenes Hey there! Unfortunately without the CEA card it won't be possible to book online however our cinema teams can process a carer's ticket through the tills without the need for a CEA card 😊

@cineworld I need some help booking tickets but there is no helpline. Is this something you can help with? I need a Carer ticket but CEA card still in the post. Thanks.

My thoughts on the @EHRC guidance laid yesterday; this is not about non-existent "rights". It is about the safety of women - mothers, sisters, wives, daughters. We men need to hear their voices. Virginia Woolf : "Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes". My intro on @TimesRadio yesterday: Where I live there are two different routes to and from the tube station. One, let’s call it Acacia Avenue, is quiet and residential. The other, London Road, is a busy major route with lots of traffic. At all times of the day, I automatically head for Acacia Road. It’s just much nicer. The women in my family, on the other hand, will never willingly make that walk after dark. They live with an anxiety that most men find it hard to imagine, and frankly, rarely think about unprompted. Last year 739,000 women were sexually assaulted in Britain. Virtually all such assaults - nine out of ten - are perpetrated by men. One in four women have been attacked at some time in their lives. Acacia Avenue is exactly the sort of place in which most women fear that they become vulnerable, and they are right. As the author Virginia Woolf once wrote " Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes". I think this is the right context in which to understand the furore over the guidance being laid today by the government, over the meaning of the words man and woman when it comes to providing services and facilities in workplaces. Many men think this is about a rather arcane dispute about who gets to use what loo. For their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters, it isn’t. In a previous life, as Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I had a hand in writing this country’s equality laws, in particular the 2010 Equality Act. It never occurred to any of us that there could be any confusion or dispute over the meaning of the words man and woman. But it has taken a decade of campaigning, a Supreme Court judgement and now hundreds of pages of guidance to settle the issue. This is not about so called trans rights, which are completely unaffected by this guidance, since no-one has ever had the right to walk into a changing room reserved for teenage girls. What it does mean is that women and girls are guaranteed the protection they deserve, and that their safety, which we spent half a decade drafting law to ensure, is protected. But the whole business illuminates some serious issues in our politics. First that many of our institutions, in spite of the fact that they always knew what the right thing to do was, decided to ignore the fears of their women customers and employees, under pressure from noisy pressure groups. Instead, the people who were supposed to be the grown ups behaved as though the law said what campaigners wanted it to say, rather than what it actually said. They settled for what they hoped would be a quiet life. In a democracy, there’s little point in Parliament deciding anything if the law is then made an ass by activists intimidating bosses in companies, schools, universities and the media into doing something different. Second, at the heart of the campaign to undermine the Equality Act is an idea that we specifically rejected in 2010, so called self-identification. That is to say, that it should be up to the individual to decide whether they have what’s called a protected characteristic - are you male or female, are you black or white. The problem is that self-ID would destroy the operation of any law against discrimination. Look, it would almost certainly have been to my advantage as a young man to self-identify as a handsome, white public schoolboy. None of those things is true of me. And at various points I am pretty sure it’s been to my disadvantage. It is certainly statistically likely to have been to my disadvantage. But according to the logic of those who say that self-ID should be the rule and that anyone should be able to decide for themselves whether they are male or female, black or white or Asian, were I to complain about racial discrimination, it would be difficult for anyone prove that I’d been discriminated against because of my race since anybody to whom I’d lost out could just tell the courts that they too were black. I know that sounds like Alice in Wonderland but you can google the case where a chap, both of whose parents are white, insisted he should get money from the Arts Council because he so identified with the black struggle that he considered himself black, and everyone should accept his point of view. In the United States and Brazil exactly such outlandish claims have been made and people rewarded to the disadvantage of people actually born into minority families. I have even been told about firms who, when reporting their gender pay gaps have put men who just happen to like wearing dresses at weekends - nothing wrong with that, let me be clear - into the female column and told their women employees that they really haven’t got anything to moan about because statistically they are paid equally, and they should get back in their box. So today’s guidance isn’t just another tiresome chapter in culture wars. It is , I hope, a halt to the efforts to undermine one of the most important pieces of legislation on the statute book, by people who, for their own reasons, would prefer us to be living in the 1950s world of Mad Men.

I can confirm that I will be requesting the permission of the NEC to stand in the Makerfield by-election. I grew up in this area and have lived here for 25 years. I care deeply about it and its people. I know they have been let down by national politics. Ten years ago, I decided to leave Westminster. Why? Because, after 16 years, I came to the conclusion that our national political system does not work for areas like ours. I learnt this fighting its failure to invest in the Wigan borough, for justice for the Hillsborough families and against its treatment of Greater Manchester during the pandemic. Over the last decade, I have been challenging this failure from the outside and building a new and better way of doing politics. We have built Greater Manchester into the fastest-growing city-region in the UK and put buses back under public control, introducing a £2 fare cap to help people with cost-of-living pressures. However, there is only so much that can be done from Greater Manchester. Much bigger change is needed at a national level if everyday life is to be made more affordable again. This is why I now seek people’s support to return to Parliament: to bring the change we have brought to Greater Manchester to the whole of the UK and make politics work properly for people. Millions are struggling and they need the Labour Government to succeed. It has already made changes to make life better for them in its first two years. After this week, we owe it to people to come back together as a Labour movement, giving the Prime Minister and the Government the space and stability they need as the by-election takes place. I want to recognise the difficult decision taken by Josh Simons and the sacrifice he and his family are making. I have worked closely with him as Mayor on issues like flooding and illegal waste dumping and have seen first-hand how effective he has been. He has put the communities of Makerfield first, made a real difference for them and should take great pride in that. Finally, I truly do not take a single vote for granted and will work hard to regain the trust of people in the Makerfield constituency, many of whom have long supported our party but lost faith in recent times. We will change Labour for the better and make it a party you can believe in again. ENDS

We on the liberal left spent 15 years warning the "wokes" that their identity politics would bring the right to power. It happened in America and now it's happening in the UK. And instead of taking time to reflect on how badly they messed up, they're blaming everybody else

‘Green voters see themselves as revolutionaries, but they’re not. The real revolutionaries are the people they dismiss as racist and reactionary: working-class Brits fighting for democracy.’ Brendan O’Neill on the Greens

@IRIMFA_SPOX Azizam this tweet is like you going into a restaurant with severe diarrhoea standing on a table, dropping your trousers and defacating into people’s first course then telling people later that you were thrown out the restaurant for not wearing a tie.

As I have written here for several weeks, the Green Party will rapidly implode internally, and it will be very public. It was entirely inevitable. It will be funny watching them blame the media or centrists for exchanges like this gem, which has nothing to do with either. 🍿

You may not agree with me, but you will always know where you stand with me. Today in Billericay, a heckler tried to shout me down as I spoke about the normalisation of hatred towards Jews. I did not back down, because it needs to be said. British Jews are being targeted and too many people are pretending this is the same experience of other minorities. This lady implied Muslims are being similarly targeted. This is simply not true. Let's be honest about what is happening. Certain groups (in particular but not solely Islamic Extremists) are creating a climate of fear and intimidation that is normalising Jew hatred. I will never stand for that. Governments have spent too long hand-wringing, making excuses and hoping it would go away. It is time to call this what it is: a national emergency in our attitude, our urgency and our response. I will always engage with people who disagree with me. That is politics. But there is a difference between argument and intimidation. Shouting does not make a bad case good. It's done to silence others. And it certainly does not change the truth. The truth is that British Jews have been made to feel less safe in their own country. Our country. They are being singled out, threatened and harassed in ways that should shame everyone in public life. If we do not stand up now and stop this rise in antisemitism, then why bother saying "Never Again" at Holocaust Memorial Day? Because this is how it starts. I am not prepared to play along with the pretence that this is normal, or manageable, or just another example of tension between groups. It really is not. It is targeted hatred and it is getting worse. So my message is simple. Not here. Not in Britain. And not on our watch. We need to stop the hand-wringing and start doing the right thing. That means standing with British Jews openly, unapologetically and without fear.

Zack Polanski is discovering you don’t need hypnotherapy to make a massive boob.

Good. Polanski is a disgrace.

@Argos_Online @financialombuds A phone line that no one can get through on. This is very poor service and company practice.

@CowGateScenes @financialombuds Apologies, as we do not have access to anything relating to Argos Pay here. You would need to call them directly on 0333 240 8002 for further assistance. We only deal with customer service for Argos orders here and have no access to Argos pay accounts ~Lisa

@Argos_Online @financialombuds what happens if I am not able to make payment on time because of the issues with the Argos payment migration to New Day? Hundreds having issues receiving registration email and no way of paying. Defaults could affect credit rating? Extra charges?

Would love to see those famous men getting pats on the head for being so very concerned about incels and the manosphere finally join the dots and show some support for critics of the porn industry

I'm extremely thrilled to be hosting @robjessel16 and @jo_bartosch in Parliament in a couple of weeks to talk about their book. They won't be cancelled, and will be able to discuss their work directly with Parliamentarians. Shame on others too weak to host them.

Whilst an abhorrent topic the ending of #Power #TheDownfallofHuwEdwards was excellent Having Martin Clunes as #HuwEdwards, presenting the news reading out his list of crimes and finishing with 'despite my crimes I still remain at liberty' And why exactly did he not go to jail?

🚨 Iran Women’s soccer team exits Asian Cup in Australia and prepare to return home. They do the hand sign from the coach that they are in danger, an international signal that they need help. Women do this if they can’t speak and their lives are at risk. All this because they refused to sing the national anthem of the Islamic regime. Please share urgently ⚠️

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of history will know revolutions almost always involve foreign interference (google it). Sure Israel and America would benefit from an Iran not run by a deeply antisemitic Islamic theocracy that besmirches the name of Islam. And the UK. And Europe. And in fact the whole world. The question here now is who supports #IranianRevolution2026 and who doesn’t? Certainly the foreign interference employed by the Islamic Republic of Iran to kill their own citizens is very clear. Entifadh Qanbar @eqanbar former Deputy PM of IRAQ has just confirmed: - “Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces were involved in the massacre of 12,000 Iranians” And he is clearly not happy about it by retweeting this comment calling those forces “terror groups” who need to face justice for “their heinous actions” ⬇️

If you claim to support human rights yet can’t bring yourself to show solidarity with those fighting for their liberty in Iran, you’ve revealed yourself. You don’t give a damn about people being oppressed and brutalised so long as it’s being done by the enemies of your enemies.