Popeye's Here!
Update 424 Bobbies (Not) On The Beat Special #BeMorePorcupine
We do like a good hero in a film standing against evil, even when, as with Popeye Doyle ( Gene Hackman - what an amazing performance!) in The French Connection, that hero is a little bit scuffed around the edges 😎
A reminder that the Heroes Season is coming care of one of the wonderful readers mentioned below 😊
A lot of viewing for you in this update, dear readers!!
Thanks to to wonderful readers as ever for suggested pieces.
That Letter
See the last update for my take on ‘that letter.’ Here is EDI Jester’s satirical riposte:
https://edijester.substack.com/p/i-done-a-letters
Women’s Boxing
Great round up of what happened in the women’s boxing at the Woolympics by Maria Maclachlan.
Meanwhile Imane Khelif decides that what will crack the problem is if he has a bit of a makeover 🤣
Amber Raiken in The Independent ( Boxer Imane Khelif shows off new ‘makeover’ after Olympic gender row 19 August) reports:
MixCollage-16-Aug-2024-01-11-PM-102.jpg© beauty.code.officiel / Instagram
Boxer Imane Khelif has shown off a new look after her [ HIS!] performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics became met with an online row over her [ HIS!] gender.
In a joint video shared on Instagram by Beauty Code and Khelif, the Olympian could be seen standing front and center, wearing a blue shirt and her [ HIS!] red boxing gloves. The video then switched to a shot of Khelif in a different look, as she [ HE!] wore a white button-down floral shirt and hoop earrings, which had pink flowers attached to them.
The pink flowers really swing it, don’t they? 😂
The full article is here:
Let Women Speak
A LWS rally in Melbourne has been attacked by trans rights activists. Thanks to Feminist Legal Clinic but I have to say that the use of the phrase ‘face off’ in the headline is totally misleading! I appreciate, of course, that this is the headline used by The Guardian.
Eggs and water balloons thrown as protesters face off at Women Will Speak rally in Melbourne ( 18 August)
About 20 people initially attended the planned #WomenWILLSpeak rally that commenced at about 11am, Victoria police said in a statement.
They were outnumbered by 150 protesters from another group, who were “throwing eggs and water balloons at the speakers involved,” the statement said.
A 36-year-old Brunswick woman was arrested at the scene for allegedly assaulting police and was released pending further inquiries, police said.
A live stream of the rally posted on YouTube by Women’s Action Group showed a barricade of police officers in yellow vests separating the #WomenWILLSpeak event from a large crowd gathered with signs.
In the same live stream, some of the protesters in the Women Action’s Group camp can be seen holding signs reading “trans women are men”, “inquiry into gender medicine now” and “no male cheats in women’s sports”.
On Wednesday, a Facebook page titled Trans Queer Solidarity posted about the rally, saying: “We need to out-number them and limit their recruitment like we have before.”
Free Speech and Two Tier Policing
In recent updates we have been discussing two tier policing which has a direct effect on women’s rights campaigners and also on the already draconian powers being used to quell free speech and the Government’s stated intention to ramp up those powers. There is also the question of excessive sentences.
Excellent interview on Andrew Doyle’s Free Speech Nation with Tom Slater, editor of Spiked:
Interview on New Culture Forum with former detective Peter Bleksley which covers policing in general ( remember Bobbies on the beat!?) and also two tier policing and the failure to deal with the increase in violence against women and girls. It doesn’t really get to grips with the issue of hate crime.
With regard to the Government’s proposals about ‘misogyny’ there are, of course, already sufficient powers available to deal with violence against women and girls. These just need to be enforced! We do not need ramping up of hate crime - indeed, the hate crime powers, as I often say, should be repealed since they are simply used to quell free speech. I am also concerned that they may try and slip in ‘gender identity’ while they are at it. All thoughts gratefully received.
Dominic Penna in The Telegraph ( Fears Labour’s misogyny extremism law would threaten free speech 19 August) reports:
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary - Andy Rain/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Treating misogyny as a form of extremism could threaten freedom of speech, the Government has been warned.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has ordered a review that will look at tackling violence against women and girls in the same way as far-Right and Islamist extremism.
Ms Cooper said growing numbers of young people were being radicalised online by misogynistic influencers and the problem had remained unaddressed for “too long”.
However, critics have argued the Government should enforce existing legislation to tackle violence against women and girls and warn that the new policy could amount to censorship.
A senior female Conservative MP said: “There should be no place for misogyny but Labour’s latest policy announcement feels very rushed and is deeply concerning on so many levels, not least, what does it mean for free speech?
“We have to tackle misogyny. It’s endemic in some workplaces and I think lots of women have faced it. But what is misogyny to one person is not necessarily to another.”
It’s already a crime
Ann Widdecombe, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, said Ms Cooper’s plan was not necessary.
“If you commit violence against women and girls, that’s already a crime,” she said. “If you preach misogyny, that’s already a crime. What exactly isn’t a crime?
“They should enforce the existing laws and stop looking to create crimes, which is what they’re doing.”
But Jess Phillips, the safeguarding minister, told LBC the move was necessary to “prevent” misogyny, rather than “criminalising people who are showing signs”.
Challenged on whether the plans could jeopardise free speech, Ms Phillips said: “You just use exactly the same test you would with far-Right extremism and Islamism, wouldn’t you?
“People can hold views about women all they like, but it’s not OK any more to ignore the massive growing threat caused by online hatred towards women and for us to ignore it because we’re worried about the line, rather than making sure the line is in the right place, as we would do with any other extremist ideology.”
There is already an extremism category for “incel” – short for “involuntary celibate” – which is ranked by the Home Office as an area of concern.
It refers to a male subculture that includes feelings of violence towards women as a result of feeling rejected.
Officials are concerned, however, that this does not go far enough in capturing other forms of extreme misogyny.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has called for the epidemic of violence against women and girls to be treated as a national security threat.
Million violent crimes recorded
A report published by the National Police Chiefs Council in July found that more than a million violent crimes against women and children were recorded in the year to March 2023.
The full article is here:
And here is Leo Kearse on two tier policing…and more…
We’ll end with some good advice from Kellie-Jay:
Miriam Grossman
Excellent interview on American Thought Leaders with Miriam Grossman about so called gender affirming care. She provides some good advice for parents.
Child Abuse
Here is a really excellent piece from Malcolm Clark on his substack The Secret Gender Files:
The Child Abuse Arrests Have Begun...
Whether Surrey Pride's founder is convicted of child abuse or not, the truth is the LGBTQ+ lobby as a whole refuses to take child safeguarding seriously and is bedevilled by predator apologists.
Aug 19, 2024
Stephen Ireland was very careful with his pronouns.
The founder of Pride In Surrey never went anywhere without them. Oh how his social media profiles loved to sport He/Him in case anyone was in any doubt.
Or cared.
On Facebook and Instagram He/Him’s constant refrain was … be you, be proud.
Problem is though there are people we don’t want to be themselves. Or feel proud. Like paedophiles…perhaps. As a totally random example. That’s because when a minority of people let themselves be them, and proud of it, it may mean other, more vulnerable folks, don’t get the chance to become who they might have been. The victims of paedophiles, perhaps. As a totally random example.
40 year old Ireland who urged us all to be ourselves …though interestingly not our better selves ….is currently in custody, after being charged last week on multiple counts of child sex abuse. 37 in fact. Including the rape of a child under 13, six counts of making indecent photographs of kids and two counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity. “One penetrative”, as the charge list records with barely-suppressed horror.
For 15 of the alleged offences, Ireland is charged jointly with his friend, the Pride In Surrey volunteer David Sutton. I’ll spare you his pronouns. Though not the charges.
Read and weep.
I should say, before I go on, that Ireland and Sutton may well be innocent and indeed must be presumed to be so. Unless or until proven guilty. That said, even if exonerated, and he might well be, Ireland’s story symbolises the deep-seated problems that plague the way the LGBTQ+ lobby operates in this country.
The single biggest issue is that, unlike any other group of people in society, this lobby’s male activists, gay men but also the sexual fetishists who shelter under the trans umbrella, have been accorded almost total immunity from suspicion by the mainstream media and every important institution in our country.
The full piece is here ( it is very long and the final bit is behind a paywall):
Endpiece by Liz
#BeMorePorcupine
#XX
#SaveWomensSport
I can think of two obvious forms of extreme misogyny which the govt has the power to do something about. Gender ideology is one of them…… Is the govt likely to anything about either problem or are they much more likely to protect those two groups from valid criticism which they’ll call abuse. Answers on a postcard.
Thanks Dusty. It’s all a bit more dire than we thought it was going to be. Will we survive five years? 🤨