Alison
@alicemerray.bsky.social
Knitter, reader, swimmer & walker. Avid podcast listener (often on the walks!)
But mostly layabout. Loves to sing. Atheist. She/her. 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ 🇪🇺 🇺🇦
But mostly layabout. Loves to sing. Atheist. She/her. 🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️ 🇪🇺 🇺🇦
Pinned
Alison
@alicemerray.bsky.social
· Feb 1
Everything the Right does eventually boils down to other people getting hurt.
And I'm against that.
And I'm against that.
Reposted by Alison
Fantasy numbers.
Many of those "EU nationals" claims he can cut benefits to *are already UK citizens*.
Almost all the rest are entitled to UK citizenship.
Idea this will save any significant sum is simply absurd.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Many of those "EU nationals" claims he can cut benefits to *are already UK citizens*.
Almost all the rest are entitled to UK citizenship.
Idea this will save any significant sum is simply absurd.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reform plans to strip EU citizens of benefit rights, says Farage
Leader Nigel Farage says his party would renegotiate the Brexit deal struck by the Tory government.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 18, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Fantasy numbers.
Many of those "EU nationals" claims he can cut benefits to *are already UK citizens*.
Almost all the rest are entitled to UK citizenship.
Idea this will save any significant sum is simply absurd.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Many of those "EU nationals" claims he can cut benefits to *are already UK citizens*.
Almost all the rest are entitled to UK citizenship.
Idea this will save any significant sum is simply absurd.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted by Alison
I’ve looked through this interview for the bit where they ask him why, if “AI” tools are "prone to errors”, Google are putting said tools' output at the top of search results. Can’t find it. TBH it reads more like they were taking dictation than interviewing him. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Don't blindly trust what AI tells you, Google boss tells BBC
Sundar Pichai candidly acknowledged concerns about inaccurate answers generated by Google's models.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 18, 2025 at 9:01 AM
I’ve looked through this interview for the bit where they ask him why, if “AI” tools are "prone to errors”, Google are putting said tools' output at the top of search results. Can’t find it. TBH it reads more like they were taking dictation than interviewing him. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted by Alison
“We warned them the thing was dangerous and didn’t work properly!” cried the man still jamming the thing into every single software tool, toy and platform, “It’s not our fault they didn’t listen and used it anyway!”
I’ve looked through this interview for the bit where they ask him why, if “AI” tools are "prone to errors”, Google are putting said tools' output at the top of search results. Can’t find it. TBH it reads more like they were taking dictation than interviewing him. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Don't blindly trust what AI tells you, Google boss tells BBC
Sundar Pichai candidly acknowledged concerns about inaccurate answers generated by Google's models.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 18, 2025 at 9:05 AM
“We warned them the thing was dangerous and didn’t work properly!” cried the man still jamming the thing into every single software tool, toy and platform, “It’s not our fault they didn’t listen and used it anyway!”
Reposted by Alison
Reposted by Alison
One to bookmark for when Labour collapse in London next May
November 18, 2025 at 11:36 AM
One to bookmark for when Labour collapse in London next May
Reposted by Alison
Yes, who would have thought. If you adopt a bash-liberals strategy, liberal voters will vote for someone else. And despite what they think in No.10, liberal voters do actually exist.
These are the voters that Labour strategists have made very clear over a long period of time that they don't want any more, and it's a message that has now been heard
I've been out canvassing quite a lot in London lately. Labour's vote has absolutely evaporated.... it is quite extraordinary to go to places where Labour were on 50-60% of the vote at the last locals and find nobody, or virtually nobody, supporting them.
The phrase 'I voted Labour last time, but...
The phrase 'I voted Labour last time, but...
November 18, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Yes, who would have thought. If you adopt a bash-liberals strategy, liberal voters will vote for someone else. And despite what they think in No.10, liberal voters do actually exist.
Reposted by Alison
Shabana Mahmood is wrong - Another cowardly attack on immigrants does not hide the incompetence of the Starmer government.
Me, for the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
Me, for the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
Shabana Mahmood is wrong
Another cowardly attack on immigrants does not hide the incompetence of the Starmer government
www.newstatesman.com
November 18, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Shabana Mahmood is wrong - Another cowardly attack on immigrants does not hide the incompetence of the Starmer government.
Me, for the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
Me, for the @newstatesman1913.bsky.social
www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...
Reposted by Alison
Not sure "can't tell you, its a hypothetical" is going to be much use to an MP with a pregnant refugee in their surgery, asking if they and their baby is going to be deported.
Listening to Steve Reed explain on the radio today that he can't say what Mahmood's plan means for kids of people who give birth after they've been granted asylum because that's a hypothetical Q govt can't be expected to answer right now made me think these reforms are going to unravel quite fast
November 18, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Not sure "can't tell you, its a hypothetical" is going to be much use to an MP with a pregnant refugee in their surgery, asking if they and their baby is going to be deported.
Reposted by Alison
Can those in Commons and media holding govt to account please keep asking this Q until we get a clear answer?
'will you be deporting thousands of children to a place they've never been minister' is a big enough & obvious enough Q that govt has to know the answer to it before they unveil the whole package - it surely has a material effect on costs, numbers, political impact, maybe legality. So either..
November 18, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Can those in Commons and media holding govt to account please keep asking this Q until we get a clear answer?
Reposted by Alison
There is no cure for their poison except to challenge its assumptions. Nothing is gained by pretending to agree with it, or mollifying it.
November 18, 2025 at 2:55 PM
There is no cure for their poison except to challenge its assumptions. Nothing is gained by pretending to agree with it, or mollifying it.
Reposted by Alison
Everything is the fault of foreigners, everything can be fixed by penalising foreigners. To call them Little Englanders is generous and euphemistic.
Reform’s £25bn p/a savings plan. A theme emerges:
- ending foreign aid
- increase immigration health surcharge paid by foreigners
- deport foreign criminals
- end UC payments to foreign nationals
- ending foreign aid
- increase immigration health surcharge paid by foreigners
- deport foreign criminals
- end UC payments to foreign nationals
November 18, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Everything is the fault of foreigners, everything can be fixed by penalising foreigners. To call them Little Englanders is generous and euphemistic.
Reposted by Alison
And in response to the bigot’s deleted post, no, we don’t spend billions on immigration. The opposite, we gain billions from it. And we’re losing billions by restricting it.
November 18, 2025 at 9:35 AM
And in response to the bigot’s deleted post, no, we don’t spend billions on immigration. The opposite, we gain billions from it. And we’re losing billions by restricting it.
Reposted by Alison
What the Labour Party used to understand was that it wasn’t that immigration was tearing the country apart, but that immigration was what was holding the country together. Immigration kept our NHS going, our transport system going, our education and much more.
It’s still true. They must know it.
It’s still true. They must know it.
November 18, 2025 at 8:23 AM
What the Labour Party used to understand was that it wasn’t that immigration was tearing the country apart, but that immigration was what was holding the country together. Immigration kept our NHS going, our transport system going, our education and much more.
It’s still true. They must know it.
It’s still true. They must know it.
Reposted by Alison
when you understand that patriarchy views children as sexual property it all makes sense. there's no hypocrisy. exposure to queerness & transness threatens to "corrupt" the father's property, to "lead them astray" into self-determination, to taint their future sexual value. CSA is permissible as >
Thatcher's government did this with Section 28, banned the "promotion of homosexuality" as a danger to children, while actively protecting Jimmy Savile and who knows how many other pedophiles. It's the same damn playbook.
I cannot begin to properly articulate how upsetting it is to have had people baselessly accuse trans people of being groomers and pedophiles only for it to come out that they were deliberately doing this as part of a project to provide cover to actual groomers and pedophiles in positions of power
November 14, 2025 at 4:56 AM
when you understand that patriarchy views children as sexual property it all makes sense. there's no hypocrisy. exposure to queerness & transness threatens to "corrupt" the father's property, to "lead them astray" into self-determination, to taint their future sexual value. CSA is permissible as >
Reposted by Alison
Thatcher's government did this with Section 28, banned the "promotion of homosexuality" as a danger to children, while actively protecting Jimmy Savile and who knows how many other pedophiles. It's the same damn playbook.
I cannot begin to properly articulate how upsetting it is to have had people baselessly accuse trans people of being groomers and pedophiles only for it to come out that they were deliberately doing this as part of a project to provide cover to actual groomers and pedophiles in positions of power
November 14, 2025 at 1:19 AM
Thatcher's government did this with Section 28, banned the "promotion of homosexuality" as a danger to children, while actively protecting Jimmy Savile and who knows how many other pedophiles. It's the same damn playbook.
Reposted by Alison
I cannot begin to properly articulate how upsetting it is to have had people baselessly accuse trans people of being groomers and pedophiles only for it to come out that they were deliberately doing this as part of a project to provide cover to actual groomers and pedophiles in positions of power
November 13, 2025 at 9:22 PM
I cannot begin to properly articulate how upsetting it is to have had people baselessly accuse trans people of being groomers and pedophiles only for it to come out that they were deliberately doing this as part of a project to provide cover to actual groomers and pedophiles in positions of power
Reposted by Alison
Reposted by Alison
Reposted by Alison
Twenty-two years ago today Section 28 was repealed.
But we're seeing history repeat itself as some in the media and in politics spread bigotry and misinformation about trans people.
1/8🧵
But we're seeing history repeat itself as some in the media and in politics spread bigotry and misinformation about trans people.
1/8🧵
November 18, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Twenty-two years ago today Section 28 was repealed.
But we're seeing history repeat itself as some in the media and in politics spread bigotry and misinformation about trans people.
1/8🧵
But we're seeing history repeat itself as some in the media and in politics spread bigotry and misinformation about trans people.
1/8🧵
Reposted by Alison
Indentured servitude is immoral and a Labour minister offering to consider it should have to resign in shame
Watching the Mahmood announcement and debate. Tory backbencher (Karen Bradley) suggests putting refugees into debt and making them repay during the rest of their lives. Mahmood says she’ll think about it.
November 18, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Indentured servitude is immoral and a Labour minister offering to consider it should have to resign in shame
Reposted by Alison
Indenture.
Watching the Mahmood announcement and debate. Tory backbencher (Karen Bradley) suggests putting refugees into debt and making them repay during the rest of their lives. Mahmood says she’ll think about it.
November 17, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Indenture.
Reposted by Alison
Labour MP Brian Leishman: "The Government has surrendered to... the vile rhetoric of Reform. Does the Home Secretary not see that removing the legal obligation to support asylum seekers who will be otherwise destitute, is as far away from Labour Party principles and values as we can get?"
November 17, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Labour MP Brian Leishman: "The Government has surrendered to... the vile rhetoric of Reform. Does the Home Secretary not see that removing the legal obligation to support asylum seekers who will be otherwise destitute, is as far away from Labour Party principles and values as we can get?"
Reposted by Alison
The tone of an organisation is set from the leader on down, and the tone of Keir Starmer's leadership has always been 'say it if it is convenient'.
The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world"
That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims
That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims
November 17, 2025 at 5:48 PM
The tone of an organisation is set from the leader on down, and the tone of Keir Starmer's leadership has always been 'say it if it is convenient'.
Reposted by Alison
All payments and pension rights for any former Minister or Prime Minister of the UK should be forfeit if they seek to betray this country.
November 18, 2025 at 10:07 AM
All payments and pension rights for any former Minister or Prime Minister of the UK should be forfeit if they seek to betray this country.