Tom W
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thomaswilliams.bsky.social
Tom W
@thomaswilliams.bsky.social
310 followers 330 following 700 posts
On the quiet side. A bit peculiar. A good companion, in a weird sort of way.
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Reposted by Tom W
flahr.bsky.social
It's a week of second-place finishers being touted as the real winners by a sympathetic BBC News, so I expect the day to end with the news that Heather Humphreys has won "the moral Presidency"
The party leadership will be relieved with Powell's underwhelming margin of victory, it shows there isn't an out and out rejection of how Labour is being run, writes our political correspondent
October 25, 2025 at 10:05 AM
Reposted by Tom W
peterchilvers.com
The BBC are accidentally running the subtitles to Mrs Marple over the Mercury Prize, and it’s rather wonderful. A few of lines could plausibly have been written by Jarvis.
October 16, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Tom W
theefantomas.bsky.social
October 7, 2025 at 1:56 PM
thomaswilliams.bsky.social
You know that Yes, Prime Minister bit about polling? Where you manipulate people into responding a particular way with a series of questions, ask the one you actually care about last, and then only report that? Yeah, that's what they've done here. (1/18, sorry!)
Public backs ‘super ID card’ which could be used to report potholes
Ministers have recently said they are considering introducing a form of digital ID for adults in Britain
www.independent.co.uk
September 26, 2025 at 9:19 AM
Reposted by Tom W
sheepfilms.bsky.social
Please don't plug keyboards or other devices into random USB ports, ok?
July 29, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by Tom W
jim.londoncentric.media
He's one of Britain's richest men. So why does Asif Aziz's property company keep leasing London gift shops to overseas students based in abandoned offices or flytipped car parks — before vanishing without paying millions of pounds in taxes? www.londoncentric.media/p/asf-aziz-l...
The billionaire and the tax evading gift shops
Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital manages a row of high-profile shops at Piccadilly Circus. So why does his team keeping renting them to students who vanish without paying millions of pounds in taxes?
www.londoncentric.media
July 22, 2025 at 6:48 AM
Reposted by Tom W
colinmurray.bsky.social
New from @anuragdeb.bsky.social, @lewisgrahamlaw.bsky.social and me on The Morrigan blog - The Smith judicial review decision into the participation of Northumbria Police in the 2024 Northern Pride is a jaw-dropping mess on expert evidence, standing and irrationality:

dflw.ie/policing-pri...
Policing Pride: R (on the application of Lindsey Smith) v The Chief Constable of Northumbria Police [2025] EWHC 1805 (Admin) - Doing Feminist Legal Work
Pride and the Police
dflw.ie
July 18, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Reposted by Tom W
kneecapceol.bsky.social
After the media damage is inflicted and seen by millions of eyes,you receive a private email to say there's no evidence and no action,seen by two people only

There's no public apology. They don't send this to media or post it on police accounts

We will continue to fight.

We will continue to win.
One element of the political policing intimidation attempt is over. We played a historic set at Glastonbury. Whole area closed an hour before due to crowds. A celebration of love and solidarity. A sea of good people at the world's most famous festival. Shortly afterwards we learn of an active police investigation. An investigation that followed after the Prime Minister himself said it "was not appropriate" we played Glastonbury. Walk off stage to the rapturous sounds of good people and into the creaking scheming sounds of the establishment. This "investigation" was reported across the world's media often with wildly misleading headlines. Every single person who saw our set knew no law was broken, not even close....yet the police saw fit to publicly announce they were opening an investigation. Why open and publicise an investigation into fuck all? This is political. This is targetted. This is state intimidation. After the media damage is inflicted and seen by millions of eyes - you receive a private email to say there's no evidence and no action - that is seen by two people only. There is no public apology, they don't send this to media or post it on police accounts. We will continue to fight. We will continue to win. Email from Avon and Somerset Police to Kneecap legal team: "I am Senior Investigating Officer for Avon and Somerset Police's investigation into Kneecap's performance at the Glastonbury Festival on 28th June 2025. Following a review of the evidence, I have determined there will be no further action. I would be grateful if you could communicate this to your clients, and/or advise me of an alternative way if contacting them. Thank you for your assistance in this matter. Regards, Detective Superintendent [Name redacted]"
July 18, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Reposted by Tom W
lrb.co.uk
‘Like Trudi Warner, Rev. Parfitt has been arrested for holding a sign. Can that be understood by any but the most authoritarian of rubrics as an act of terrorism?’

Huw Lemmey on Palestine Action and freedom of conscience: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Huw Lemmey · Short Cuts: Who’s afraid of Palestine Action?
I believe there is a moral case for disarming the machinery of war that is killing innocent civilians in Gaza with the...
www.lrb.co.uk
July 18, 2025 at 11:10 AM
Reposted by Tom W
madoc.bsky.social
Police in Canterbury today informed a protestor that the phrase "Israel is committing genocide in Gaza" could be considered a declaration of support for Palestine Action and therefore a terrorism offence.
July 15, 2025 at 9:18 PM
thomaswilliams.bsky.social
Farage may well be a dreadful MP, but this seems a bit of a silly story. He is - sad to say - leader of a national party. So he speaks mostly about national issues. Similarly Starmer doesn't often mention Holborn and St Pancras, or Ed Davey Kingston and Surbiton
writesbright.bsky.social Sam Bright @writesbright.bsky.social · Jul 13
🔴 NEW 🔴

Nigel Farage has only mentioned Clacton FOUR times in the House of Commons over the past year.

Local residents have accused the Reform leader of “doing nothing” aside from “looking for photo opportunities” 👇
Nigel Farage Has Mentioned Clacton Only Four Times in Commons
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has mentioned his constituency fewer than half a dozen times in the House of Commons, DeSmog can reveal. Farage has been criticised for making multiple trips to the Unite...
www.desmog.com
July 13, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Reposted by Tom W
pickwick.bsky.social
The whole thing is iffy, but this - this is setting up an easy way to stop your opponents and critics even being allowed to stand against you.
July 12, 2025 at 10:44 AM
thomaswilliams.bsky.social
Not just useless but actively unhelpful: I still remember the numbers I used on the first lottery ticket I bought, 20-something years ago. And therefore have to avoid seeing the winning numbers ever again
andrewjones.uk Andy @andrewjones.uk · Jul 6
What’s one thing you committed to memory and cannot get rid of?

Mine is my BT Chargecard number.

171317446497

That’s going nowhere despite how useless it is.
July 6, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Tom W
tacc.org.uk
The EHRC is meant to protect everyone’s rights. But internal documents reveal a different story: repeated meetings with anti-trans lobbyists, legal bias, and secret coordination. We filed the FOI. Here’s what we found.

tacc.org.uk/2025/07/01/f...
FOI Exposes EHRC Bias: Private Meetings, Legal Echoes, and Policy Capture - Trans Advocacy and Complaints Collective
Let’s be honest. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is not acting like a neutral regulator. It is not standing above the fray.
tacc.org.uk
July 1, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Tom W
tristangrayford.scot
Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson has been so baked in the anti-trans movement dating back to its earliest days that she might well have been the personal pick of a director of one of the anti-trans hate groups

One like Sex Matters, who Labour's Ministers meet with more frequently than the entire LGBT+ sector
commonswec.parliament.uk Women & Equalities Committee @commonswec.parliament.uk · Jun 30
Tomorrow we will be holding a joint pre-appointment hearing for the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) alongside the Joint Committee on Human Rights.

The Government's preferred candidate is Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson.

Watch on Parliament Live 🟢
A green graphic with text over the top saying "Women and equalities committee. We are holding a pre-appointment hearing for the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. 2.20pm, Tuesday 1 July. Watch on Parliament Live."
June 30, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Reposted by Tom W
davidstrathdee.bsky.social
My cat waking me up for breakfast
Carlos Alcaraz posing with the French Open men's trophy, pointing at a clock that says "5:29"
June 9, 2025 at 10:59 AM
thomaswilliams.bsky.social
Finally got around to writing to my MP about the Supreme Court decision and EHRC draft guidance - I have no idea what his starting point is so my approach is very much aimed at a standard Labour-brain MP. Sharing in case any of it is useful to anyone who hasn't got around to writing to theirs yet
I am one of your constituents (although I have only recently moved into the area and my electoral registration may not show up yet) and I am gravely concerned about the recent Supreme Court judgement in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers and the guidance since published by the EHRC. The 2010 Equality Act was a landmark piece of legislation. I myself worked for a government MP for a period during Gordon Brown's time as Prime Minister, and was proud to be doing my small part for a government that was one of the most forward-thinking in the world on equal rights. The Supreme Court judgement, and the EHRC guidance, tears this legacy to shreds. I am not going to attempt to relitigate the decision itself, though I find it unconvincing. It may be that, legally, the intent the words of the 2010 act are deemed to have by their lordships is correct. But it is clearly not the true intent of the legislation. This has been confirmed by civil servants who worked on drafting the bill and shepherding it into legislation (eg https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/18/ruling-on-woman-definition-at-odds-with-uk-equality-acts-aim-says-ex-civil-servant). The then Solicitor-General, Vera Baird, in the committee stage of the bill, confirmed similarly that a trans person with a GRC would be treated under the act as being of their "acquired gender" (https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmpublic/equality/090623/pm/90623s07.htm#09062415000272). Your colleague Chris Bryant, who was Deputy Leader of the House of Commons when the bill was introduced, has made clear he disagrees with the court's interpretation. Before the Equality Act, trans people still had rights against discrimination. At the European Court of Human Rights, Goodwin v UK established the UK's obligations, which led to the Gender Recognition Act 2004 [GRA] providing that "Where a full gender recognition certificate [GRC] is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes *for all purposes* the acquired gender". Even before the GRA, it was held by the Court of Appeal in Croft v Royal Mail that "a permanent refusal to permit someone presenting as a woman from using female facilities could be an act of discrimination even if the person had not undergone final surgical intervention," meaning neither a GRC nor surgical transition was necessary for a trans person to be treated equally with someone else of their gender and use the appropriate facilities. It is also worth noting that the GRA requires that someone has "lived in the acquired gender throughout the period of two years" to be eligible for a GRC, and in practice this often means things like using the toilets and other facilities appropriate to that gender. The effect of the Supreme Court judgement and the EHRC guidance are to say that far from being a forward-thinking and progressive piece of legislation, the purpose of the Equality Act was to strip protections from trans people, hollow out the Gender Recognition Act, and introduce a "bathroom ban" on trans people who had been using the appropriate facilities for decades - _and that no one realised or implemented this for over a decade_. If this had truly been the intention of the legislation, why did the government in the years immediately following this implement it in the opposite way? If allowed to stand, this decision and the resulting guidance will be disastrous for trans people. Even on just one small basic issue, toilets: if trans people cannot use the toilets appropriate to their gender, and are instead forced to out themselves and subject themselves to a very real risk of harassment, many will simply not be able to use toilets in public places. This is effectively a ban from trans people living a normal life and being in the public realm. For trans men the situation is even worse: the judgement and guidance say that not only must trans men be excluded from single-sex facilities for men, on the basis of sex, they may also be legally excluded from single-sex services for women, on the basis that they have "a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection" may be made. I recognise that, whatever its flaws, the judgement of the Supreme Court does now reflect the state of the law as it stands. *But parliament is sovereign and it can and must change that law.* The intention read into the act by their lordships is not the intention of those who wrote and enacted it, and if left to stand it will deal a terrible blow to the legacy of the 1997-2010 Labour government. It will retrospectively change them from a government who worked hard to improve equality across many protected characteristics into one who, inadvertently, introduced one of the most regressive pieces of discriminatory legislation outside of Russia or Hungary. The damage this will do to trans people is immense. *I am therefore asking you to protect this legacy by lobbying the Prime Minister and the Minister for Women and Equalities to introduce legislation to restore the original intent of the Equality Act, and opposing any attempt to give statutory force to the guidance drafted by the EHRC.*
April 28, 2025 at 10:00 AM
Reposted by Tom W
goodlawproject.org
Good Law Project holds a copy of new NHS Guidance published yesterday and it is clear that Wes Streeting is continuing his war on trans people. Remarkably the national health service is now directing GPs to cause harm to the community. 🧵
April 10, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Tom W
rebrafsim.bsky.social
[date]

her: I’m a librarian

me: lol astrology isn’t real
April 7, 2025 at 12:39 PM
Reposted by Tom W
zarahsultana.bsky.social
A Labour by-election campaign targeting asylum hotels is callous & indefensible.

Last summer, a hotel named by a Labour MP in Parliament was set on fire with people inside. This rhetoric fuels hate & puts lives at risk.

After last year's far-right riots, it is beyond contempt.
A social media post by Karen Shore for Runcorn & Helsby. The text in the post calls for the closure of a local asylum hotel.
March 19, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Tom W
stephpaton.bsky.social
Labour MP Wes Streeting met with child abuse advocates, the Bayswater group, before they were invited to respond on the puberty blocker consultation.
www.wearequeeraf.com/revealed-str...
Revealed: Streeting met with and expressed sympathy for pro-conversion therapy parents group Bayswater
QueerAF has uncovered video footage of the Health Secretary Wes Streeting saying he’d met with Bayswater parents and expressed his sympathy for the “traumatic experiences” families with trans children...
www.wearequeeraf.com
February 1, 2025 at 8:11 AM
Reposted by Tom W
tom-clark.bsky.social
Why do wrong-doing benefit claimants need special rather than general punishments? Why not same for tax dodgers? And when someone has been caught doing cash-in-hand shifts do you really want to make it impossible for them to find a proper job & get off benefits?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
January 22, 2025 at 7:33 AM
thomaswilliams.bsky.social
HNY, everyone. This year’s lemon pig is particularly messy - I forgot about it till the last minute and only had a really dry leathery one to hand. Hopefully not an omen for the year to come
A model pig made from lemon, with cloves for eyes, a tin foil tail, cocktail stick legs, and a penny in its mouth. It is generally wonky and ill composed.
January 1, 2025 at 12:19 AM
Reposted by Tom W
trillingual.bsky.social
👀
www.the-londoner.co.uk/a-government...
A government advisor wrote a libel against London. Why did we believe it?
A book by the foreign secretary’s aide Ben Judah paints a disturbing picture of the capital, littered with racial stereotypes and falsehoods
www.the-londoner.co.uk
December 13, 2024 at 10:50 AM