Yup, I think you're absolutely right on that one. Starmer has a couple of years to row back from his kowtowing to the Reform agenda. I still don't think a few extra Green seats would be the problem, though.

It will be devastating if it comes to pass, but blaming the Greens who have been consistent on policy rather than the Labour party, who frankly are feeding the Reform fire with all the weird nationalism is an odd thing to do in my eyes. If Labour want to get elected again, they need to be electable!

Thing is, a genuine multi-party democracy is better for democratic representation than our broken two-party system. Reform helped Starmer to win, for sure, but the Tories are down and out completely now. Two of the Greens' seats were won from Tories so the transfer of votes is less clear.

I think you'd be hard pushed to suggest a vote for the Greens allowed Starmer to get in (!)

It is sorted by number of seats not vote share , so - Greens take a higher share of the vote than the nationalist parties, but will always pick up fewer seats because of the distribution of the vote 😕

It is deeply scarred by its history, but SA is also full of radical, brilliant people who believe deeply in liberation and are horrified by the loss of someone who created such an important space. Your comment doesn't help anything when people are grieving

Unless Elon applied to keep his SA citizenship when he applied for his other citizenships, he will have automatically lost his SA citizenship. Ironically the only place to legally send him might be Canada now... Or Mars, yess 🙏

ART is funded by the state in South Africa, although the support staff and services - particularly those for MSM and trans people - are funded by PEPFAR. Some of our neighbours in Southern Africa are entirely reliant on PEPFAR for all medication, so they have it much worse than we do. Unforgivable

Our local clinic for MSM called to cancel all appointments, and it's the same across South Africa. Staff are being retrenched. Obviously I'm not pretending this is equivalent to ART being withdrawn in the poorest nations, but the cuts are far-reaching www.mambaonline.com/2025/01/28/d...

Also like pretty much every new build school I've taught in

Regrettably and predictably I suspect it is in the Scottish print edition of the Times, since it is on their website 😕

Yes I was there close to it opening. Dreadful experience - absolutely freezing. You enter through what is clearly still a carpark and it doesn't get better thereafter. Odd shaped rooms. It's not even a 'converted' Ikea, it's just... an empty Ikea. Money grab, as you say.

Using the Cass report as justification for banning puberty blockers is simply dishonest. Cass's actual findings, documented in the appendices, found PBs have been used safely for trans kids since 1988 with not a single case of harm documented in thousands of records. Cass did *not* recommend a ban.

It's 86% amongst remain voters. That also seems surprisingly low to me