Deputy Chief Constable Julie Cooke, national lead on LGBT issues for the National Police Chiefs Council, advises the public on pronouns

Julie Cooke

@DCCJulieCooke

Today marks #pronounsday – seeking to make sharing, educating and respecting personal pronouns commonplace. 

@pronounsday




Here is the spoken message she tweeted. 

Marriage, Robert Louis Stevenson said, is a sort of friendship recognised by the police.

Now they recognise all sorts of friendships and all sorts of sexes too.

In June DC Cooke was criticised for wearing an LGBT rainbow coloured lanyard (a sort of string around her neck) by the chairman (the BBC called him the chair) of the Cheshire police and crime panel that oversees the force's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC). He said she was in breach of impartiality regulations.

Cheshire's Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), David Keane (Labour) said Mr Fousert's comments were "deeply shocking" and rainbow lanyards and badges were "about promoting fairness, openness and equality". A conservative member of the panel expressed support for what the Cheshire police did to raise tolerance.

DC Cooke tweeted that she would "continue to show my support for the LGBT+ community internally and externally." The Chief Constable of Cheshire Darren Martland tweeted:"The exceptional work of DCC Cooke and Cheshire Constabulary in recognising difference and encouraging inclusion of LGBT+ communities is to be celebrated and applauded."

Brexit quotations

Tom McTague

@TomMcTague

So: The Boris Johnson who was involved in sham negotiations, wasn’t. The Benn act which chopped the legs out from under the negotiations, didn’t. The EU which would never reopen the exit agreement, did. The Irish govt that would never engage in bilateral negotiations, did.

Tom McTague

 @TomMcTague

Final counter intuitive thought. David Davis (remember him) used to say two things which received much mockery: 1) UK should fight sequencing 2) It will all be decided at last minute —Was he wrong?

"I support EU exit even if I don't want it."

Ruth Davidson

“I say this once and for all, and I hope that nobody inside or outside my party will raise this issue again. The Lega does not have any intention of taking Italy out of the euro or the European Union.”
Matteo Salvini

Historians do not understand current affairs as well as taxi drivers

Toby Young

@toadmeister

·

4h

If Boris succeeds in taking us out on October 31st some Remainers are literally going to go mad.

Quote Tweet

Simon Schama

@simon_schama

· Oct 14

Should this non- government succeed in forcing our exit from the EU on Halloween let all of us who bitterly mourn ring funeral bells and light bonfires of rage and grief and resolution at 12 pm - up and down the nation

This is the news

Boris and the Tories, including most of the ones who who have lost the whip, minus a very few Remain extremists like Philip Hammond, very badly need a deal. Even the Spartans do, but Leo Eric Varadkar needs one just as badly to win his election and the DUP needs one very badly to hold on to its supporters. 

If the Tories, DUP and Eire agree it is hard to imagine Michel Barnier, Emmanuel Macron or Mrs. Merkel preventing  a deal. Though what is most important for me is getting a Canada Dry trade agreement: free trade for Great Britain with Europe but free of the need for regulatory alignment. I do not know if Boris can get that.

The Daily Telegraph, that loves its former employee Boris, has this lead headline.

Brexit latest news: UK and EU closing in on a deal, as negotiating teams work on legal text

The Guardian that detests him has this, a bit cavilling but saying much the same :

Boris Johnson 'on brink of Brexit deal' after border concessions

The BBC's lead headline is

Brexit: Talks continuing amid claims deal is close

The Independent, which has campaigned for a second referendum, manages to make the same thing sound like Boris has been rebuffed by the EU with contempt.


Not good enough says Barnier tells Johnson to agree deal by midnight or return to MPs empty-handed

But at least they have much the same news. I have seen the Hungarian local elections portrayed as a massive defeat and a great victory for Viktor Orban's party in English language newspapers, depending on the paper's point of view, without any explanation for readers that another interpretation is possible. 

This is not acceptable. 

In the USA no coverage of Donald Trump is worth even reading outside avowedly conservative sources, whatever your politics, because the others so distort the truth, from over-powering indignation and an essentially religious idea that he represents the forces of darkness. 

The same is true of news in all the mainstream media about populists.