The truth is that many people across Britain feel a growing fatigue with the idea that one particular religion should exist behind a protective barrier, shielded from the kind of robust scrutiny that every other set of beliefs routinely face. No belief system can claim immunity from questioning, mockery or critique. Religions are powerful social forces. Powerful ideas invite questioning. And people in Britain increasingly want to ask questions openly. Enough of Islamophobia laws, tsars, and speech-policing policies that attempt to close down discussion.

I resent having to share our country with this type of person.

How the hell is Labours Jonathan Powell still in post, when his wife is posting racist filth on the internet.....

Why do people get so offended by our flag?

Men can marry a 9 year old, but can't kiss their adult wife on the forehead. An abomination of a religion

An American doctor flew to Kenya in the early 1960s to prove that a people living on milk, meat and blood would have the worst hearts on earth, and found 400 men without a sign of heart disease between them. George Mann was a Vanderbilt professor who had helped set up the Framingham study, and he was not a crank. The theory of the day said that saturated fat raised cholesterol and cholesterol furred the arteries, and the Masai of the Rift Valley were the perfect test, because they ate almost nothing else. A warrior lived on milk, several litres of it a day, fresh or soured. He ate meat at feasts and on raids. When a bullock was needed and not to be killed, he opened a vein in its neck, drew off a gourd of blood, and drank that mixed with the milk. Vegetables were for women and the sick. By the arithmetic of the American Heart Association, the Masai should have been dropping on the plain. Mann put them through the machines. He took blood from hundreds and ran electrocardiograms on 400 young and middle-aged men, and in all of them found no evidence whatsoever of heart disease. Their cholesterol came back at about half the figure of an American of the same age. He put them on a step test and a treadmill and recorded a fitness he could only describe as Olympic standard: men who walked 20 miles a day behind cattle and would run alongside a vehicle for the fun of it. He went back and did the hard part. In 1972 he published autopsies on 50 Masai, and here is where the honest reader has to sit still, because it is the detail that makes the story. Their aortas showed atherosclerosis, plenty of it, lipid and fibrous change the whole length. And their coronary arteries were wide, far wider than an American's, and in none of the hearts was there a trace of a blockage, a scar or an infarct. They had the plaque and not the disease. The pipe had grown with the load. Whatever killed a Masai, and plenty did, it was not his milk. Mann came home a heretic and spent the rest of his career saying so in the journals, loudly, and the journals stopped printing him. The belief he had gone out to confirm is the belief still printed on the tub: that the fat of the animal is what stops a human heart. He took the best instruments of his age to the people who ate more of it than anyone alive, and the instruments said no, and the people were the fittest he had ever measured. The response of his profession was to find other populations. Four hundred men, half a doctor's expected cholesterol, zero disease, and a blood-and-milk breakfast. The science has had 60 years to answer that and has preferred to change the subject.

The anti-Muslim hostility definition is designed to silence criticism of Islam, its history and its practices. It is a direct assault on our fundamental right to free speech. Baroness Gohir, a member of the House of Lords and of the Working Group tasked with drafting the definition, has claimed that it is “Islamophobic” to point out that most rape-gang perpetrators were Muslim men. This is despite Baroness Casey’s report finding a disproportionate number of perpetrators of child sexual exploitation were men of Pakistani heritage. Earlier this year, the Free Speech Union revealed that all five members of the Working Group, appointed by Angela Rayner, had troubling links to Islamist organisations. Rayner’s department then claimed it had deleted all responses to the Working Group’s consultation, apparently breaching the Government’s own data policy. This only fuelled speculation that Islamist extremists may have influenced the drafting of what amounts to a de facto Islamic blasphemy law. After an investigation, the department claimed that the responses were still held on its data system — but refused to disclose them. It makes no sense. What is Angela Rayner hiding? Watch @Katie_Lam_MP’s video 👇

She uses the term "assigned at birth". This means that she, for all the fine qualities she may possess in other areas, is essentially a numpty. To use such an idiotic term provides irrefutable proof that one's critical faculties have suffered catastrophic insult and damage.

And if government does so promise, will the sponsoring minister kindly say as much in parliament (preferably final committee stage) so that clever, resourceful lawyers might refer to minister's words as an aid to interpretation of the statute as & when parents come to be nabbed.

If unions succeed in this aim you can kiss gay rights goodbye. Anywhere the sex protected characteristic splinters you get situations like Australia where it is presently unlawful for lesbians to meet because that's "gender identity discrimination". That's what's being proposed.

It's almost as if @UNISONtheunion forgets women are also human and deserve safety, dignity & privacy while being treated by the NHS. Oh and the new NHS policy reflects UK legislation that has been in force since 2010.

What I like most about this thread is the number of straight people especially women who are defending gay people and children more generally from a terrible terrible piece of legislation that will actually “convert” more gay teens (by pretending they are the opposite sex) than conversion therapy ever did. It also reminds me that straight people were in fact instrumental in securing gay rights. Sometimes *the very same ones replying here*.

To celebrate the birth of Charles Frederick Worth, it's #frockingFabulous #HouseofWorth week! This two-piece from c.1880-1890was ordered by Ella Rives King of Kingscote during her annual Parisian shopping trip. #Fashionhistory via the Preservation Society of Newport County.

A Bill can be well intentioned and still do harm. Di explains why lesbian, gay and bisexual people are speaking up: children need adults who can talk honestly, ask questions and give them time. Parents should not be frightened into silence. Read their stories: lgballiance.org.uk/conversio… #ItsOkayToBeGay

I've been recruited by the BBC to help with the new JK Rowling documentary. I'll be producing reconstructions of Rowling murdering Trans women, based on imagined experience from Blue haired sex offenders who moderate Reddit threads.

I have been correctly corrected. I wonder if a judicial review of a CPS decision to prosecute might allow reference to Hansard. I am braced for another rejection by my friend, Dennis, but "Resourceful" is my middle name and so I try.

Why would the Zionists do this to an innocent child? #Underwearocide

Israeli police have arrested 10 people in connection with the attack by extremist Israelis on Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine in Abu Falah. Security forces also seized items linked to the attack, stopped illegal construction in the area, and prevented an illegal takeover of a Palestinian home. This is the right response. These attacks are against the law, and the law has to be enforced against the people who carry them out. I know some people will reply with “what about Palestinian terrorism?” I condemn Palestinian terrorism on my platforms every day. I condemn it because it is violence, and I condemn this attack for the same reason. Who commits the violence doesn’t change that.