Labour Heartlands

17/12/2025

Teachers to be trained to spot early signs of misogyny in boys

Teachers will be given training to spot the signs of misogyny and tackle it in the classroom as part of the government's long-awaited strategy to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade.

The plans - which focus on preventing the radicalisation of young men - are due to be unveiled on Thursday, after being pushed back three times this year.

Pupils will be taught about issues such as consent, the dangers of sharing intimate images, how to identify positive role models and to challenge unhealthy myths about women and relationships.

The £20m package will also include a new helpline for teenagers to get support for concerns about abuse in their own relationships.

The government hopes that by tackling the early roots of misogyny, it will prevent young men from becoming violent abusers.

Under the new plans, schools will send high-risk students to get extra care and support, including behavioural courses to tackle their prejudice against women and girls.

"Every parent should be able to trust that their daughter is safe at school, online and in her relationships, but too often, toxic ideas are taking hold early and going unchallenged," Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said about the new measures.

"This government is stepping in sooner - backing teachers, calling out misogyny, and intervening when warning signs appear to stop harm before it starts."

The taxpayer will foot £16m of the bill, while the government says it is working closely with philanthropists and other partners on an innovation fund for the remaining £4m.

The measure is part of the government's strategy to tackle violence against women and girls which will be unveiled on Thursday.

17/12/2025

Starmer’s Britain...

17/12/2025

Congratulations 🎊 Andrea Egan, the new, UNISON General Secretary.

17/12/2025

The problem isn’t Trump. The problem is the BBC acting like the Ministry of Truth.

The BBC did not merely report Donald Trump’s January 6 speech. It edited it in a way that changed its meaning, then broadcast that edited version as if it were a faithful representation of what was said. That is not journalism. That is narrative construction.

This is not new.

In 1984–85, during the Miners’ Strike, the BBC was formally criticised for misleading editing of footage from Orgreave. Scenes were broadcast in reverse order, giving the impression miners charged police, when in fact police had already advanced. The BBC later admitted the sequence was wrong. The damage was already done.

In Northern Ireland, BBC reporting repeatedly blurred the line between state violence and “security operations”, shaping public perception for decades.

During the Iraq War, the BBC uncritically relayed government claims about weapons of mass destruction, helping sell a war that killed hundreds of thousands.

In each case, the pattern is the same:
– Select
– Edit
– Frame
– Broadcast
– Defend the institution

George Orwell warned that the most dangerous propaganda is not outright lies, but the careful editing of truth. When a publicly funded broadcaster decides what context to remove and what emphasis to add, it stops informing the public and starts managing them.

You do not need to support Trump to oppose this.
You do not need to like his politics to defend the principle that speeches should be reported honestly.

A state broadcaster that edits political speech to fit a preferred narrative is not impartial.
It is powerful.
And power, unchecked, always drifts toward abuse.

If we allow this because we dislike the speaker, it will be used tomorrow against someone we agree with.

That is the lesson of history.
That is the lesson of 1984.
And that is why this matters.

16/12/2025

16/12/2025

The class which has the power to rob upon a large scale has also the power to control the government and legalise their robbery. -Eugene V. Debs

15/12/2025

In 2014, Jeremy Corbyn stated the ultimate outcome of a Ukrainian conflict... a catastrophic war with nuclear implications...

15/12/2025

FEAR INC: THE MANUFACTURED CONSENT FOR PERMANENT WAR

Manufacturing Fear to Fund a War Economy

They are at it again. Can you hear the drumbeat? It is getting louder, faster, and more frantic. The establishment and their media stenographers are busy building a consensus, ramping up the fear, and preparing the ground. Preparing it for what? For the only solution they ever have: handing over more of your public money to the industrial arms complex.

We have seen this playbook before. Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Libya threatened regional stability. Assad must go. The threat is manufactured, the fear is amplified, and the solution is presented as a patriotic duty. But let us cut through the noise and look at who is singing from this hymn sheet, and more importantly, what they stand to gain.

NATO, EU, MI6, and the MoD: The Chorus Selling You a New Forever War.

Read more...

https://labourheartlands.com/fear-inc-the-manufactured-consent-for-permanent-war/

They are at it again. Can you hear the drumbeat? It is getting louder, faster, and more frantic. The establishment and their media stenographers are busy

15/12/2025

This has got to be worth a few minutes of your time...

15/12/2025

THOUGHTCRIME 2025

It’s worth looking seriously at what the recent figures on “arrests for online comments” actually tell us and what they don’t.

Yes, data from UK custody records shows over 12,000 arrests in 2023 under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988 for online and electronic messages deemed “grossly offensive”, “menacing” or causing distress or anxiety. That’s approximately 30 arrests a day nationwide.
The Times

That’s a staggering number for a democracy that likes to call itself a defender of free expression. Civil liberties groups and even senior police figures have warned that these arrests often involve vague legal thresholds and can sweep up entirely lawful speech in pursuit of “offensive” content.
House of Lords Library

The comparison chart going around isn’t a robust international ranking the numbers for other countries (Belarus, Germany, China etc) aren’t from comparable legal data sets, and each state has very different speech laws and enforcement practices. So it’s misleading to treat it as a straight apples-for-apples “UK is worst in the world” metric.

The Standard

But here’s the serious point:

Free speech isn’t speech without consequences, it’s speech that can be expressed without fear of disproportionate state punishment.

When police are making tens of thousands of arrests for online comments under broad and outdated laws, when people are detained over jokes or political criticisms that cause “anxiety,” and when even high-profile figures are investigated for controversial posts, that should ring alarm bells for everyone who cares about democracy.
Hansard

We should be clear, nobody is arguing that genuine threats or incitement to violence should go unchallenged. Racist, sexist, homophobic or genuinely menacing behaviour has no place on our streets or online. But:

🔹 Arresting people for clumsy or offensive wording,
🔹 Using old communications laws built before social media to police speech,
🔹 Letting police act as arbiters of “acceptable opinion”

…these are not signs of a healthy free society. They are signs of creeping authoritarianism dressed up as “public protection.”

The Left has always stood for collective self-expression, democratic debate, and the right to challenge power without the heavy hand of the state looming over us. That means protecting people from harassment, not policing political disagreement or punishing unpopular opinions.

A society that outlaws speech it merely dislikes is a society where dissent dies quietly, and the powerful breathe easier.

Freedom of expression means defending speech you disagree with, not just speech you like. If we don’t stand up for that principle, we lose more than a meme or a tweet; we lose the foundation of democratic struggle itself.

“Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death.” - George Orwell 1984

14/12/2025

The terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025 was a shocking act of violence that claimed the lives of at least 12 people and wounded dozens more during a Hanukkah celebration, in what Australian authorities have described as an antisemitic terrorist attack on a peaceful community event.

Amid the horror and heartbreak, there was a remarkable act of courage: 43-year-old Ahmed al-Ahmed, a local fruit shop owner and father of two, tackled and disarmed one of the suspected gunmen, seizing his rifle and likely preventing even greater loss of life. Ahmed was shot twice during his intervention and is currently recovering in hospital.

Our thoughts are with all of the victims, their families, and everyone affected by this senseless violence, from those whose lives were taken to the survivors struggling in hospital, to the wider Sydney community left reeling by the attack. In moments of horror like this, it is ordinary people’s bravery, solidarity, and compassion that reveal the strength of the human spirit.