He literally fucked around and found out. Should never have been in the women's prison in the first place of course. https://t.co/o75rBOMYlf — Clive Simpson (@QueensSpeechUK) July 11, 2024 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js He's serving a life sentence for murdering his parents, and then ended up in the women's prison after claiming he was trans – as you…

Continuing with the trucking theme – here getting down to the nuts and bolts. John Vachon, March 1943. "Baltimore, Maryland. Associated Transport Company trucking terminal. Truck service shop." [Photo: Shorpy/John Vachon for the Office of War Information]

It's not just Annaliese Dodds we have to worry about: Lisa Nandy is the new culture secretary. Joan Smith at UnHerd: “The era of culture wars is over,” according to the new Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy. Speaking to staff at her department yesterday, she condemned “polarisation, division and isolation”, and promised to make culture more…

More on Jean-Luc Mélenchon (previously), from French journalist Michel Gurfinkiel at the JC: Some observers have described Mélenchon as a Corbyn on steroids. The editor of L’Express, the centrist weekly magazine, recently offered another comparison: Mélenchon is today what Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right agitator, used to be for about 20 years, from the early Eighties…

Jo Bartosch in the Telegraph on Annaliese Dodds, our new women and equalities mnister: Despite having given birth to two children, she has been reticent to explain what a woman is. When asked on Woman’s Hour in 2022 for her definition, Dodds replied that it depended on the context. Like Starmer – who has shifted from…

John Vachon, February 1943. "Truckers talking outside a diner on U.S. Highway 40 in Delaware." [Photo: Sh0rpy/John Vachon for the Office of War Information]

I posted a few days back about the new supposedly reformist Iranian president – "there is NO reform with the Islamic Republic". Now here's Jason Brodsky at the JC – Don’t fall for the spin that Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, is a reformer: Pezeshkian is a career Islamic Republic loyalist. He has boasted of…

A film club with a difference, as North Korea's determination to fight the spread of ideologically impure films from South Korea continues apace. From the Daily NK: South Pyongan Province’s party committee recently organized screenings of Korean War-era films, requiring viewers to submit written impressions afterward. A source in South Pyongan Province, speaking anonymously for…

Sarah Ditum at UnHerd clarifies where we are now with Labour and women. Yes it's better than it was, but they still don't get it. Trans issues can be classed as what the writer Helen Lewis has called a “brown M&M” test, after the band Van Halen which included a demand in their rider for…

Maintenance being done on the USS Potomac (AT-50) in Dry Dock No. 1 of League Island (Philadelphia Naval Yard) in 1907. [Photo: Shorpy]