On Tuesday evening MPs spent the best part of four hours walking round in circles voting on the Lords’ amendments to the Illegal Migration Bill.  Ludicrously we spent longer voting on the 18 amendments in issue than we spent debating them. The hours of walking around to vote were a terrible waste of everyone’s time.  The mechanics of voting at Westminster are crazy. With electronic votes taking say 5 minutes each, voting on the amendments could have been dealt with in about an hour and half.   

IN October 2019, two women organised a meeting to set up a new gay rights organisation. One was a former Stonewall fundraiser; the other had been a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s. Their names are Kate Harris and Bev Jackson and I am proud to call them my friends. Their intention was that their organisation would campaign for the rights of those who are same-sex attracted. 

Today is the 7th anniversary of the Brexit referendum. The economic damage is plain to see but Labour doesn’t want to talk about it and of course, neither do the Conservatives. The only way Scotland will re-join the EU is with independence.  

"The status quo is not working.” The frank and honest beginning of Jess Phillips MP’s speech during the parliamentary debate about the definition of “sex” in the Equality Act hit the nail on the head. The discrimination that women have been subject to through the ages is a result of our biological sex and equality law protections designed to prevent discrimination against women have always been intended to protect us from sex-based discrimination.