This is a bit complicated.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is the government department that pays social security benefits in the UK. There are a range of benefits. Some of these benefits are for people who cannot work because of disability. In order to qualify for some of these disability benefits you need to have a medical assessment with an "independent" doctor. This doctor is independent from the patient. They're employed by companies who are paid by the DWP, so there's supposed to be some kind of arm's length arrangement there.

A doctor was employed by one of these companies to do this assessment work for the DWP. He was a committed Christian. He held that he would not be able to refer to people by anything other than the gender they were assigned at birth.

The DWP is clear: you must respect a person's choice of pronouns.

The General Medical Council (the registrant body for doctors in England) is also clear: you must not impose your personal views upon your patients, especially if it's going to cause distress.

This doctor was spoken to about his beliefs. He declined to change his stance. He lost his job. He took his employer to employment tribunal for unfair dismissal based on discrimination against his protected characteristic: his religious views.

He lost his case.

Here's the legal document: https://christianconcern.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CC-Resource-Judgment-Mackereth-DWP-Others-ET-191002.pdf

It's pretty long! 42 pages! The last pages give a summary.

You'll notice the URL. He was supported by the Christian Legal Centre. I won't say anything about them, but I'll link this page which gives some useful information: https://nearlylegal.co.uk/2018/04/on-the-naughty-step-the-questionable-ethics-of-the-christian-legal-centre/

The UK Supreme Court just ruled that the prorogation of parliament was unlawful, which means it didn't happen.

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2019-0193.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49810261

This is a pretty big deal.

It's hard to see how Johnson can continue as PM.

Channel 4 describe the programme "Series that captures the work of police, probation, prison, prosecution and parole".

Here's a link to the first episode: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/crime-and-punishment/on-demand/64655-001

Crime and punishment is a documentary series that looks inside prison to tell the stories of the criminal justice system from the viewpoint of those involved.

The first episode spends some time talking about the unjust "Imprisonment for Public Protection"[1] sentences (these are no longer given by the courts but there are thousands of prisoners still imprisoned on them), how they went wrong, and the awful effect they have upon prisoners. It's a difficult watch. It shows how severely the mental health of prisoners is when they're on this type of sentence, including their serious self harm.

Episode two talks about pressure inside prisons and how that results in "riots", about how prisoners use the only power they have available to them.

I like the programme because it avoids judgmentalism. The prisoners are not reduced to the bad guys; the officers are not simplified to the good guys. You hear a little bit about some of the offences committed by the prisoners

Here's a Twitter thread from someone working in the English NHS. She works in forensic services as a psychologist. https://twitter.com/SarahE_Davidson/status/1173707912981700608

I guess Channel 4 On Demand have geo-blocking. I don't know if it's available on other services, or on torrent.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprisonment_for_public_protection

This is a British cookery show. They take a bunch of people who cook for a living but who have basic skills. These people are paired with a chef who has four Michelin stars and eighteen restaurants. They visit different restaurants around Europe to have competitions to cook that restaurant's own food.

Things I enjoy about it: it does a good job of showing that people who have somewhat fucked up lives will always find a place in cheffing. They could have stayed in the UK but they decided to go around Europe.[1] There's a couple of incidents of poor behaviour being corrected (some of the women chefs are ignored and spoken over by some men, the women stand up for themselves and get an apology).

Things I don't like: there's some cheffy bollocks around the pressure and discipline of a brigade; it's still a reality-show competition and that introduces some artificiallity; they send people home each week and I always hate that aspect of programmes.

It's available on Pirate Bay.

Here are some reviews which I think are fair.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jul/30/the-chefs-brigade-review-a-cookery-challenge-worthy-of-willy-wonka

https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/the-chefs-brigade-bbc2-episode-1-review-jason-atherton/

[1] I can't describe how pathologically awful Brexit has been for the UK. :-(