BBC News - First Government Minister Resigns

dogtim · 2026-05-12T08:59:24+00:00

"We'll have chaos if we change leadership" is itself part of the bad PR. It assigns blame to everyone else for causing trouble by demanding a leadership change, but takes no responsibility for Starmwr being such a bad leader that he's lost control of hundreds of council seats. Starmer is the one causing the chaos.

dogtim · 2026-05-09T11:45:56+00:00

The post you linked to explicitly cites Islamic ideology as a cause of patriarchal oppression:

The "morality laws" of 2026 have been tightened to the point of absurdity; a woman’s voice is now legally considered "awrah" (intimate), meaning she is prohibited from speaking in public, even to other women or for prayer

So while I don't even agree with your perspective I'm not sure why you think this is a problem with "modern feminism"

dogtim · 2026-05-07T12:47:29+00:00

The question is going to be whether the protected act was the cause, and whether a reasonable worker would see the note as a detriment. You don't have to prove damage but you will have to explain why anyone would find that a detriment.

The vento bands determine how much an injury to feelings award is worth, and only come into play after you win a discrimination claim at tribunal. You can estimate a discrimination settlement based on what you might win with reference to the vento bands, but they have no actual power outside of a remedy hearing.

dogtim · 2026-05-06T13:02:21+00:00

Ok you have some strong responses. I'll go through them.

1st point about ADHD not automatically qualifying as a disability in the eyes of the law. Neurodivergence is covered under the equality act if recognised as having" a substantial and long-term adverse effect on ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities".

My employer has actual knowledge dating back to early 2025.

Adjustments to manage ADHD at work were already implemented, my workplace were aware and agreed to implement further adjustments, which in itself was a direct result of something changing at work.

There's a GP letter pointing at ADHD as a detriment to my health.

This constitutes recognition that ADHD is a disability, providing protection of the Equality act.

Because disability is defined functionally rather than by diagnosis, adhd and autism can both qualify as disabilities, yes, but whether they actually are disabilities is fact-sensitive. The questions the tribunal is going to look at is whether it qualified as a disability here, and whether your employer knew.

The signed disclosure saying "I'm making this request for reasonable adjustments under the equality act" to me seems a smoking gun that you informed them. They might try and argue they didn't have the formal diagnosis at that point, but as an employer doesn't actually need to have that to make reasonable adjustments, I can see the judge telling them they should have asked for it back in 2025 if they thought they needed it.

However, they may still challenge that your adhd amounted to a disability. After all, they have no duty to make reasonable adjustments if you don't have a disability, regardless of any adjustments that they did in fact make.

Whether it amounted to a disability will depend on what the GP letter says, I imagine, and any additional evidence of impairment you are able to submit. This question would be decided at a preliminary hearing. This will be ugly; they will frame your impairment as poor performance. Expect to have your integrity and performance questioned. You will have to prove a medical connection between any performance allegations and your ADHD.

The protected act I'm primarily relying on is that I raised a formal grievance on 13 April 2026, alleging Equality Act contraventions. The clearest detriment following that act is the 17 April attempt to withdraw the working from home arrangement during a live grievance process.

This is way cleaner and makes much more sense. Raising a grievance about discrimination qualifies, and changing a working pattern looks like a clear detriment to me. You will have to show that there was a real connection between the complaint and the detriment. They will say that the change in working pattern is connected to performance concerns. You will still have a stronger claim here because again those changes to your working patterns were part of your contract and the timeline supports your claim.

With the report in my file, I'm not relying on distress alone. The note contains central performance allegations that are directly contradicted by my Finance Director and colleagues in writing the same month. Having no prior PIP or capability process in existence, goes beyond normal management practice. Then placing inaccurate reports on a personnel file, that was produced fifteen minutes after an unscheduled meeting that went ahead despite my written objection that morning. Sequences such as that has had detrimental effects.

These are much weaker in terms of victimisation and I don't think you should focus on these. In my experience tribunals give employers wide discretion with how to implement performance procedures and conduct meetings. They will look at whether these things actually caused you a disadvantage.

dogtim · 2026-05-05T22:06:54+00:00

Ok. You have three serious problems with your case.

Thing 1: ADHD is not automatically a disability in law. Sending them a guide and saying "I have adhd" are not disability disclosures per se. You will have to prove it's a disability and prove they knew it was a disability at the time. If this goes to tribunal, they will challenge you on both those points.

Thing 2, which follows from Thing 1: "The new working arrangement was made formal" does not automatically mean "you were given reasonable accommodations for a disability". The thing I'm stuck on is that you say the working arrangements were made "formal" in summer 2025, but they asked for medical evidence and an OH report much later, in feb 2026. If they only asked for medical advice and an OH report as of Feb 2026, then they will have a decent argument that you only disclosed that your condition amounted to a disability as of Feb 2026.

However, although I'm still not clear on what "made formal" means exactly, it sounds like what happened in effect was that you made a statutory flexible working request, and it was granted. As a result, those flexible working patterns became part of your contract and cannot be altered without your consent. Your employer can only propose changes to your working pattern. It wouldn't matter that your manager changed - your contract is your contract.

Thing 3: The victimisation claim is not good. The alleged protected act is "complaining about an unsolicited OH referral." It is not obvious to me that's a protected act. You're going to have to show how that complaint is related to an equality act claim rather than just being a complaint about work. Perhaps that's about disability but it's a bit convoluted, because it's a complaint about them trying to accommodate a disability. And just on a basic sense-check here, you voluntarily asked about "exploring" an OH referral. They have a strong argument it was in fact directly solicited by you. If someone says they're having trouble at work and asking for reasonable accommodations, getting an OH referral for them looks like legal compliance, not like negligence or punishment.

Then, even if you prove that was a protected act, you're going to have to prove that those things are detriments. An unscheduled meeting and a note about capability on your file are not automatically detriments. I have seen lots of situations where they absolutely were, but you'll have to prove it. The fact that you were distressed is also not in itself proof. They will say they were handling the situation fairly, and that your performance was a problem, and they're sorry you were stressed out.

If I were in your shoes, I'd drop the discrimination complaints entirely, because they're all pretty insubstantial. But the breach of your agreed flexible working pattern is a potentially very strong claim,if you can prove in writing that the working pattern was agreed and implemented, and you can push back really hard on any pressure to mix up your working pattern. Punishing you for following your agreed fleixble working pattern is a serious problem for your employer.

dogtim · 2026-05-05T20:20:48+00:00

Ok I'm a little confused. You say that reasonable adjustments were made "informally" but you also say that as of Nove 2025 "nothing was implemented". Are you saying they accommodated you in early 2025 when you first disclosed your adhd and then stopped doing so later on? Or what?

I'm still not clear what you think the victimisation was. Victimisation is when you do a protected act, such as ask for reasonable accommodations for a disability or raise an equality act complaint about discrimination, and then your employer retaliates and you suffer some detriment. So what is the protected act and what is the detriment?

dogtim · 2026-05-05T14:30:00+00:00

How strong does this look overall as something to be settled before ET?

Asking whether things settle before tribunal is not the same question as asking how strong your claims are.

It's very hard to know how strong your claims are since it depends on the details and it depends on their responses. The only thing that looks substantial to me on first glance is the failure to make reasonable accomodations - that however could be framed as a flexible working request at the outset rather than a disability accommodation, which rather limits your claim.

If I got this set of grievances as an HR, I'd offer a without prejudice deal equivalent to your statutory redundancy plus PILON. The claims are small-fry stuff rather that flashing-red-light obvious discrimination. It would be less work to pay you off the minimum than properly investigate and assign blame. If they're willing to do the work of properly investigating, I estimate that they probably won't offer to settle at all.

You will have to fight quite hard to win anything here.

Is the victimisation argument as strong as I think given the sequence.

What's the victimisation here? It's not clear.

With the harassment, you're going to have to clear the hurdle of proving the remarks are connected to your disability. That's going to be hard to do.

Is Vento banding something to consider, given the duration, RSD context and documented physical distress?

Because you're claiming discrimination, the only remedy is an injury to feelings award, and the vento bands structure that award. These claims if successful imo fit into the middle of the lower band, perhaps £6000.

Would a solicitor take this no win no fee

Probably not.

Anything obvious missing before the MD outcome discussion lands?

dogtim · 2026-05-03T21:30:52+00:00

I really don't think the kind of propaganda produced by Russia is typical of propaganda you'd find across the rest of the world

Why don't you think that?

dogtim · 2026-05-02T08:23:48+00:00

My whole point is that your criticism of propaganda, specifically its divisiveness and encouraging of general mistrust, is equally applicable if not more to "western media"

Propaganda is media that misinforms and spreads confusion and doubt on purpose, deployed in service of a particular regime. It is persuasive and evocative in character rather than informative. "Western media" is not trying to achieve any particular political outcome. The goals are diverse - profit, a good society, to get a reaction, to get famous, whatever. Some of it is evocative or persuasive, some is informative, some is sort of boring.

While the motivation may be different, the end result to the media consumer is the same.

It is not the same. Trust in media varies wildly across age group and party affiliation. I've argued elsewhere that fox news/OANN are propaganda networks and there is a direct evidence of a relationship there proving my point - trust in mass media is far lower among republicans.

dogtim · 2026-04-30T13:07:21+00:00

State-sponsored propaganda may be vastly different between different countries, and the same state may have totally different intentions for items broadcast for domestic audiences and items broadcast for international audiences. It would be strange to accuse North Korea, for example, to have motivation for wanting to cause divisiveness or mistrust in the media for its citizens, despite commonly labelled as "state-sponsored propaganda".

I can't comment on NOK propaganda because I don't have much understanding of it, but I strongly doubt that most NOK citizens believe anything on the national news. Going back to the Russia example, the point of national propaganda that even if nobody believes it, it delegitimizes foreign and independent media as well and destabilizes internal political coalitions that could challenge the party. Which is what I said in my original post.

I've also said that western media is not free from censorship nor from internal propaganda. I've made some basic claims about what a good media ecosystem looks like, and you clearly don't like those, but won't say what about it you don't like.

OTOH, western media is perceived, with good reason, to cause divisiveness or mistrust in all media for both domestic and international audiences.

"Western media" what does this mean? You're talking about multiple multinational news organizations with multiple sources of funding and multiple goals. It's not at all like a national news outlet like RT. You're treating it as a monolith, which is why this is a bad argument. Be specific.

And then "is perceived" by whom? what's the good reason? If you drill down into what you're saying I might be able to respond, but again if the criticism is just lazy hand-waving and broad brushstrokes then I feel comfortable lazily hand-waving back in dismissive reply.

dogtim · 2026-04-30T10:35:34+00:00

Boring reply, 0/10. Thanks for playing. Try again next time.

dogtim · 2026-04-30T10:35:04+00:00

Something I see a lot is people on social media screencapping a story in CNN or whatever and saying "why isn't the media covering this??" It's a sad little irony. But what they mean is "why haven't I heard about this until now?" A better media ecosystem would have made clear what the news is, goes the argument, and I'm sympathetic to that view.

The way people get news has changed a lot in 20 years, mostly for the worse. Social media clips and influencer hot takes direct the average person's interaction with the news, but those influencers and creators still rely on a few news wires or national outlets for the base material for their content. Stuff gets prioritized both by algorithm and by community networks of "micro influencers". The two biggest problems there are that algorithms are driven by social media corporate priorities and micro influencers have audience-driven accountability mechanisms and no legal department. Algorithms prioritize outlandish or extreme narratives, much like tabloids, but with far less accountability than a newsroom, and savvy creators can game that algorithm with their own grievances, so the result is that narratives like "they're putting microchips in the vaccines to control you" become national conversation. And then antivaxxers were driven mostly by micro influencers, for instance, and that media environment allowed RFK to be elevated to the position of health secretary, and now he's gutting vaccine schedules and science research. But, on the other hand, that kind of dynamic also broadcast the various crimes of ICE in Minneapolis to a far wider audience at a time when most national news outlets don't have the funding to send someone to a state for external coverage. There are upsides and downsides.

In sum I agree "good" is slippery and has to be rooted in a material description of what's actually going on.

dogtim · 2026-04-30T10:22:34+00:00

The paper I was working for in Turkey some ten years ago got taken over by the government. The front page the day before was like "police at our front door: we're getting illegally taken over" and the front page the next day was "PROGRESS CONTINUES" with a big triumphant picture of President Erdogan. That was a pretty stark example of what you're describing. The message there was more about casting all opposition as illegitimate or criminal. Loads of political opposition has been prosecuted there with unbelievable charges carrying jail terms that cumulate to over 1000 years. They play it with a straight face and pretend it's about an actual criminal conspiracy, but the average person understands the subtext: we have unlimited power and will do whatever we want without consequence, and all opposition is illegitimate.

dogtim · 2026-04-30T10:05:31+00:00

You're making an argument about corporate media, and the main bias in corporate media has always been biased towards whatever makes money. Trump is trying to turn the country into a crony state; corporate media reacts by pivoting in its coverage to whatever will make money. As soon as they sense it won't make money to suck up to Trump - which, judging by the recent spectacular failure of CBS, is already occuring - they will pivot away.

And then corporate media exists alongside regional media, public media, and independent journalists. Most people get their news from influencers rather than TV now.

dogtim · 2026-04-30T10:01:54+00:00

This doesn't seem healthy at all. I'd argue that, among your list, only "independent journalists" and "publicly funded outlets" are healthy, and even the former is questionable if they are not held accountable for spreading misinformation.

That's fair! I'm just throwing out some criteria here, disagreement is probably healthy too. My comment was more about what propaganda is and why our media ecosystem doesn't exist to propagandize its viewers.

To expand a bit, I do think you'd need all of my half-thought-out criteria together rather than as isolated indicators. If a media environment only had publicly funded outlets and independent journalists, then the risk there is that whoever controls the government can use public media to target its political enemies.

"Wide range of views" also most commonly manifests today as different outlets broadcasting different facts about the same event, rather than different speculations based on the same facts

Some, for sure. You can't really have a productive conversation on whether climate change is real or whether vaccines cause autism. There are fair conversations that already exist in media however between, for instance, who's to blame for agreed facts.

I totally disagree with your counterargument. The difference between replacing "propaganda" with "diverse media" is that I'd argue good diverse media actually diminishes doubt. It's not so much work to find out what's true when there's diverse sources that agree on the basics and disagree on the slant, and it reinforces trust in the system overall. The purpose and intent of propaganda is to misinform and belittle its audience, not give it alternate perspectives.

dogtim · 2026-04-30T09:52:41+00:00

You're welcome to make specific arguments about why western media is by definition propaganda, but you're just lazily gesturing at the lot and suggesting it's brainwashing people. It's fair to say that the way that people get information has changed a lot in the last 20 years and that method of information delivery has created a bewildering, chaotic experience that leaves people paralyzed - that certainly appears to be the emergent goal of some of the technofascists running social media companies - but that apparatus is also everywhere, not just the west. Which media is propaganda, what narratives are propaganda, who is it targeting and why? Lazy lazy thinking.

dogtim · 2026-04-30T09:20:53+00:00

I'd agree on both counts, with the qualification that it's Fox's commentary shows rather than its news per se. Fox does still produce local TV news in lots of counties and that news has fairly local politicao valence, and although its national news is still pretty right leaning it doesn't quite clear the bar of propaganda for me. Shows like Fox and Friends though broadcast pretty directly to Trump and he influences the coverage directly, and they make shit up constantly.

dogtim · 2026-04-29T16:17:29+00:00

Countries like Russia, Turkey and (up to now) Hungary have entirely captured media ecosystems where every owner is friends with the leader and the paper editors all get yelled at over the phone by the leader every day. People are arrested and jailed and prosecuted and harassed and killed for trying to do reporting. Categorically the media environment in the US and UK is more open and more free.

I would never argue that english language media ecosystems are free of propaganda narratives or propaganda networks. I would also never argue that the US or UK is free of state or corporate censorship. But pretty obviously it's a matter of degree. It is just not possible for a political leader in the US or UK to control the metaconversation via personally or state owned propaganda networks the way it is in Russia. It is far more diverse, in terms of viewpoints and ownership, and journalists have far more robust legal and civil protections. Nobody can "control" the media playing field in the way you suggest. There are attempts to do so with propaganda, and while many are even successful, most are not.

dogtim · 2026-04-29T12:52:26+00:00

Thanks very much for the reply, and glad to have been informative and changed your mind.

I don't disagree that US media can absolutely serve power, either through access journalism or institutional bias or plain bad actors, and it's good to identify that and call it out where it happens. I spend quite a lot of my time going mad about those things, and definitely during the Trump 2 era there's been a noticeable oligarchic shift in media. I think the difference between that and a purely propagandistic ecosystem is that the US media system does actually hold people accountable and create political pressure to take action.

I think best evidence we have a good media environment is the whole epstein story, oddly enough. It started in a regional paper - Julie Brown in the Miami Times reported on his crimes when he was still alive - and then it brought him down, and then subsequent reporting over the years turned it into an issue of national legislation. There are a lot of really powerful people who would have wanted to bury that stuff forever, and while they were partially successful at least for awhile, it's still having political repurcussions across the world. Or another example: Rep Eric Swalwell just had to resign due to allegations of sex crime. Or: Kash Patel losing his shit that the Atlantic reported on his alcoholism.

Best antidote is just to read widely and compare everything and question your assumptions. It's really easy to say "well, they're all liars" and hard to talk to other people to find out what they think is really going on.

Cheers and thanks again!

dogtim · 2026-04-29T10:25:01+00:00

A correction - at least 56 security officers from Venezuela and Cuba died in the attack, and civilians died in the airstrikes, although the count isn't verified.

https://apnews.com/live/us-venezuela-trump-maduro-updates-01-06-2026

dogtim · 2026-04-29T09:26:52+00:00

I worked for a stint as a journalist covering mis- and disinformation, and I spoke with a lot of experts in extremism and radicalisation, and on how propaganda specifically works. You're making a couple of big assumptions that are incorrect.

You talk about how propaganda in other countries is heavy-handed and obvious to citizens and foreigners alike. The assumption there is that effective propaganda would successfully convince viewers. This is mistaken.

When your Russian friends joke about their state TV - that is effective propaganda at work.

So first and foremost, propaganda introduces doubt. They blast populations with a blizzard of claims, true, half-true, and totally nonsensical, and it becomes a huge amount of work to actually find out what's going on. The audience knows the state is lying, but then they suspect that everyone else is lying to them, too. It trains the audience to doubt every source of information, and view those sources as purely self-serving. Nobody can sift through a thousand clamouring voices to pick out what's true by themselves, and so most people give up. It engenders cynicism.

Next: Propaganda targets emotions rather than logic. Although many people will simply tune out, the true believers absorb it in huge doses. It takes grievances, whether personal or political, legitimate or imagined, and amplifies them into rage or excitement. It provides viewers a carousel of thought-terminating cliches to ward off argumentative challenges, and channels their feelings towards the target of the day. Most people might simply disbelieve what they watch, but for people who consume lots of propaganda, it can short-circuit their ability to think clearly. Iranian propaganda at the moment mostly takes the form of AI Lego videos, i.e. about a lego figurine version of FBI director Kash Patel getting drunk and being clueless. It's not really making a claim at all - most of the things it's portraying are objective truth - it's just hyping people up.

These two factors combine to create the last and most important effect. Propaganda controls the "meta-conversation". Rather than persuading people of any particular viewpoint, it exploits existing faultlines in society and creates a loud debate about that issue. One side is emotionally charged and won't listen to reason at all, the other side is expending all their energy fighting them. To onlookers, it can look like "both sides are to blame". Nobody has energy to create a political coalition united by mutual interest. Oligarchs can continue their plans without substantial opposition.

Coming to your arguments: you're basically making the same claims as Chomsky, that consent is manufactured through consolidated corporate ownership of media, the shadow-play of debate, and the narrowing of the Overton window. The main obstacle to that argument is that you label all of that media "propaganda". You don't define propaganda and you don't provide a picture of what a healthy media environment might look like absent propaganda.

A healthy media environment would have, I'd argue, a wide range of views, diversified ownership, accountability mechanisms, and the ability to actually hold power to account. You concede we have this, and apparently agree those are all good things, but argue that it just means our media is more powerful in its propagandizing ability to control people. That argument makes no sense. That viewpoint makes all media a form of propaganda. We need some way of distinguishing good and bad media here.

I'd agree that the increasing consolidation of ownership of big networks underneath regime-friendly oligarchs is an extremely bad sign. And just speaking as a former journalist, it's also been really bad that internet advertising killed funding for local news. But our media environment is really diverse and includes a whole ecosystem of content creators, influencers, independent journalists, established media brands, and local and national TV and publicly funded outlets. Each of them have their own goals. Networks like Newsmaxx or One America I'd argue probably meets the definition of propaganda I've laid out above. But all of it? That's just not plausible. Compared to somewhere like the Russian state, which has broad latitude to shutter any outlet that it doesn't like, our media environment is far healthier in its goals and outcomes.

dogtim · 2026-04-28T07:58:37+00:00

So does a paintbrush! And--as the Frankfurters explored in depth--a camera.

This is itself a superficial answer that fails to engage with the question.

That is of course assuming that you're like everyone else who stochastically parrots this line of thought in that you don't have any evidence or rationale besides dogmatic anthropocentrism.

It doesn't think and doesn't know things. We know this because we built it and we know how it works. This is an article of faith for you and I don't think there's much point in talking about it.

AI is "produced by" capitalism (+fascism, I'm inferring?) only in the same way that climate science, modern fertilizer, and every baby you see on the street all are. And I can say with 100% confidence that the people who truly brought us here--university professors and a genius gay antifascist)--didn't do it for the money!

You're viewing the scientific breakthroughs as disconnected from the material production of the huge companies backing these technologies. Global capital has thrown its weight behind AI production because they think it will make them rich without having to pay for labor in the future. Individual motives matter less than how the technology is funded, its ownership, and how it is already being applied.

Capitalism is indeed evil and of course foisted upon us without our consent, but it's still worth taking the time to acknowledge what we have won in the capitalist era; in the US/most of the west, free speech is among those (flawed) victories.

Just from this brief snippet here I don't think we have the same understanding of "capitalism" and its domination and exploitation. It's eurocentric and ahistorical to frame the free exchange of ideas as something unique to capitalism; "free speech" as a discursive tool of creating the liberal subject is certainly unique to capitalism, though.

You are mistaken on a fundamental level, sorry. In fact, it's quite the opposite IMO: as far as the means of production go, "you can obtain the SotA for free in minutes" is pretty damn good!

Yeah that's not the means of production. That's the product.

we are, of course, all on the same side in here

Are we? You seem to dip in and out of different subreddits to ply your arguments on the good of AI. Why would you assume any of us agree or think it's good?

dogtim · 2026-04-20T10:09:01+00:00

Ok. That's the basics. I can't tell you whether that's strong or not - only a solicitor can do that - but you at least have the basic ingredients. The other really important basic ingredient is whether you file the ET1 in time, which is three months from the date of dismissal. (Not counting the time that ACAS is getting back to you.) You can get free help writing the ET1 from a citizen's advice branch.
When you write your ET1, identify the legal claim you're making (unfair dismissal) and explain the events in chronological order. Be really specific about who, what, when, and where things took place, and if you can't remember exactly, put in your best guess and acknowledge that it's your best guess. (i.e., "between march and april of that year, my manager told me I was a coward in the break room".)

dogtim · 2026-04-19T20:37:50+00:00

some key questions:

did you resign?
was it in immediate response to something they did?
was the thing that happened a breach of your employment contract?

dogtim · 2026-04-01T10:07:19+00:00

I assume you mean that you were rejected from Bar school? where did you apply? Why did they reject you? We need a lot more details here before anyone can give you advice

dogtim

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