Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

Went out in Chorley this evening. Got attacked for being trans. Punched in the face and physically assaulted. If JK Rowling and her tribe think that they’re doing good for the world, I challenge them to look at the bruises on my face and to tell me otherwise. I’ll bite your fucking nose off.

November 9, 2025 at 1:15 AM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Patchwork Rattlebag

@patchworkrattlebag.bsky.social

The 'Vertigo Dreams' music video is now available on YouTube following its premiere at @godisinthetvzine.bsky.social

YouTube - youtu.be/QMr0U7W9PxA?...

Digital - ditto.fm/vertigo-dreams

Bandcamp - patchworkrattlebag.bandcamp.com

#newsingle #youmaketheconnections #wearepatchworkrattlebag

Vertigo Dreams (Official Music Video)

Patchwork Rattlebag - Vertigo Dreams Single release - 07/11/2025 Streaming platforms (excluding Spotify) - https://ditto.fm/vertigo-dreams Bandcamp (pay what you want) -…

youtu.be

November 7, 2025 at 3:34 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

Me: What on earth are you doing John? It’s been a week and I’ve heard nothing

John Lennon: I’m saving the world

Me: You’re in bed..?

JL: Saaaaving the wooolrd 🙂

Me: It stinks in here, have you been in bed all week??

JL: I doing it for wooolrd 🙂

Me: FFS is that heroin?

JL: Savin wolrd peas 🙂

January 28, 2025 at 11:48 AM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

Jeremy Vine has worms for fingers and he tickles all the cakes in secret

March 22, 2025 at 5:34 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Patchwork Rattlebag

@patchworkrattlebag.bsky.social

Vertigo Dreams, the second single from our album 'Fragments 1', will be released on 7th November 2025.

Available on all digital platforms, excluding Spotify.

Pre-order - ditto.fm/vertigo-dreams

#singlerelease #youmaketheconnections #wearepatchworkrattlebag #boycottspotify #nomusicforgenocide

October 27, 2025 at 6:55 AM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

Trans people are like City fans. By the amount that their respective community is spoken about you’d think there was millions of us when in reality there’s about 38 of us

September 21, 2025 at 10:11 PM

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

Playing Dragon Quest 11 on Switch and I just adore Sylvando

October 16, 2025 at 4:38 PM

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

My EP has been out for a bit, I was kinda mentally indisposed around the time i should’ve been promoting it. It’s about my coming to terms with my trans identity and there is an element of chronology contained in the songs and the order they appear

j0ri.bandcamp.com/album/metamorphosis

METAMORPHOSIS, by j0ri

4 track album

j0ri.bandcamp.com

September 24, 2025 at 1:06 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

flyingrodent

@flyingrodent.bsky.social

On the one hand, it is *incredibly* aggravating that this is being Noticed now, and Noticed via being passed to a Tory MP to make it look like a new story in particular. On the other, this letter is a Who’s Who of people who spent early 2024 bragging to journos about how smart they’d been.

Vijay Rangarajan
Chief Executive
Electoral Commission
By email: pef@electoralcommission.org.uk
20 September 2025
Dear Vijay,
LABOUR TOGETHER: REQUEST FOR INVESTIGATION
I am writing, on behalf of the Conservative Party, to request that the Electoral Commission opens an investigation into the alleged actions of Morgan McSweeney and the members' association, Labour Together.
New information has come to light that raises the question of whether a criminal offence has been committed, such that the Electoral Commission would wish to initiate a formal inquir and then to refer the incident to the police.
The previous investigation for hiding donations
Morgan McSweeney was Secretary of Labour Together - the role responsible for compliance and administration, from 10 July 2017 to 4 April 2020.'
As you will be aware, in September 2021, the Electoral Commission found that Labour Together broke the law by failing to report £739,492 of political donations. The Commission fined Labour Together £14,250 for (a) failure to deliver donation reports within 30 days of accepting donations, (b) inaccurate reporting of a donation, and (c) failure to appoint responsible persons within 30 days of accepting donations?
These funds were used by Labour Together in a sustained political campaign to bring down Jeremy Corbyn and secure the election of Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour Party. Only after Keir Starmer had seized control of the Labour Party, in November 2020, and after Morgan McSweeney had joined the Labour Party as Starmer's Campaigns Director, did Labour Together approach the Electoral Commission to report the late donations.
The lawyers representing Labour Together blamed "human error and administrative oversight" and that their client had been as "open and transparent" as possible.' The Electoral Commission will hold the full copy of this letter, which has not previously been placed in the public domain.
' Companies House, Labour Together LTD, (link).
2 Electoral Commission, Mon…

New information on how the Electoral Commission was misled
The Conservative Party has now seen the internal correspondence between Morgan McSweeney (corresponding from a Labour Party email account) and Gerald Shamash* of solicitor Edwards Duthie Shamash. We assume that this email has been passed from within the Labour Party to outside sources. This correspondence relates to how the Electoral Commissior should be handled after the Commission had initiated its formal investigation
On 3 February 2021, Mr Shamash advises Morgan McSweeney:
"The amounts of the late reported donations is £739,492 and there are in my view, no easy way to explain how LT [Labour Together] finds itself in this situation."
• "The legislation is clear that notwithstanding LT should have reported."
• "The advice from the EC was that LT as a members association LT needed to continue to register."
• In that light, he recommends a strategy where "best to simply base our case as to the non-reporting down as admin error."
• The current Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is quoted that she recalled a meeting with Labour MPs in early 2019, where Morgan McSweeney told them that donations to Labour Together had to be, and were being, reported to the Electoral Commission.
• But, based on information from Shabana Mahmood and Steve Reed [current Local Government Secretary, who is in charge of electoral law], he notes that the intent of Labour Together was otherwise - to hide the donations "to protect Trevor [Chinn) as donor and director".
[EC's] suspicions".
• There is discussion of a notional conversation with the Electoral Commission in 2018 (incidentally, of which the Electoral Commission has no record*), where it is recommended should not be referenced given it would result in a "defensive approach" by the Electoral Commission; the advice is also that such an approach would be inconsistent with the reporting of a donation in August 2018.
I believe there is a strong public interest that this information is …

Alongside this, the Electoral Commission has released under the Freedom of Information Act® details of a phone call (rightly logged by the Electoral Commission under their case management system) of 14 November 2017 making clear that donations had to be reported.
"Labour Together have not been reporting donations to us, Mr McSweeney was under the impression that Labour Together did not have to report because they do not campaign.
However; Labour Together is a registered MA on our system. Mr McSweeney says they are not a members association and so this is where the confusion started... I advised him to report the donations to us with a cover letter saying why they had not been reported sooner and said that if the details in the system are wrong, we can review it."
In addition, the FOI shows that this was followed by an email of 6 December 2017 to Morgan McSweeney making this totally explicit.
"During our conversation on this matter (14/11/17), I said I would look into the question of whether Labour Together is a Members Association.
"The definition of a Members Association is: an organisation that is not a political party, but it is wholly, or mainly, made up of the members of a political party. As the board of Labour Together is mainly made up of Labour Party Members, it is considered to be a Members Association.
Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) there are rules that certain organisations must follow in relation to donations and loans that they receive in connection with their political activities, which include such activities as promoting or developing policies for adoption by a political party, or promoting the candidacy of an individual for internal party office. Groups that are wholly or mainly made up of members of a registered political party but exist outside that party's constitution are subject to these rules.
Under PPERA, members associations fall under 'regulated donee' rules.
Members associations do not need to regi…

€147,500 of donations during the period of the 2020 Labour Party leadership election when Morgan McSweeney was Secretary.*
In this new evidence which has come to light, there is discussion of Morgan McSweeney's
"defence that "LT was not at that time a campaigning organisation, was inward facing, had no public meetings, acted as a think tank without a Twitter account". But the lawyers are then explicit that "the legislation is clear" and "LT should have reported" the donations.
The
statutory tests above are obvious that just being 'inward facing' does not exempt one from the requirements to report donations.
The implications of this new revelation
Taken together, one could draw the following inferences:
• Labour Together and Morgan McSweeney were told they needed to report donations.
• They chose not to report those donations, as they did not want the Corbyn-led Labour Party to know who was bankrolling their secretive political campaigning, and to keep their work below the political radar. Whilst their donors could have faced intimidation from the hard-left, that is not justification for breaking the law.
• Once the Electoral Commission was investigating the case, a false excuse of administrative errors was concocted to minimise the sanctions they faced and the bad publicity. Morgan McSweeney's name was airbrushed out of the picture.
• The Home Secretary and the Local Government Secretary (in charge of criminal law, and political finance law, respectively) have been embroiled in this cover-up.
• The Electoral Commission was knowingly misled.
Potential for a criminal investigation
The Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 provides for a criminal offence under paragraph 13(3), Schedule 19B, of knowingly or recklessly providing false information to a person authorised to investigate possible offences under PPERA.' There is no risk of double jeopardy in this case, given it would clearly be a separate offence to the substantive failure to report political d…

September 23, 2025 at 6:33 AM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

alyson “december” greaves

@badambulist.bsky.social

I wonder for how many military people it was a radicalising moment to see the British press and political class go all-in on ‘protecting women’ from trans women and yet just kind of boys-will-be-boys away the rampant threat of sexual assault of women soldiers

Lee Hurley @hleehurley.com · Sep 24

"The British Army tried to suppress a report revealing that female soldiers were locking themselves in their bedrooms at night to avoid sexual assault by drunken male comrades." [Tiny piece in the Times p13]

September 24, 2025 at 9:13 AM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Stevie Chick

@steviechick.bsky.social

So apparently something I'll have to do now for ther foreseeable is play whack-a-mole and get Twitter to take down accounts impersonating me and DM-ing artists telling them they will write about them for MOJO or the Guardian if the artist pays them money.

September 24, 2025 at 9:11 AM

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

I’ve been approached by people pretending to be established journalists with the offer of interviews, articles and features for money. The worst part is they were much more convincing than I’ve ever seen scammers be.

Stevie Chick @steviechick.bsky.social · Sep 24

So apparently something I'll have to do now for ther foreseeable is play whack-a-mole and get Twitter to take down accounts impersonating me and DM-ing artists telling them they will write about them for MOJO or the Guardian if the artist pays them money.

September 24, 2025 at 12:27 PM

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

Trans people are like City fans. By the amount that their respective community is spoken about you’d think there was millions of us when in reality there’s about 38 of us

September 21, 2025 at 10:11 PM

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

Heavy is the head that wears the hotdog costume

Attitude Magazine @attitudemag.bsky.social · Sep 21

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has vowed to ensure the safety of LGBTQ+ patients in the NHS after hearing “firsthand” trans harassment accounts.
www.attitude.co.uk/news/wes-str...

Wes Streeting on issues faced by LGBTQ+ patients in NHS - highlighting ‘firsthand’ accounts of trans harassment

Health Secretary Streeting has pledged to tackle inequalities in LGBTQ+ healthcare, speaking to attendees at the LGBTQ+ NHS conference.

www.attitude.co.uk

September 21, 2025 at 10:26 AM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Steve 🏳️‍🌈🇬🇧

@wohyeahwohyeah.bsky.social

This is vile. Local guy speaks to Sky News about the impact of asylum seekers protests. Watch what happens and share widely

September 3, 2025 at 10:33 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Sooz Kempner

@soozuk.bsky.social

When I was announced as the lead in a Doctor Who spinoff in 2023 Graham Linehan tweeted about me for TWO DAYS, tagging the BBC and others to say that I am pro-child abuse and they shouldn't work with me.

newspaper article about glinner. Headline is "I was treated like a terrorist for my tweets, says Linehan"

September 3, 2025 at 1:52 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Andy Churnwell

@churnwell.bsky.social

Before you jeer at Sir Keir for campaigning as a progressive, then governing as a bigot panderer, consider this: that upon being elected party leader he was possessed by the ectoplasmic malice of his former master, the bearded warlock Jeremy Corbyn.

August 30, 2025 at 7:40 AM

Jo Rhiannon

@johelianthus.bsky.social

Sometimes I feel like a crab with no claws that is being perpetually prodded by a massive finger

August 4, 2025 at 10:54 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

alyson “december” greaves

@badambulist.bsky.social

THE SISTERS OF DORLEY: condition your hair properly

WHEN YOU FELL FROM HEAVEN: make delicious smoothies

SHOW GIRL and THE CATCH: put on a pretty skirt and kiss your boss

GLOW, WORM: drink blood and kiss vampires

KIMMY: DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT GET IN THE ROBOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES

Tamsin the Reimagined Girl™ @tamsin.reimaginedgirl.com · Jul 29

Nothing in @badambulist.bsky.social's previous work prepared me for just how many smoothies WHEN YOU FELL FROM HEAVEN would inspire me to make.

Seriously, it's been 5-6 per week, replacing what I normally had for lunch. I'm eating healthier, and our Vitamix has never gotten this much use. 😅

July 29, 2025 at 6:30 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

Lauren Rinaldi

@laurenrinaldi.bsky.social

Oh no I really hope Bill Clinton isn’t in the Epstein files, I’ll have to get rid of my Bill Clinton hat and my Bill Clinton sneakers and my Bill Clinton cologne and my Bill Clinton watch and take down my Bill Clinton flag and I’ll have to delete my Bill Clinton nft trading cards

July 24, 2025 at 8:02 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

marlo

@marlo.ooo

peach and daisy and pauline and rosalina are in some sort of complex polycule, obviously

Pop Crave @popcrave.com · Jul 25

Nintendo says that Mario and Peach are not a couple:

“[They] are good friends and help each other out whenever they can.”

July 25, 2025 at 6:26 PM

Reposted by Jo Rhiannon

alyson “december” greaves

@badambulist.bsky.social

as we enter into a new era of internet censorship, it is your solemn duty to break the egg prime directive. do it constantly. tell everyone. tell them again. tell them about estrogen and about T.

I made it to my mid-teens before I even knew what transition was. let’s not go back to that.

July 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM