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Janey Starling

@janeystarling.bsky.social
2.1K followers 170 following 106 posts

Co-director of Level Up. Abolitionist, feminist, trade unionist and writer on a mission to end imprisonment of pregnant women and mothers. welevelup.org

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Reposted by Janey Starling
David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The only "cancel culture" that has ever existed is the one targeted at minorities, women and the left. That is how power works. Many liberals were taken in by the "free speech" moral panic because (as in the case of "free markets") they lack an analysis of power. www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
theguardian.com
Greta Thunberg and Gary Lineker sign letter defending Southbank Centre chair
Misan Harriman accused of promoting Golders Green attack ‘conspiracies’ and comparing Reform voters to Nazis
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K Biswas @bizk.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Well this is bloody beautiful: yakkie.bandcamp.com/track/lean-o... Lean Out by YAKKIE - ace tribute to our friend Dawn Foster, supporting teaching assistants on strike in Camden Thanks @janeystarling.bsky.social and the band, Dawn would’ve fucking loved it Great piece in @newjournal.bsky.social
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
It is so refreshing to see @zackpolanski.bsky.social correctly frame drug policy as a public health issue, rather than through the criminal lens that has seen so much public money wasted on policing.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 15/02/2026
Last week I was invited onto @overunderpod.bsky.social to discuss the Epstein files & this is my main take. I hope these harrowing revelations instigate the bigger conversations we need to be having about the prevalence of child sexual abuse across all sections of society.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
If the British left has a future, it’s in Faiza Shaheen
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Pluto Press @plutopress.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
“‘Demonstrations’ in the fullest sense of the word—proof of how many people these organizations could mobilize, and how militantly they could be mobilized” @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social author of Elite Capture, in @time.com
time.com
Why Protests Should Be Promises
Modern movements that aim to advance racial equity should withhold and promise, rather than perform, writes Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Palestine Action knew that appeals to morality were pointless, that blocking the killing machine was the only way. The government’s decision to ban them is an acknowledgement of how effective that strategy is.
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David Wearing @davidwearing.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
Reality has a well known anti-Israel bias.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
I wrote about Dr Laila Soueif’s hunger strike to #FreeAlaa & why it’s always mothers on the frontline of the fight against prisons @labour-hub.bsky.social labourhub.org.uk/2025/06/12/r...
labourhub.org.uk
Rigged Justice: Laila Soueif’s hunger strike is a feminist call to arms
Janey Starling explains why Laila Soueif’s hunger strike to release her son imprisoned in Egypt raises broader questions about dehumanising incarceration, including in Britain. Dr Laila Soueif’s hu…
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Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
How on earth can the UK sanction two Israeli ministers yet — at the very same time — continue supplying weapons to the very government they serve? The UK’s position is becoming more absurd by the day. End all arms sales to Israel, now.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 11/06/2025
Prisons are institutions of power and control, they will never ever be caring places.
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Arthur Webber 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @bernietranders.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
They really are saying the quiet bit out loud now, fucking hell
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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
One horrific headline after another revealing the tip of the iceberg of ongoing genocidal violence. All while the international community lets this continue despite the fact that the 1948 UN convention which outlaws genocide *obligates* states to prevent and punish genocide.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
An ex-police officer built a mobile prison cell that tours primary schools so children can experience “prison life” and it’s called HMP Not-4-Me and this is the website and it’s not satire: hmpnot4me.co.uk/our-programmes
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Wellness fascism has reached its horrifying apex
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Some hope from the Independent Sentencing Review. If the government are serious, they will divert funding away from prisons into communities.
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HJA Civil Liberties @hjacivillibs.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
A Nottinghamshire police officer accused of banging a teenage girl's head on a vehicle and putting his hands on her throat has been sacked following a two-day misconduct hearing www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midland...
birminghammail.co.uk
Midlands police officer accused of banging teen's head on car sacked
Kevin Markowski, 47, has been dismissed from the police force
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
More harrowing accounts of women being cuffed to officers during childbirth. Every day there’s more evidence of why we need to end the imprisonment of pregnant women. www.thetimes.com/article/8502...
thetimes.com
Prisoners who gave birth in handcuffs sue Ministry of Justice
One of five women who went into labour while an inmate at HMP Bronzefield says she begged officers to remove her restraints in the hospital
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Completely normal and not in any way fascist police state observer.co.uk/news/nationa...
observer.co.uk
Police could search homes and phones after pregnancy loss | The Observer
New national guidance suggests officers look for menstrual tracking apps or abortion drugs
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
It’s now confirmed that pregnant women fall into the scope of The Sentencing Guidelines (Pre-sentence Reports) Bill. This means it is going to remove one of the very few, hard-won protections we have for pregnant women and mothers: the direction for courts not to sentence them without a PSR.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
So moved by this song about mums in pre-trial detention that Fiona Apple released yesterday! While the US & UK bail systems are different, the devastating impacts of holding mothers in prison are the same: losing housing, healthcare and children. pitchfork.com/news/fiona-a...
pitchfork.com
Fiona Apple Returns With First New Song in 5 Years, “Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)”
Apple’s first original since Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a protest anthem advocating for jailed mothers who can’t afford bail
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 07/05/2025
‘The pain was worse than giving birth’: why are so many women separated from their babies in prison?
theguardian.com
‘The pain was worse than giving birth’: why are so many women separated from their babies in prison?
First they had to give birth in custody, then their babies were taken away. Sometimes they never got them back. Here’s what 29 women told the Lost Mothers Project
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Talia "ATTACK DOGS is out now!" Bhatt ⚢ @taliabhatt.itch.io · 15/04/2025
I want to talk about trans suicides and 'distress'. Specifically in the context of this thread and the climate of sheer hostility that has been fostered by government policy and societal apathy towards, if not outright endorsement of, trans suffering. Many folks chalk this up to "gender distress".
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
A moving letter from a criminal defence solicitor representing a young mother of an infant, who explains the human cost of losing the new sentencing guideline. “The justice secretary’s political point-scoring has devastating consequences” @hodgejonesallen.bsky.social
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Very frustrating that, in a sentencing guideline that features 11 sections, Jenrick’s baseless intervention on *1* of them has dominated all public perception. This guideline explicitly, and for the first time, directed courts to avoid imprisoning pregnant women & mothers due to the risks.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
A clear-sighted editorial on the government’s posturing around pre-sentence report requirements in the new sentencing guideline. It appears to be the first time anyone has acknowledged we have no probation staff to even write these reports anyway. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The Guardian view on sentencing guidelines: rightwing politicians must not call the tune | Editorial
Editorial: The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, should reject false, inflammatory rhetoric and focus on the real issues
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
A clear-sighted editorial on the government’s posturing around pre-sentence report requirements in the new sentencing guideline. It appears to be the first time anyone has acknowledged we have no probation staff to even write these reports anyway. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The Guardian view on sentencing guidelines: rightwing politicians must not call the tune | Editorial
Editorial: The justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, should reject false, inflammatory rhetoric and focus on the real issues
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
I have written about the sentencing guidelines shitshow. Infuriating to see yet another Labour government seek to appease a rightwing voter base by reinforcing the “tough on crime” doom loop that has gridlocked our justice system for the past 30 years. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Labour's populist pantomime over sentencing rules plays into the hands of the right | Janey Starling
Forcing the abandonment of new commonsense, evidence-based guidelines is a new low for a party that once prided itself on justice reform, says Janey Starling of campaign group Level Up
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
I wish this was an April Fool’s
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
If Labour continue on this trajectory, pound shop Powell is gonna be running our country in not too long.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 31/03/2025
Hard-won guidelines that would have seen courts instructed to avoid sending pregnant women to prison will no longer come into force tomorrow. Because Shabana rolled over for the far-right. www.theguardian.com/law/2025/mar...
theguardian.com
Sentencing Council suspends plans for new guidelines amid ‘two-tier’ justice row
Guidelines could have led to criminals in England and Wales getting different sentences depending on their age, sex and ethnicity
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Minnie Rahman @minnierahman.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
Labour are now firmly to the right of the Tories on immigration. I don’t say that lightly.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
Truly astonishing the government has been baited into a populist pantomime around pre-sentence reports when we barely have any probation service left to even write them anyway. Pathetic.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
ADORABLE No Births Behind Bars protest outside the MOJ to demand an end to imprisonment of pregnant women and mothers. Grumpy babies say NO MORE!
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Mary Annaïse Heglar @maryannaise.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
“I insist on being shocked. I am never going to become immune. I think that’s a kind of failure to see so much of it that you die inside. I want to be surprised and shocked every time.” ― Toni Morrison
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
Austerity is a political choice presented as an accounting problem. There’s always money for weapons, never for women’s safety. Or to pay women for the untold hours of care labour we provide to our families, children and communities that keep this precious “economy” running.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
A beautiful INQUEST event last night, launching their archive documenting 40 years of state violence and resistance at the Bishopsgate Institute. @inquest-org.bsky.social radiate with integrity. I admire their fearless work and the deep community of bereaved families they nurture and fight for.
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
This isn't the canary in the coal mine, it's a mine shaft full of dead miners.
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Police Spies Out Of Lives @spiesoutoflives.bsky.social · 11/03/2025
If you're enjoying the @itvx.com #spycops documentary 'The Undercover Police Scandal: Love & Lies Exposed' but haven't read the book yet, now's the time to pre-order your paperback copy which is out THIS THURSDAY 13th MARCH. lnk.to/UndercoverPo...
lnk.to
The Undercover Police Scandal
Go to The Undercover Police Scandal.
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
The theme of IWD was set in 1911: socialist feminist revolution!
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
International Women’s Day originated in working-class and migrant women’s protests against life-threatening conditions in sweatshops in 1911 in New York. The best way to celebrate today is to join a union & get organised.
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Taj Ali @tajali1.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
'What you are running here is not a factory, it is a zoo. But in a zoo, there are many types of animals. Some are monkeys, who dance on your fingertips. Others are lions, who can bite your head off. We are the lions, Mr Manager.' — Jayaben Desai, 1976-78 Grunwick strike leader
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Make that over 200 ❤️‍🔥
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Dan Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Judith Butler: "Once you decide that a single vulnerable minority can be sacrificed, you’re operating within a fascist logic, because that means there might be a second one you’re willing to sacrifice, and a third, a fourth, and then what happens?"
english.elpais.com
Judith Butler, philosopher: ‘If you sacrifice a minority like trans people, you are operating within a fascist logic’
A leading figure in feminism and gender studies, the thinker welcomes EL PAÍS in California after being voted one of the most influential minds in the world
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Shona Minson @shonaminson.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
These are imo excellent, well considered guidelines and it is extremely disappointing that they are being diverted for political point scoring
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
How it started How it’s going
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
🎉CAMPAIGN WIN: Sentencing Council announce new Imposition guideline that acknowledges prison is high-risk for pregnant women and tells courts to avoid sending women there! 📣🎉✨ This is so, so hard-won & would never have happened without the power of MOTHERS 🎉💞 www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
theguardian.com
Pregnant offenders in England and Wales could be spared jail under new guidelines
Changes to sentencing guidance will also apply to mothers of children under one year old
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Kathryn Bromwich @kathrynbromwich.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
Really proud of this piece. Grateful to Avalyn, Rowan and Sarah for sharing their stories. It's a national scandal that long Covid patients have been forgotten by the government, employers & society at large. The least we can do is keep talking about them www.theguardian.com/society/2025...
theguardian.com
‘We’re losing decades of our life to this illness’: long Covid patients on the fear of being forgotten
Five years on from March 2020, millions of people still face debilitating symptoms, with huge repercussions on public health and productivity. But politicians are starting to pretend the pandemic neve...
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
SOLD OUT 😱 in person but there will be a link to join remotely! Join us next Wednesday:
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Janey Starling @janeystarling.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
“More than half of people believe that non-violent female offenders should serve their sentence in the community instead of prison, rising to almost two-thirds for women with children” Not a fan of the violent/ non-violent distinction but this is still significant www.thetimes.com/article/5127...
thetimes.com
Non-violent criminals should be spared jail, poll finds
A YouGov survey reveals strong public support for alternatives to prison, especially for women, addicts and the mentally ill
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