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Still to listen, but wondered if you plan to comment on Shahrar Ali damages award? I was amazed to see this line in the BBC article on it:

"But the judgement found political parties can remove spokespeople for holding "beliefs that were inconsistent with party policy", if done through fair procedures."

So eEven holding a belief (and not speaking it out) can disqualify a spokesperson? I've read most of the judgment and this verbiage does exist, but it seems overly draconian to an amateur eye. E.g. why not simply disallow spokespeople from expressing their belief if it is not in line with agreed policy?

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Addendum: Perhaps the BBC were playing dirty tricks, or just reporting poorly but have now read relevant section of judgment and it seems reasonable enough. What I just noticed though is that the BBC article uses the word "Holding" outside quotes but in the judgment it is "express" that precedes "beliefs that were inconsistent with party policy". So perhaps a sneaky swap to more activist language?

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Really interesting listen. Thank you. This may be naive coming from a non-lawyer but there’s clearly a difference between expecting say my drug addiction to remain private v. expecting my sex to remain private. Most trans identifying people do not pass as the opposite sex (even though as a courtesy many people treat them as if they do). Is it reasonable for me to expect my sex to remain private when most people - indeed most young children - can accurately tell my sex regardless of how I dress? Sex literally is not a private matter - for good evolutionary reasons we are all very adept at rapidly determining the sex of others we meet face to face. I’d be interested to know how the law deals with this. Apologies if this is covered in future episodes. Only listened to the first. Thanks again for great content.

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Sep 14Liked by Michael Foran

Just listened to episode 2 and realised you cover this question extensively.

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author

Thanks Victoria!

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Is it possible to post electronic transcripts of the podcast? This legal material is much appreciated but it is dense for non-lawyers. (Rev.com does pretty cheap and high quality transcripts).

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author

There should be a tab on the right hand side that has a transcript, beside the share button. If that's not there for you I'll have a look and see what I can do.

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For what it's worth, there doesn't seem to be a transcript option for the Android Substack app. (I don't particularly need one).

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