Odds and Ends #34: How the Cass Review changes the Trans Forever-War

Plus Civil War (the movie) and how political polling works

Photo by Thiago Rocha on Unsplash

Hello! It’s time for a new edition of Odds and Ends, your newsletter-within-a-newsletter containing my shorter takes, interesting links and other fun stuff I want to share.

I first want to apologise for missing a couple of these in a row now. I’ve had a madly busy few weeks with other commitments, which made me realise that if I want to make this newsletter as good as it can be, I need to reduce some of my other work. In fact, I’ve already started doing this – so now is a great time to take out a paid subscription, as it’s a great way to reassure me that I’m not doing something completely reckless with my career (I mean, other than wading into the trans stuff, like I’m stupidly doing again below).

Anyway, on with the links and takes!

How political polling works

Fifty percent of people can't be wrong

For the What’s Happening Now podcast this week, Sam and I have been talking political polling, and how we can use polls to understand, well, what’s happening now. To help us, we drafted in Ben Walker, the brains behind Britain Elects, who told us about the right and wrong ways to interpret the numbers when a new poll drops.

So go have a listen at the link above – or subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify to get it direct into your podcast player.

(Oh, and don’t forget to catch up and listen to my chat with three amazing local Substackers on the state of local journalism too!)

My take on The Cass Review