The Life Expectancy of the Homeless

Time: 7:47am

Today's Thought For the Day on Radio 4 was inspired by yesterday's news on the life expectancy of homeless people in the UK: 47 years, about 30 years less than the rest of the population.

What I hadn't realised until the Rev Lucy Winkett led with it this morning is that there's a gender gap. It's homeless men that have a life expectancy of 47 years; homeless women have a life expectancy of 43 years. Both the poor statistics and the poor reporting piss me off.

Labour's Leadership Contest

Time: 7.20am

Labour is having a leadership contest after being trounced in last week's election.  The candidates are all men except for Nanaia Mahuta, who is David Cunliffe's proposed deputy.

Over to the sadly predictable ex-Labour MP John Tamihere, who says she was only chosen because she's a woman and Maori. He wasn't even first in the queue…

"The only thing she's lacking is she doesn't have a limp. Then he would have got the disabled [vote] too."

I haven't spotted any comment from him about leadership contender, and fellow Maori, Shane Jones.

But it's Nanaia Mahuta's turn,

"John's comments show male parochialism is alive and well in Maoridom... If John Tamihere thinks that Maori women should be in the home cooking kai, then he's wrong.

I would advise him to stick to his knitting. He's a failed politician who is never making it back in, and it's a bit rich for him to advise Labour on its leadership team."

Nothing to add to that!

Stalin's Daughter Has Died

Said the radio.

Her name was Lana Peters, also known as Svetlana Alliluyeva.

Would she have had more freedom from her father if she'd been a man?

Time: 8:30am

Face It

Time: 4am, grumpy.

A 3 News story about the Electoral Commission's guidelines on what's allowed to be said on election day. The humorous examples of social media do's and don'ts included:

Yes: "Lady at the voting booth is apparently doing Movember."
No: [Female candidate] is apparently doing Movember."

Female facial hair, so unfeminine and wrong.

Doth The Lady Protest?

Time: 1pm? The hourly news, anyway.

An item about Tahrir Square, something about an anti-government protest and how the march organisers didn't get the million men they'd hoped for.

Argh.