Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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  • Countering ideology-driven civil service policy

    Janice Turner on the ghastly Bridget Phillipson:

    There are two theories why the women and equalities minister has failed to lay before parliament the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) statutory guidance to service providers from NHS trusts to shops and gyms. The first is that Phillipson still aspires to be Labour leader — yes, seriously, despite losing to Lucy Powell for deputy — and thinks if she holds off until after the May elections she’ll be reshuffled, meaning this chalice of ricin will be passed to someone else. Thus she avoids being yelled at by her trans-activist backbenchers and being branded the single-sex toilet bigot for ever more.

    The flaw with this theory is that Phillipson is already despised by the trans lobby. Known as a “soft Terf” — trans-exclusionary radical feminist — she keeps repeating how running a domestic violence refuge for three years made her understand women’s safety concerns, and recently told companies not to wait for the EHRC guidance before applying the law. But her endless dog-ate-my-homework excuses for sitting on a document she has had since September have now lost her the gender-critical lobby, too. Quite an accomplishment, but not the best base for a leadership bid.

    The second theory is that Phillipson is weak, incompetent and incapable of wrangling civil servants who put gender ideology before rule of law. Like a woke version of Yes Minister, they bamboozle her with bureaucracy, saying the guidance needs impact or cost assessments or that she can’t lay this statutory instrument during local election “purdah”. (Baroness Falkner, the former EHRC head and a procedural whiz, says this is nonsense.)

    As Turner goes on to say, both theories could, of course, be true. And probably are.

    But yes, it’s the civil servants who seem to be the main problem here. After years of Stonewall schooling, the place is now peopled by those who rose to the top by going along with all this trans training – and they’re not about to give up.

    Ideology-driven civil service policy is counter to the law and public opinion. It has real-life consequences. Even after five Darlington nurses and Sandie Peggie won at tribunal the right to undress in privacy, 94 per cent of NHS trusts have failed to update their policies. A male murderer, Aurin Makepeace, was remanded to Styal women’s prison. Now in another, Downview, he is so dangerous he must be segregated, yet female officers are obliged to search him. Tory rules kept violent, genitally intact men from being housed among vulnerable women but civil servants have found loopholes.

    Not only must the EHRC guidance be laid before parliament, the new cabinet secretary Antonia Romeo should order a root-and-branch review of the gender ideology that permeates government. Although reputedly attached to diversity policy, she is also a fearless fixer, a wily operator who knows when the wind has changed — which it has. The Supreme Court should be the end of institutional capture, not the start of a forever war.

  • Treated like apostates from a cult

    The tale of Michael Kerr, in the Times – ‘I’m a walking example of what’s wrong about trans ideology’:

    A man who reversed his gender treatment claims an NHS gender clinic told him to “basically keep going” even though he had doubts about his treatment.

    Michael Kerr, 33, is telling his story as he prepares to launch the UK’s only active support service for those “detransitioning”.

    He says Sandyford NHS Gender Clinic in Glasgow told him that his doubts were “normal” and that “once I started to see changes I would start to feel better”.

    After seven years living as Caitlin, Kerr removed himself from the NHS waiting list for surgery to remove his male genitalia and stopped taking his medication.

    He now says that he felt “indoctrinated into an ideology” when people around him in Glasgow’s gay scene suggested he could be trans.

    Him and how many thousands of others?

    He believed the decision to adopt a female identity would be the solution to his problems, but now says his transition was a means of dealing with his trauma from being raped.

    Kerr believes his desire for a trans identity grew out of “social contagion” and a deeply traumatic experience. At the age of 18, he loved fashion and make-up and was spending a lot of time on the gay scene in his native Glasgow. He was 5ft 11in tall and weighed 8½ stone.

    One night, while out on his own, he was raped in the toilets of a club. “Afterwards, my body felt like it was no longer mine,” he said. “It was taken. Something was missing from me. It’s that feeling of violation.”…

    Kerr said he saw being trans as the solution to his internalised self-loathing. He waited two years for an appointment with the Sandyford NHS Gender Clinic in Glasgow. After two 30-minute sessions, Kerr says he was told he did not need counselling and could go straight onto a course of hormones.

    While taking the drugs, Kerr put on five stone and developed small breasts. He didn’t like what was happening to his body, but doctors at the Sandyford clinic told him not to worry. “Let the drugs do their job,” they said.…

    Last June, when Kerr told his gender doctor at the Sandyford clinic that he wanted to stop the hormones, he said she was “shocked”. He also said he felt she was unable to offer him a treatment pathway or even advice, joking that it was a “good job you didn’t get the bottom surgery [vaginoplasty], then.”

    Kerr wants to highlight that there are no agreed medical protocols for supporting detransitioners in the UK. Many adult gender clinics, including those run by the NHS, operate a so-called “affirming” model of care.

    In 2024, a landmark report on gender treatment by Baroness Cass acknowledged there was “no good evidence on the long-term outcomes” for people on hormones. She also recommended the NHS “should ensure there is provision for people considering detransition”, but nothing has yet been put in place.

    Appalled at the lack of care for detransitioners, on Saturday Kerr will launch Detransition Pathway UK, a support network for those going through a similar ordeal. It is the only “peer-to-peer, community-led” support network for detransitioners in the UK.

    People like Kerr are not popular within the trans movement and are often treated like apostates from a cult. “I’ve had people tell me to go and get a rope and kill myself,” Kerr said. “I’ve had death threats sent over TikTok because I speak out about it. I’ve had people threatening to find my family.”

    “Treated like apostates from a cult” because that’s exactly what gender ideology is: a social contagion that morphed into a cult, and fooled a whole society. Not least the wretched doctors who were implicated in all this “gender-affirming care” mutilation.

  • Teachers as incompetent ideological saboteurs

    Reasons to study hard for those exams: failure could see you doing hard labour.

    North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) launched a sweeping inspection of senior middle schools in 2026 after a new elective subject system introduced at the start of the academic year produced mass failures in specialization track exams.

    A source in North Hamgyong province told Daily NK on Friday that “a significant number of students fell below the required standard during specialization track exams conducted after the new semester began” at senior middle schools, the equivalent of high schools. The source added that the provincial party committee’s education department responded by issuing a stark warning: students who fail to meet the required level will be forcibly assigned to coal mines or construction sites.

    Seems a bit harsh. Could there be other factors at play?

    Many parents suspect the party is using the “underperforming student” label as a pretext to conscript young people into labor-starved industries such as mining and construction.

    Some well-connected parents have reportedly gone so far as to exhaust their family savings in an attempt to bribe officials and prevent their children from being demoted and sent to harsh work sites. However, the source said the party is pressing the matter so forcefully that bribery is not working, leaving parents anxious and uncertain about what to do.

    Teachers are also caught in the fallout. The source said instructors are being held collectively responsible for their students’ poor results, leaving them “trembling with fear.” At one No. 1 Middle School in North Hamgyong province, a homeroom teacher who had vouched for a student’s ability was branded an “incompetent ideological saboteur” and removed from the classroom after the student performed poorly on the exam. That case is now being cited as a representative example of collective punishment, and fear is spreading among teaching staff across the province.

  • Not antisemitism but “revenge”

    Yet another Green candidate. By the looks of it they’re not the exceptions: they’re the norm. Andrew Gilligan again in the Spectator:

    A terror attack on a synagogue was “not anti-semitism” but was “revenge” for Israel “murdering people,” according to a video promoted by a Green Party council candidate.

    Sabine Mairey, a Green candidate for Clapham Town ward in Lambeth, south London, posted the video, by David Spevak, an American Jewish anti-Zionist, on her Facebook page last month. It’s still there at the time of writing.

    Mairey was used by the Lambeth Green Party to launch its election manifesto this week, and is quoted in the party’s press release. The video on her Facebook page is posted with the caption “Ramming a synagogue isn’t anti-semitism. It’s revenge.” She cannot claim that she posted it without knowing what it says.

    The new home for Jew-haters.

    See this Habibi thread for more on Sabine Mairey.

  • Civil servants

  • Craven behaviour

    Jenny Lindsay, at The Critic, on Scotland’s sorry literary scene, where a poet can be “disappeared” for expressing gender critical views. Novelist and poet Polly Clark’s latest collecion, Afterlife, was much praised. But – oh dear – she believes that sex is real, and it matters.

    And so, to the craven behaviour of Gutter, who are funded by Creative Scotland to self-identify as “Scotland’s leading literary magazine.”

    A few days before publication of Afterlife, they made it their Book of the Month, alongside publishing a stunning review. 

    The reviewer, poet Iona Lee, praised it as “a fine collection: funny, feminine, and violent; confessional yet mysterious.” Within 48 hours, however, both the online review and Book of the Month accolade disappeared from Gutter’s website.

    The reason given, provided in writing to Clark’s publisher, was: “a reader drew our attention to social media posts by Polly Clark that they considered to be offensive.”

    One gender puritan was offended. And that was that.

    Clark put in a Subject Access Request to discover precisely what Gutter felt justified her treatment. The result is astonishing.

    A barely literate complaint, clearly sent via social media, claimed it was “harmful” for Gutter to praise the work of “someone who has demonstrated TERF views and support for other out right (sic) TERFS”. This zealous reader provided screenshots they felt merited their complaint.

    Nothing shows Clark saying anything “harmful”, which is subjective anyway. Included was a retweet of me, which read:

    “There’s not a woman on earth born before 2002 or thereabouts who thought her life would be eaten up by having to argue men aren’t women and being punished for saying so. It is the most insane thing that has ever happened to a lot of us. That mustn’t ever be downplayed.“

    The irony bypass of including this as a reason to punish yet another woman aside, it’s clear this person must be someone Gutter either fears or feels must be taken seriously. Attempts to discover their identity have proven fruitless, and neither reviewer Iona Lee nor Gutter’s editorial board have responded to repeated requests for comment by journalists.

    There is absolutely no legal remedy for Polly Clark to take. Creative Scotland is missing in action; Gutter’s funding remains in place. Meanwhile, Scotland’s toothless literary class continue their near silence.

    It’s a witch hunt. The cowardice is extraordinary.

  • Local Greens

    We met the lovely Saiqa Ali the other day – a proudly antisemitic Green Party candidate. And there’s more:

    The Green Party is backing candidates with “no place in British politics”, the Board of Deputies of British Jews has said, after a social media post emerged that claimed “it takes serious effort” not to be an antisemite. 

    Other messages from Green candidates found by The Times spread pro-Putin conspiracy theories and implied the victims of the October 7 attack on Israel were “not ‘innocent’”. 

    Green officials have struggled to vet their more than 4,500 candidates for the May local elections. Last week the party said it was investing in tighter background checks after a councillor was found to have called cabinet ministers “coconuts” and defended “resistance to occupation” by Hamas. 

    Once again environmental concerns take something of a back seat to more, um, pressing issues. Perhaps they should rename. The Nasty Party? Has a certain ring to it…

    Added:

  • For the benefit of both peoples, the Lebanese and the Israeli

    Lebanese journalist, Tony Bulus, via Orit Perlov:

    Today’s Lebanon has changed. A large majority of the Lebanese public sees peace as a real opportunity for security stability, economic recovery, opening the gates of tourism and investment, and strengthening regional ties for the benefit of both peoples, the Lebanese and the Israeli.

    So who is delaying the process?

    First: The Hezbollah militia and the Iran-loyal network, since their decisions are made in Tehran, not in Beirut, and their overriding interest is to preserve Lebanon as a theater of confrontation, not as a sovereign and functioning state.

    Second: Remnants of the radical left, stuck in slogans from the 1960s and 1970s, while ignoring the collapse of many communist and socialist conceptions and their frequent transformation into repressive and failed regimes.

    Third: Corrupt sectarian leaders who benefit from a weak state and a shattered economy, and who collaborate openly or behind the scenes with Hezbollah in a framework of dividing spoils, power, and influence. For them, a strong state is a direct threat.

    The bottom line: Whoever opposes peace today is not defending Lebanon, but rather its continued collapse.

  • On the same side of the equation

    More on the Israel-Lebanon talks, from It’s Noon in Israel (via Jerry Coyne):

    The highest-level direct talks between Israel and Lebanon in history have concluded with neither side getting what they wanted. Regardless, the summit was a resounding success.

    Lebanon entered the negotiations hoping to achieve an immediate ceasefire, reportedly threatening to walk away from future talks unless this condition was met. Israel, meanwhile, came to the table demanding a concrete commitment and a clear timeline for the disarmament of Hezbollah north of the Litani River. While neither delegation walked away with their demands fulfilled, further talks are already confirmed. As U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted after the meetings, this will take time; the talks “are a process, not an event.”

    In statecraft, as in life, you cannot expect others to treat you with respect if you do not first respect yourself. For the first time in decades, Lebanon’s government is asserting itself as a sovereign entity, and for the first time in decades, Washington is officially recognizing it as such. Prior to yesterday, whenever Washington needed something done in Beirut, it dialed Damascus, Tehran, Doha or Riyadh.

    The question is whether the government is actually in charge.

    The mere fact that the Lebanese government chose to engage in the negotiations is a good sign. Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem explicitly warned against the summit, labeling it “futile” and declaring it a “stab in the back to the resistance.” Had Hassan Nasrallah issued a similar warning in 2021, his word would have been an insurmountable veto. But two years of relentless Israeli military pressure, coupled with the succession of the significantly less imposing Qassem, has considerably defanged the organization.

    Still, breaking the psychological hold Hezbollah maintains over the country requires the Lebanese government to treat it like the paper tiger it has become, rather than the actual tiger it once was.

    Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter addressed the media following the meeting, claiming that the officials on both sides discovered they are actually on the “same side of the equation” and are “united in liberating Lebanon.” Most intriguingly, Leiter suggested that once the security situation is resolved, the two nations “can embark on a harmonious relationship” akin to the Abraham Accords countries.

    Yep. Hezbollah, “the paper tiger it has become, rather than the actual tiger it once was”. The liberation of Lebanon may be one of the most significant results of Israel’s post-Oct 7th aggression.

  • At the end of the day, facts are facts