Both groups excused their cowardice by hiding behind the language of “phobias”.
Mick Hartley
Politics and Culture
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Suzanne Moore in the Telegraph – It is a travesty not to celebrate Jenni Murray’s bravery in the trans debate:
Make no mistake, Dame Jenni was Woman’s Hour and she left after 33 years at its helm because the BBC would not let her discuss one of the issues of the day. “I was roundly ticked off publicly and informed that I would not be allowed to chair any discussions on the trans question or the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act,” she wrote in the Daily Mail in 2020 of the BBC’s actions towards her. She’d left Woman’s Hour earlier that year.
In the name of “impartiality”, the BBC chose not to stand by one of its most beloved journalists because she had written that women’s rights were based on biological sex.…
Her defenestration was possibly meant to be an example to junior women at the BBC, an attempt at silencing. Woman’s Hour is now an unlistenable mishmash of awed, whispering presenters kowtowing to men. Last week, for instance, in a discussion about misogyny and the manosphere, a man who had not transitioned into “womanhood” until his sixties was interviewed as an expert on the subject. Impartiality? No, this is a closing down of exactly the debate Jenni wanted to have.
Her views on the trans issue were an intrinsic part of her feminism, but we had to listen to Harriet Harman on the Today programme on Saturday patronisingly explain that they didn’t “detract” from it. This is a travesty. Murray thought as she did because she was a feminist to her fingertips. She never regretted what she said and felt that the 2025 Supreme Court ruling on the matter had proved her right: that the legal definition of women is based on biological sex. She never backed down. She was never afraid to ask the difficult questions. She was magnificent, she had class.
Her legacy is not to bow down to flimsy thinking that reduces womanhood to mere “feelings”. As she fought for us, we must now fight to make sure she is remembered with the respect she deserves.
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Julie Burchill in the Spectator mourns the bittersweet death of Lycra, as the company files for bankruptcy:
It’s daft to get apocalyptic about these little cultural glitches, but the fall of Lycra does seem like yet another tiny Lego brick in the wall of us in the West going to hell in a handcart. It fits in neatly alongside the creepy rise of ‘modesty dressing’ and the endless conquering of American manufacturing by the Chinese.…
Of course, people still wear ‘athleisure’ clothes, particularly Queen Bee mothers wanting to look busy and fit – in both senses of the word – on the school run. But now that the semaglutide weight jab is king, the desire to look as though one spends an indecent amount of time leaping about like a crazy thing has lost its lustre. ‘I have a fast metabolism!’ is the modern explanation for keeping one’s girlish figure into middle age, when everyone knows you’re banging up the Zempy like there’s no tomorrow.
Still, it’s bittersweet to remember a time when young, urban, liberal, Western women were harmlessly narcissistic rather than suicidally empathetic. Back when their only crime was loving themselves a little too much in their second-skin Lycra rather than hijabing up and wishing for the destruction of their own civilisation.
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Jenni Murray’s final words on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour, before she retired:
“If you do a programme like Woman’s Hour you have to consistently remind yourself that women are a vast range. There are many, many, many different stereotypes that fit our gender. So there is no one stereotypical woman. But our sex, we share.”
She knew the difference between trans women and, in her words “real women”. It’s rumoured that she left because she’d been muzzled on the subject of gender and sex.
As we learned of her death, Woman’s Hour was featuring a man pretending to be a woman lecturing real women on the subject of misogyny. Grim irony.
No mention of any of this in the obituaries, of course.
But she never backed down, even as the pushback continued for years. This is how speaking honestly costs you in public life. But she was forever right.
Rest in peace, brave and courageous Jenni Murray.
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The Daily NK, back to the vexed issue of North Korean youth listening to South Korean music:
When a Ministry of State Security agent stopped a young man in a Hyesan alley in mid-February 2026 and demanded to know why he was listening to “rotten South Korean music,” he likely expected contrition. He did not get it. The man cited the lyrics back at him, word for word, and explained precisely why they resonated. The agent filed a report. The case went to the city party committee. A citywide ideological lecture followed.
The man in his 20s had been walking alone through a secluded alley in Hyesan, Ryanggang province, MP3 player running, when the Ministry of State Security (MSS) agent stopped him. The MSS serves as North Korea’s primary secret police and internal surveillance body, with broad authority to investigate and prosecute ideological offenses.
The song in question was “If You Ask Me What Love Is,” a ballad by South Korean singer Roy Kim. When the agent pressed him during interrogation, the man defended himself, telling the agent that a particular lyric, “being able to cherish this familiarity more than the first flutter of excitement,” reflected his own inner feelings so closely that he had sought it out deliberately. The agent, unsettled by the young man’s composure and candor, treated the incident as a serious ideological breach and reported it up the chain. The case eventually reached Hyesan’s party committee, the municipal-level organ of the Korean Workers’ Party charged with overseeing political and ideological discipline within the city.
The city party committee responded by directing the city’s Korean Youth League to organize a formal lecture on eliminating anti-socialist and non-socialist behavior. The Korean Youth League serves as the party’s primary instrument for ideological supervision of North Koreans between the ages of 14 and 30, with organizations present at every level of society, from national institutions down to individual workplaces, schools, and residential units. The lecture took place in early March 2026, according to a Daily NK source in Ryanggang province who reported the incident recently.
The lecturer cited the arrest as evidence of a broader ideological crisis among North Korean youth. “This shows how gravely the minds of our youth are rotting away under the infiltration of reactionary ideological culture led by the enemy,” the lecturer said. “The fact that he projected his own feelings onto a single song lyric is proof that he placed personal emotion above the party’s ideology.”
The lecturer framed South Korean popular music not as a cultural preference but as a tool of ideological subversion. “Music is not something to be taken lightly,” he said. “South Korean lyrics are like a disease-carrying demon that corrupts the soul. Listening to South Korean music must be seen not merely as a preference, but as losing the battle against that demon. The selfish, individualistic sentiment embedded in those lyrics is destroying our youth’s collectivist spirit.”
He concluded by stating that the only legitimate forms of love North Korean youth should cultivate are “revolutionary love” and “comradely love,” and vowed to intensify ideological education to prevent what he called “unconventional romantic feelings” from taking root among the population.
“Unconventional romantic feelings”? So the only legitimate love a young North Korean can feel is for Kim Jong-un.
Just as the only culture in North Korea is Kim worship, the only permitted passion is for the Kim family. Has any other society ever approached this level of Orwellian control?
Unfortunately we don’t learn what happened to the defiant youth. Nothing good, no doubt. We hear of lengthy labour camp sentences in such cases: even execution.
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Barnes church, then on to Kew Gardens.
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After Benny Morris yesterday, here’s another less-than-rosy view of the Iran conflict, from Shiraz Maher. Yes, Tehran’s influence abroad may be weakened, but the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is simply too powerful – and too ruthless – to be displaced.
His conclusion:
Iran’s escalation trap has ensnared the United States in a labyrinthine web of undesirable choices, luring President Trump into an unwinnable war. In the process, it diminishes America’s global standing by straining its alliances through diplomatic and economic pressures. Whatever course of action President Trump ultimately decides upon – a swift departure or protracted war – the outlook for ordinary Iranians hoping to rid themselves of this extremist experiment are bleak. The historical record suggests the IRGC will emerge intact, in one form or another, and be more defiant, dedicated and demanding than ever before.
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Story here:
His case proves we have to stop talking about ‘trans rights’ and recognise that people who demand sex change surgery are seriously mentally ill.
It is irresponsible, cruel and dangerous to inflict irreversible mutilations on their bodies. And yet, far from approaching these operations with caution, the NHS is rushing to perform them, often with minimal checks.
If Taylor had been properly assessed, his fragile mental health would have been identified long before surgeon Tina Rashid operated – and life-changing trauma for both of them could have been avoided.
He had his genitals surgically removed, then had a false vagina fashioned – on the NHS – despite the fact that he was clearly suffering from severe mental issues. He then became dangerously obsessed with the surgeon, Tina Rashiid. Hence the court appearance and the 21-month jail sentence.
Though his traumatic upbringing does not excuse his crimes, it’s obvious that Taylor has been very badly let down by the medical system.
His profound mental illness should have been recognised. Whatever flimsy safeguards exist have failed. He reminds me of the extremely dangerous Barbie Kardashian. I can’t see how Taylor will be fit to be released in the future, bearing in mind how his delusions have been pandered to. How many more men like him are there? The victim of gender lunacy, turned perpetrator, and deeply psychotic.
The NHS has allowed ‘trans rights’ to blind it to all other considerations. It’s madness… and it’s very dangerous.
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Jewish Guardian journalists speak to the JC after that Jonathan Liew article:
The Guardian has since issued a correction to the piece, removing the “petty symbolism” remark in order, it claimed, to avoid “misunderstanding”, as well as “clarifying” that his comment about “aggression” was “meant to refer to the described fears about the chain’s impact on small traders”.
However, speaking to the JC on condition of anonymity, one Jewish staff member said: “Jonathan Liew’s article is a classic case of progressive antisemitism. God knows how many editors had to read the piece and agree with it, as they have their entire worldview shaped by anti-Zionism. The subsequent explanation is gaslighting. It’s disgusting.”
Another added: “This hasn’t told me anything about The Guardian that I didn’t already know/suspect.
“The article would have been seen by at least five different pairs of eyes before launch, so I think it just shows how accepted these views are within the organisation.”
And a third accused the paper’s senior editors of “gaslighting” Jewish employees and readers over the issue.
“Especially since October 7 dozens of articles have appeared in The Guardian that have similarly demonised Jews and Israelis, and that have whitewashed, justified and even celebrated the openly racist targeting of Jews by antisemites under the guise of anti-Zionism,” they told the JC.
“All internal and public pleadings of Jews with the editor have fallen on deaf ears: These kinds of pieces keep dropping, and various writers of such articles have since been promoted by Kath Viner.
“One can therefore only conclude that these aren’t unfortunate editorial errors of judgment that have slipped through the net and which the editor regrets, but rather that these pieces are part of a deliberate, full-throated campaign aimed at further isolating and demonising Jews and Israelis.”
Not a lapse, then, but Guardian policy. What they reaaly think. They just got caught out this time.
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From the JC:
A group of Gulf states has called on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to hold an emergency debate on Iran’s “military aggression” against them.
A diplomatic note was sent by a “coalition of Arab nations” to the council calling for an “urgent” change to its schedule, according to Hilel Neuer, director of human rights NGO UN Watch.
Interesting. Not Israel. Not the US. Against Iran.
Neuer told the JC: This is a turning point. For the first time, Arab states are leading a charge at the Human Rights Council to condemn Iran. Tehran targeted civilians in blatant attacks on its Arab neighbours, in a bid to make them pressure the US to stop hitting the regime. But the gambit backfired, and now even cautious regional actors are going after Iran on the world stage like never before.
“The Iranian regime is more isolated than ever. As we saw at the Security Council, they have very few allies. The real question is whether the UN Human Rights Council — a body notorious for appeasing terrorist regimes — will take action strong enough to match the gravity of Iran’s aggression, flagrant violations of international law, and war crimes targeting civilians.”
The note specifically mentions Iranian action against seven states: Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.
Mick Hartley 