Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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  • Seeing into souls

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    " There are many forms of the human body. I see someone in their soul and as a person. I do not really care whether they have a male body"

  • Astonishingly biased

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    "The British public is paying £4bn/yr for something that belongs alongside the Iran or Pakistan Times’."

  • The role of the activist NGOs

    Olga Deutsch in the JC on the malign influence of NGOs on the government's decision to impose a partial ban on arms exports to Israel:

    On October 18 2023, a coalition of activist NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), sent a letter to the then-Secretary of State for International Trade, Kemi Badenoch, demanding an immediate suspension of all arms exports. By December, they escalated with legal proceedings, statements, petitions, and further letters to key officials falsely accusing the UK of complicity in “genocide”.

    October 18th, note, was just eleven days after the brutal Hamas pogrom, when Israel was still struggling to come to terms with the enormity of what had happened at the Nova Music festival. 

    The persistence eventually led to policy impacts. Just days ago, the UK suspended 30 arms export licences to Israel, claiming a "clear risk" that the equipment could be used in serious violations of international law. This decision, while framed as only a partial embargo, achieves the core result sought by NGO activists: weakening Israel’s image and legitimate right to defend itself at a time of intense threats.

    The persistence eventually led to policy impacts. Just days ago, the UK suspended 30 arms export licences to Israel, claiming a "clear risk" that the equipment could be used in serious violations of international law. This decision, while framed as only a partial embargo, achieves the core result sought by NGO activists: weakening Israel’s image and legitimate right to defend itself at a time of intense threats.

    On May 21 the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor requested authorisation to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, along with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the commander of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri. The charges included war crimes and crimes against humanity for both the Israeli and Hamas terrorist officials, effectively putting them on the same moral level. The then-UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak swiftly and rightly declared, “There is no moral equivalence between a democratic state exercising its lawful right to self defence and the terrorist group Hamas.”

    No such moral clarity now, alas, on the Labour front bench.

    Concerned that ICC warrants would undermine Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorist groups like Hamas, Sunak’s administration planned to challenge the ICC's jurisdiction – arguing that the Oslo Accords, signed by Israel and the Palestinians, and recognised by the international community, prevented the Court from prosecuting Israeli nationals. However, they never got the chance.

    Another alarming example of the UK government bowing to these campaigns is the decision to restore funding to UNRWA, the United Nations agency tasked with providing humanitarian assistance to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and other places in the region. In January, the UK government was among 16 countries that halted funding to UNRWA after it was revealed that, among other connections to terrorism and blatant antisemitism, 12 of the agency’s employees had participated in the October 7 attacks. Despite this serious breach, a coalition of NGOs, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam, soon began lobbying intensively for the UK to reinstate its financial support.

    In letters and statements, this coalition simply ignored the systemic abuse that, for years, has crippled humanitarian efforts in Gaza, and did not demand UNRWA introduce necessary radical reforms. They also failed to address the implications of renewing UNRWA’s access to funds and resources in light of the direct involvement in heinous acts of terrorism. Ultimately, the UK resumed its financial support for UNRWA without securing any meaningful changes from the agency, further normalising terror, anti-Israel sentiment, and antisemitism in the public sphere.

    Over the nine weeks that followed, intense NGO lobbying pressured the incoming UK government to reconsider this position. Influential groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, GLAN and Al-Haq pushed an outrageous narrative, claiming that asking the ICC to respect binding treaties was somehow inconsistent with “justice.”

    On July 26, the government changed, and with that so did the UK’s stance on Israel. The newly elected government, heavily pressured by anti-Israel advocacy NGOs acting under the flag of international law, dropped opposition to the ICC arrest warrants. This leaves Israeli leaders open for prosecution for defending their nation against heinous acts of terrorism.

    These policy decisions not only undermine Israel’s right to defend itself but also weaken the broader British commitment to countering the Iranian threat. Any positive steps – such as levying sanctions on Iran and providing defensive military support to Israel during Iran’s direct attack in April and ongoing threats – are compromised by limiting arms exports and joining in the ICC’s attack. These actions strengthen Iran-aligned groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and embolden the very forces the UK seeks to counter.

    For more on UNRWA and its crucial role in perpetuating Palestinian victimhood, and sustaining the belief that the only future for Palestinians lies in the destruction iof Israel, see here, and here.

    And this is always worth revisiting:

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  • The grown-ups are back in the room

    On the other hand the Labour government, to their credit, has been firm on the Cass Review, and the banning of puberty blockers. George Chesterton, in the Telegraph, heralds the changing mood – "After years of kowtowing to extreme ideology, Britain’s institutions are finally questioning some of the trans lobby’s most dangerous ideas":

    Aftershocks can occur days or even weeks after an earthquake. So it is, it seems, with the Cass Review.

    Five months on from the “Big Bang” moment in April when Dr Hilary Cass’s findings reset the terms of the trans rights debate, some of the most significant reverberations were felt this week.

    Cass’s report warned of a “toxic” debate in which parents felt forced to allow their children to change gender, fearing they would otherwise be labelled transphobic. At the time, the findings by Cass, a leading paediatrician, were roundly criticised by trans activists. But now the narrative is changing.

    In the space of just a few days it was revealed that the campaigning charity Stonewall – which has long been in the vanguard of trans activism – is ending its controversial training programme for schools. Then, the SNP health minister told the Scottish parliament that the Government had accepted Cass’s review and would implement its recommendations. The Good Law Project campaign group also announced it would no longer take trans-related legal cases following high-profile defeats. All this a couple of weeks after the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, decided to uphold the emergency ban on privately accessed puberty blockers for anyone under 18, against vociferous opposition from fellow Labour MPs.

    “On the whole, the trajectory seems to be in a sensible direction and the Labour Party moving this way too is huge,” says gender critical philosopher and writer Kathleen Stock. “Even for those sympathetic to the ideas of trans activists it is hard to oppose the Cass Review.”

    Though the BMA has launched a last-ditch challenge – to general derision.

    All in all, it’s been a week of retreat for the trans lobby, which made significant inroads into institutions across education, health, charities and corporations over the past few decades, and a triumphant week for those who campaign against its doctrine. “It feels like the grown-ups are back in the room,” says Maya Forstater, CEO of human rights charity Sex Matters.

    It's too soon for complacency, though. 

    With Streeting’s firm line on Cass and puberty blockers, the battleground upon which trans-rights groups can prosecute their war is shrinking. This may be contributing to the increasing vehemence of activists, who stress the heightened risks of suicide to trans children. Maugham claimed that the upheld puberty-blocker ban would “kill trans children. My feelings about Wes Streeting are unprintable.” Susie Green, former chief executive of Mermaids, says Streeting has “blood on his hands… How dare Wes Streeting put so many trans kids at risk by continuing this murderous ban.”

    This type of language and its basic assertion were branded “unfounded and dangerous” earlier this year in a government review conducted by Prof Louis Appleby, chair of the national suicide prevention strategy advisory group.

    “There’s been 30 years of institutional capture that doesn’t just go away with the Cass Review,” says Forstater. “There have been lots of turning points, but it’s more like pulling up bindweeds. You just have to keep at it as it keeps growing back.” As Stonewall says, the gradual retreat is strategic. There has been no Damascene conversion – if anything the events of this week suggest militancy is likely to increase as their opportunities to influence diminish.

  • No Labour plans to update the Equality Act

    Are we surprised? No, we are not surprised. Despite all the sex-realist noises coming from Labour prior to the election, they're now more interested in placating the trans lobby:

    The Government will not carry forward plans to rewrite the Equality Act 2010 that were aimed at protecting single-sex spaces, the Minister for Women and Equalities has confirmed.

    Anneliese Dodds said there were no plans to update the existing legislation, which the Conservatives had promised to reform ahead of the general election.

    The Tories planned to rewrite the act in order to make it clear that “sex” in the legislation means “biological sex” instead of the gender with which a person identifies.

    This would have allowed public bodies to stop transgender women entering women’s lavatories or changing rooms, as well as preventing them joining all-female sports teams.

    A step too far for Labour, apparently.

    In a written question in Parliament, John Glen, the shadow paymaster general, asked whether the Government intended to amend the legal definition of what a woman is.

    Ms Dodds replied: “We are proud of the Equality Act and the rights and protections it affords women. The Government does not plan to amend legal definitions in the act.”

    Mims Davies, the shadow minister for women and equalities, warned Ms Dodds that Sir Keir Starmer’s refusal to rewrite the act could create further “loopholes” for abusers.

    “Labour simply cares more about appeasing woke ideologues than delivering on women’s safety,” she said.

    “We introduced this change to provide much-needed clarity in the law to stop potential abusers exposing loopholes and acting in stopping the diluting of women’s safety.

    “Only by legally enshrining the importance of single-sex spaces can this Labour Government give biological women the clarity, dignity, privacy and safety we need.”

    The Equality Act was formulated at at time before gender became the new cause celebre so the wording is ambiguous on the difference between sex and gender identity, which wasn't a thing then (and isn't a thing now, either, but here we are), allowing for the kind of manipulation that lets men get into women-only spaces, women's sport, women's jails, rape centres, and so on. Clarification was required – yes, the Tories should have got round it a lot sooner – but the current ambiguity suits the gender activists. It seems to suit our new Labour government too.

  • Unloading ore

    Ca. 1905. "Freighter Manda unloading ore, Cleveland, Ohio."

    image from www.shorpy.com
    [Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

  • Iranian backflips

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  • True Afghan hospitality

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    </p?

    Oh look – no women.

  • The transchild

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    Full text:

    Where were all the 'transchildren' from 1920-2000 when Piaget, Kohlberg, Bandura, Vygotsky, Erikson, Bowlby, Steiner etc along with their students (and their vociferous critics) were spending tens of thousands of hours doing empirical research on children?

    Research that involved studying children at home, in nursery and at school. Studies that involved writing down every action, statement, or question that the child asked. And then analysing these recordings for patterns and insights.

    Not one of them observed a 'transchild' in all this time.

    So where were all the 'transchildren'?

    The logical answer is, of course, nowhere, as they were not yet required. They were not invented as a typology until the 2000s when the trans movement needed children to validate the sexual fetishes of autogynephiles and make transgenderism palatable for the public.

    The other answer is a conspiracy theory. That research showing transchildren existed was suppressed; rather like alien conspiracy theorists talk about Area 51 in Nevada USA.

    If we ignore the conspiracy theory, we are left with the answer that no child was trans until the 'transchild' was needed, in the 2000s, to demonstrate the universality of 'gender identity'.

    Children, sadly, were the logical choice due to their undeveloped brains/thinking and their vulnerability. It is not hard to persuade children that Santa exists or even that sexual abuse is a normal part of family life. 'Gender identity' can easily be packaged to appeal to the magical thinking of children.

    'Transchildren' have thus become the main focus of transgenderism. For the activists know that without the winsome, photogenic 'transchild', groomed to repeat adult phrases about 'gender identity' the movement consists in the main of adult males with a fetish for dressing up as women.

    Transgender ideology needs 'transchildren' to survive. It needs them to harm themselves and kill themselves to demonstrate that the ideology is real.

    We need to protect our children. And we can start by debunking the idea and existence of the 'transchild'.

  • A “deeply worrying pattern of bias”

    From the Telegraph:

    The BBC breached its own editorial guidelines more than 1,500 times during the height of the Israel-Hamas war, a damning report has found.

    The report revealed a “deeply worrying pattern of bias” against Israel, according to its authors who analysed four months of the BBC’s output across television, radio, online news, podcasts and social media.

    The research, led by British lawyer Trevor Asserson, also found that Israel was associated with genocide more than 14 times more than Hamas in the corporation’s coverage of the conflict.

    On Saturday, Danny Cohen, a former BBC executive, warned that there was now an “institutional crisis” at the national broadcaster and called for an independent inquiry into its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

    Two leading Jewish groups, the Campaign Against Antisemitism and the National Jewish Assembly, added their voices to calls for an independent review, while Lord Austin, a former Labour minister, accused the BBC of “high-handed arrogance” for continually dismissing questions over its impartiality….

    Researchers identified a total of 1,553 breaches of the BBC’s editorial guidelines, which included impartiality, accuracy, editorial values and public interest.

    “The findings reveal a deeply worrying pattern of bias and multiple breaches by the BBC of its own editorial guidelines on impartiality, fairness and establishing the truth,” the report said.

    It also found that the BBC repeatedly downplayed Hamas terrorism while presenting Israel as a militaristic and aggressive nation.

    It claimed that some journalists used by the BBC in its coverage of the Israel-Gaza conflict have previously shown sympathy for Hamas and even celebrated its acts of terror.

    Jeremy Bowen, the BBC’s international editor, is accused of excusing Hamas’s terrorist activities and comparing Israel to Putin’s Russia, while Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s chief international correspondent, is also cited for allegedly “downplaying” the October 7 attacks on Israel.

    The report singles out the BBC’s Arabic channel, saying that it is one of the most biased of all global media outlets in its treatment of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

    It identifies 11 cases where it claims the BBC Arabic’s coverage of the war has featured reporters who have previously made public statements in support of terrorism and specifically Hamas, without viewers being informed of this.

    Researchers analysed the BBC coverage over the four-month period to assess the portrayal of war crimes.

    “Hamas members filmed and publicised themselves committing acts which appear to constitute war crimes,” the report said, including the taking of hostages, wilful killing or murder, torture or inhuman treatment and rape or sexual violence.

    But despite this, the report’s analysis of BBC coverage found that Israel was associated with war crimes four times more than Hamas (127 versus 30), with genocide 14 times more (283 versus 19) and with breaching international law six times more (167 versus 27).

    Danny Cohen, a director of BBC Television:

    Over the past 11 months, the BBC has consistently denied that there are significant problems with its reporting of the Israel-Hamas war. Well-evidenced complaints have been ignored, excuses made and corrections only issued after weeks of delays.

    The focus of the BBC’s senior leadership appears to have been on reputation management rather than a transparent relationship with licence-fee payers about the failings in its coverage.

    Now, almost a year since the terrorist massacres of Oct 7, a detailed data analysis of the BBC’s reporting has revealed a systemic failure by the corporation to report on the conflict with due impartiality and accuracy.

    The Asserson Report on the BBC’s coverage of the war is wide-ranging and comprehensive. It takes in nine million words published by the BBC on its websites and hundreds of hours of flagship broadcasts including the News at Ten and Newsnight. Its conclusions are shocking but not surprising.

    Take first the BBC’s portrayal of Hamas. Detailed analysis has revealed that the BBC is more likely to describe Hamas in relation to its “health ministry” than as a proscribed terrorist organisation. Given the butchery of Oct 7, many British Jews will find this revelation simply sickening. Certainly it suggests a failure by the BBC to provide audiences with the full and proper context for events that balanced reporting demands.

    The report also reveals that the BBC has shown consistent bias against Israel. Again the detail is highly revealing, with Israel being accused of war crimes in the BBC’s reporting six times more often than Hamas, despite the killings on Oct 7 being documented in video footage that the terrorists filmed themselves. Other than as a result of deep-rooted bias, how is it possible that the BBC’s emphasis on “war crimes” is so consistently directed towards Israel?

    I've long since given up on the BBC's Israel/Palestine reporting. I remember back in November, when BBC reporter Lucy Williamson reported breathlessly from the West Bank on the horrific abuse Palestinian prisoners were subjected to in Israeli jails. A young man posed with his family, his hands bandaged after beatings from the sadistic guards, with x-rays certified by Palestinian doctors showing broken bones, smashed with hammers. The Israel Prison Service actually had a video showing the lad being released – quite clearly unharmed. But of course, for the BBC, everything that the Palestinians/Hamas say must be true, and the duplicitous Jews are always lying. Whether through gullibility or bias, it's regularly allowed itself to be used as a mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda.