Mick Hartley

The Times – Nike criticised for allowing men in night race aimed at women:

It was as Mara Hafezi watched the first wave of runners line up for Nike’s latest After Dark race aimed at women that she noticed something wasn’t quite right.

The 10km event, held last Sunday evening around the Excel centre in east London, had been marketed as an opportunity for women to come together and “reclaim the night” — but among the thousands of female runners in attendance were a handful of men.

“It was really disappointing,” said Hafezi, 35, from London. “The moment you have men involved, whether it’s two or twenty, it’s no longer a women’s-only race. There were people asking, ‘Why are they here?’ I just couldn’t understand it.”

Nike is facing criticism for allowing men to participate in the London finale of the company’s After Dark tour, which has been held throughout 2025 in six other cities including Sydney, Seoul, Shanghai, Mumbai, Mexico City and Los Angeles.…

According to the company’s After Dark Tour website, which only features images of female runners, the race was “designed for women”. Nike also describes its tour as “a global race series that offers women an opportunity to test their limits and redefine what’s possible”. However, the promotional material does not specify that men cannot take part. Nike declined to comment.

They want it both ways. They want to show how lovely and woman-supporting they are, but they don’t want to antagonise the gender crowd. It’s a cop-out. Of course it’s a cop-out. What else would anyone expect?

Baroness Cass has, regrettably, stated her belief that the puberty blocker trial is vital. Unfortunately the trial as currently conceived will provide no solid evidence one way or the other. In fact it seems to be set up precisely to provide a positive answer: taking children already schooled in gender-speak, asking them soppy questions about “Have you felt sad?” or Have you had fun with your friends?” as primary outcome measures, and only following up for two years, before any mature regrets, and before the debilitating physical consequences become unignorable. It’s a trans activists dream.

Stella O’Malley:

It comes as no surprise to me (and many others studying this) that Cass believes the puberty blocker trial is “vital”.

Cass, NHS clinicians and researchers are shaped by consumer-led healthcare. When medicine turns into consumerism “do no harm” becomes “buyer beware”.

So-called “gender medicine” rests on a dangerous myth that harming healthy bodies with hormones and surgery is the only answer to what the NHS are now calling “gender incongruence.”

This is not true.

Millions struggle with OCD or anorexia and may seem unlikely to recover, but that doesn’t mean we should support liposuction, Ozempic or bleaching your skin raw to satisfy a disorder.

The entire premise of medicalising identities is flawed.

We need to STOP. We need to treat the mind, not the body; we need to study psychosocial treatments, not extreme body modification

Since a considerable majority of “gender dysphoric” children are gay, and struggling to come to terms with that fact, this “trial” is really gay conversion therapy on a brutal scale.

Finally had some time to read the PATHWAYS- U.K. Puberty Blocker Study Protocol. It is 113 pages.

So I was trained to read and then carry out clinical research protocols, my Masters of Science is literally in Clinical Research Management. In each study the protocol is essential…

— Jamie Reed Whistleblower (@JamieWhistle) November 28, 2025

“…is essentially the Bible for the study.”

So…

The primary outcome measurement is a screening tool called the KIDSCREEN 10. What is this screener? 10 questions that really get to the heart of whatever gender incongruence is:

That’s the primary outcome measure! “Have you felt sad?” Have you had fun with your friends?”

Page 77 includes the warning of Stevens-Johnson Syndrome and Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis- yes life threatening or fatal possibilities. Risks seeming not a problem to address “gender incongruence”

This doesn’t go into the randomization issue, the lack of an actual control group, the vagueness of the inclusion/exclusion criteria regarding mental health or the serious concerns regarding what gender incongruence even is.

It’s a farce. It’ll teach us nothing. Giving powerful and potentially highly dangerous drugs to young children, and then asking them if they’d had fun with their friends. And no long term follow-up.

A drizzly walk through Queen’s Wood and Highgate Wood this morning – some views, some gnarly hornbeams:

Jonathan Spyer in the Spectator – Israel is turning the screws on Hezbollah:

The killing of Lebanese Hezbollah military chief Haytham Ali Tababtabai by Israel this week reflects how much the balance of power between Jerusalem and the Iran-backed Shia Islamist group has shifted since the year-long war between the two in 2023 and 2024. Yet, paradoxically, Tabatabai’s killing also shows that nothing has been finally settled between the two enemies.

While Hezbollah has now been shown to be much weaker than Israel, it nevertheless remains stronger than any internal faction in Lebanon, including the official Lebanese government. The practical consequence of this is escalation: Hezbollah is seeking to repair and rebuild its capacities, no force in Lebanon is willing or able to stop this, and Israel, aware of Hezbollah’s intentions towards it, is determined to keep the organisation weak and possesses the capacity to do so. 

This dynamic reflects how much has changed in the Middle East over the last two years. Prior to last year, Lebanese Hezbollah was often referred to as the world’s most powerful non-state military actor. Pundits on sundry television channels would gravely intone that the organisation’s capacities outweighed those of many states. This is true: before 2024, Iran’s first and still primary proxy political-military group had enjoyed a three-decade run of near-constant forward motion.

But then Israel stepped in. Forced into action by October 7th, they realised that no one else was going to stop Hezbollah in their openly stated goal of destroying Israel: not the Lebanese government, not the UN, not the West. They had to do it themselves.

A central lesson of 7 October for the Jewish state is that seeking to achieve quiet through mutual deterrence with the armed Islamist militias on its borders is a fool’s errand. These organisations adhere to a religious and ideological outlook which trumps self-interest and pragmatism. They must therefore be kept physically weak. Since its achievements in the last months of 2024, Israel has been engaged in an active campaign to disrupt Hezbollah’s ability to rebuild its capacities. Around 350 of the organisation’s men have been killed in this process. Ali Haytham Tabatabai was the latest of them.  

The battle is not over.

A comment:

For almost a year, from 8th October 2023 onwards, Hezbollah fired a daily and nightly barrage of more than ten thousand missiles at civilian targets in Northern Israel, resulting in the long term evacuation of tens of thousands of Israeli citizens from their homes, schools, towns, villages, workplaces and kibbutzim. This war against Israel was completely ignored by the UK media and vast majority of the Western media, right up to the point, almost a year later, at which the Israelis eventually retaliated, leading to accusations in the media of the “aggressive Israelis” unfairly bombing civilian in Lebanon. The bias, prejudice and outright lies were staggering in their degree and consistency!

Hezbollah has been the dominant force in Lebanon for many years, with the Lebanese government and UNIFIL standing idly by, as the Iranian funded Hezbollah continued building huge underground launch sites on the Israeli border, contrary to the very Agreement UNIFIL were supposedly there to enforce. Indeed, by October 2023, UNIFIL had become no more than enthusiastic spectators, as Hezbollah launched their daily attacks on Israel, intervening only later to shoot down Israeli surveillance drones in the area. If neither the Lebanese government nor UNIFIL are able to govern in Lebanon and control Hezbollah, then it becomes not an Iran/Hezbollah war against Israel, but a Lebanese war, supported by the UN, and all sites in Lebanon are legitimate, just as the Lebanese deem all sites in Israel to be legitimate.

The Lebanese cannot seriously expect Lebanon to be used as a permanent launchpad for the attempted destruction of Israel and expect to survive.

I wonder how many people still support the Greens, in the fond belief that they’re the party for people who care about the environment. Those days are long gone. It’s the Trans Party now.

The leader of the Green group on Herefordshire Council has claimed she has been banned from her own party for her views on gender.

In a statement released on Friday, Councillor Diana Toynbee said she had been barred from serving as a Green councillor “for at least six months”.

In an X post sent on 25 November, Toynbee said there was “nothing right wing about child safeguarding and respecting women” and “nothing more anti-feminist than saying a woman is no more than a costume, identity or fantasy”.

But that’s now the official Green line:

The Green Party’s rights and responsibilities page states “trans men are men, trans women are women, and that non-binary identities exist and are valid”.

The party also supports making it easier for trans people to change their legal status without the need for a Gender Reassignment Certificate (GRC).

In Newcastle:

A woman who was molested as a child has told a court her life was destroyed by the abuser’s actions.

Newcastle Crown Court heard the woman was 13 when she was groped and feared she was going to be raped by Ryan Haley, a biological male who now identifies as a woman called Natalie Wolf, in the Washington area….

Wolf, 47 and from Byker in Newcastle, who had claimed to be the victim of a “conspiracy” and that jurors had been “hypnotised”, was found guilty of sexual activity with a child and jailed for three years and six months.

Then aged under 30, Wolf, who was referred to by female pronouns in court and has been held on remand at a men’s prison, groped the girl’s chest and tried to touch her groin, prosecutor Nicoleta Alistari said.

The woman, who told the court she had feared she was going to be raped, said she was speaking out “not just for me but for all the women and children sexually abused by men”.

Here’s the lovely Natalie, “referred to by female pronouns in court” – attempting, perhaps, to hypnotise the police photographer.

Don’t they feel a bit embarrassed, these courts – these fine legal minds – going through this charade? If he identified as Napoleon, would they refer to him as “his imperial majesty”?

Some welcome news from Iran. In the face of widespread dissatisfaction with the regime, it appears that they’re no longer enforcing the hijab rules. From the Times of Israel:

As you enter Iran’s capital, it starts with only occasional glimpses — a passenger in a car speeding by or a pedestrian trying to leapfrog through Tehran’s notorious traffic.

But as you reach the cooler heights of Tehran’s northern neighborhoods along the city’s sycamore-lined Vali-e Asr Street, they are almost everywhere, women with their brown, black, blonde and gray locks.

More and more, Iranian women choose to forgo the country’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

It was something unthinkable just a few years ago in the Islamic Republic, whose conservative Shiite clerics and hardline politicians long pushed for strict enforcement of laws requiring women to cover their hair.

But the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini and the nationwide protests that followed enraged women of all ages and views in a way few other issues have since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

It’s not out of any acknowledgement that they might be wrong, of course – a slowly dawning realisation, perhaps, that compulsory hijab is an injustice to women. Obviously not. It’s because they’re scared.

“When I moved to Iran in 1999, letting a single strand of hair show would immediately prompt someone to tell me to tuck it back under my headscarf out of fear of the morality police taking me away,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “To see where Iran is today feels unimaginable: Women and girls openly defying mandatory hijab.”

“Authorities are overwhelmed by the sheer numbers across the country and worry that if they crack down — at a delicate time marked by power blackouts, water shortages, and a rotten economy — they could spur Iranians to return to the streets,” she said.

Signs of cracks in the hardline theocratic edifice? – already weakened by Israel’s attacks against Iranian proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, and against Iran itself.

If Russia wins, there’ll be no Ukraine. If the West wins, there’ll also be no Ukraine – because it’ll be nuked by Russia. The logic of Russian “philosopher” Alexander Dugin. From MEMRI TV:

Prominent Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin said in a November 22, 2025 interview on Al-Mashhad TV (UAE) about the war in Ukraine that if Russia wins the war, Ukraine would cease to exist, because Russia cannot tolerate the presence of a “hostile” entity with “criminal ideologies” so close to its borders. He also said that if the West wins the war, there will also be no Ukraine, because Russia would use nuclear weapons in order to “save” its sovereignty. He elaborated that the Ukraine War is a Western war imposed on Russia by the liberal globalist West, which is losing due to the power of Russian soul, psychology, society, and technology. He added that the West should recognize that it was wrong to impose this war on Russia and that it is better to have good relations with it.

Yes, he’s insane. But he’s also a man that Putin takes seriously. Trump babbles on about reaching deals – because that’s the only language he understands – and Putin humours him. But the war on Ukraine isn’t about reaching deals. This, from Dugin, shows the twisted philosophy behind Russia’s aggression.

Added: and here we go.

The United States is poised to recognise Russia’s control over Crimea and other occupied Ukrainian territories to secure a deal to end the war.

The Telegraph understands that Donald Trump has sent his peace envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to make the direct offer to Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

The plan to recognise territory, which breaks US diplomatic convention, is likely to go ahead despite concerns among Ukraine’s European allies.

Never mind Ukrainian concerns.

Donald happily capitulates, thinking he’s got a smart deal. Hey, Nobel Peace Prize! But he’s just feeding the Russian bear.

This would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. From the Times:

A clinical trial giving puberty blockers to children will ask participants from the age of 12 if they identify as “two spirit”.

“Two-spirit”, for those at the back, is a label coined in 1990 at a Native American gay and lesbian conference in Winnipeg, Canada, for indigenous North Americans who identify as having both a masculine and a feminine spirit, fulfilling a third gender role in their communities. And, because it lends a kind of lovely indigenous native vibe to gender talk, it’s been generally adopted as part of the cult-speak. Does it have any significance for 12-year-old UK children? Of course it doesn’t. They won’t have a clue. But it does show how this whole farce is drenched in gender ideology.

The children will be asked “what best describes” their gender identity and given a series of options to tick including “definitely” a boy or girl, “mainly” a boy or girl, “neither a boy or girl”, “not sure” and “none of the above”.

In addition, those over 12 years old will be asked about “gender identity labels” and again given a range of descriptions to tick.

These include “cisgender”, “transgender”, “non-binary”, “agender”, “genderfluid”, “genderqueer”, “two spirit” and “other”.

In a serious study, ticking any of those would be seen as a clear demonstration that the poor children had been coached into this by parents/teachers/social media. But this isn’t a serious study.

Dr Louise Irvine, a GP and co-chairman of the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender, a group of clinicians concerned about the rise of gender ideology in healthcare, said that the “labels” being presented to children were ideological in themselves.

She said: “It’s absolutely ridiculous. It shows that the whole trial is imbued with gender affirmatory ideology. What this question will do is reinforce the ideology in the eyes of the children.

“They shouldn’t make any suggestions — the question should just be open. The questionnaire should be as neutral as possible because a scientific trial should be neutral, not ideological.”