Author: Mick Hartley

k of the actions we need to take to ensure there’s a common understanding of where we are and to share any insight we may be gleaning from other approaches, for example the UK government or the Welsh government and these are the actions that we are taking while we wait for the end of the EHRC process to review their statutory guidance. That consultation ends next Monday, they’ll move to finalise that and once that’s finalised we’ll be able to take a further series of actions.”

Undaunted by this flannel, Thomson pressed on. “What actions,” she asked, “have you taken beyond talking about taking action?”

To which, and again I am afraid I am compelled to quote at length, Griffin replied: “Well, so I think, so specific actions I can’t give you that right now but the work that’s involved in the group and the work that the teams that are represented on the group is to prepare the ground so that when we have an understanding of what the consultation results will be by way of the new guidance we are ready.”

It is, after all, very important not to act too hastily when there is instead the opportunity to talk about talks about taking action. In the fullness of time, of course.

At this point everyone quietly agreed it was time to give up. The point of Yes, Minister is that it is a satire, not a manual….

The Scottish civil service has expanded by 70% since 2013, while the police and fire service workforces are being reduced.

160;Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality, which went on to sell over 23,000 physical copies in the UK and over 100,000 internationally. Munroe Bergdorf, by contrast, received a six-figure sum for Transitional, which sold fewer than 3,000 copies in the UK.

Despite a conspicuous lack of interest from the general public, he continues to be acclaimed – not least by the BBC:

The BBC has given Munroe Bergdorf a 40 minute platform to explain why he is in a 'lesbian' relationship with another man. This is part of a new series on what love is, in which every guest so far is an LGBT activist (Stephen Fry, Self Esteem, Richard Coles and Philippa Perry) pic.twitter.com/li99Fr2aUw

— ripx4nutmeg (@ripx4nutmeg) June 25, 2025

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"Erasing women and women-specific language and needs based on their sex is not only wrong, but also demeaning, regressive and constitutes one of the worst forms of violence that women and girls can experience," @UNSRVAW Reem Alsalem told the @UN Human Rights Council.#HRC59 pic.twitter.com/4Am8JiTG0O

— UN Human Rights Council (@UN_HRC) June 25, 2025

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report after a secretive vote at a meeting of its UK council. Irvine said: “There has been terrible secrecy all the way along. It reflects a deeper malaise within the BMA. It is no longer a democratic organisation. It is too easily taken over by ideologues and interest groups."

‘Seasons’ – man’s relationship to nature and the land – and asks what has changed in the intervening centuries, and what has stayed them same.

Five of Allchurch’s images are based on the surviving paintings that are now distributed across three countries and two continents: The Hunters in the Snow, The Gloomy Day, and The Return of the Herd at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; The Harvest at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; and The Haymaking at Lobkowicz Palace, Prague Castle. The sixth painting, however, has long been lost.

In ‘The Six Seasons’, Allchurch re-imagines the missing painting as ‘The Six Seasons – Late Spring (after Bruegel), “reuniting” it with its companion pieces.

[Images © Emily Allchurch]

Click to enlarge.

“font-size: 11pt”>Richard Dawkins:

“When history looks back on the epidemic of collective lunacy that was the trans cult, special odium will attach to psychiatrists, counsellors and teachers who warped the minds, and surgeons who mutilated the bodies, of vulnerable people in their care, especially children. But lesser culprits will not escape blame, and high on the list will be publishers who, contrary to their normal editorial judgment, censored or even cancelled brave authors critical of the cult. Authors who asserted scientific truth in the teeth of fashionable ideology. Authors who stood up for real women, or stood up to the bullies who sought to intimidate them. I know many publishers, and I hear multiple stories of relentless pressure from junior colleagues, and of abject capitulation to it. But anecdotes demand proper substantiation, and this splendid document provides it in spades…."

Added:

“It’s the presentation of contested ideas, which are not shared by the majority of the population, as if they’re mandatory… it’s a systemic problem in the literary culture.”@msjlindsay speaks to @iancollinsuk on @TalkTV about @matildagosling’s report for @SEENPublishing ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/gPzqNUPAv7

— Sex Matters (@SexMattersOrg) June 25, 2025

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letter to the Deputy Prime Minister👇🏾 https://t.co/utUw1NFxVo pic.twitter.com/4MxrsgBi84

— Claire Coutinho (@ClaireCoutinho) June 19, 2025

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follows attempts by NHS trusts to prohibit staff from wearing shirts or badges in support of Palestine in NHS hospitals. What are patients — and not just Jewish patients — to make of this? Hospital wards and GP surgeries are no place for staff to parade their political leanings.

The bigger problem with this juvenile politicking is that it comes at a time when the NHS faces huge challenges, due to staff shortages, financial pressures and the increasing demands of an ageing population. These are issues people really want to hear about from doctors. It would be welcome if medics stayed focused on the day job, which is to look after their patients.

The same advice goes for the doctors’ union: its core job is to represent its members on pay and working conditions. International politics is not part of the remit. The witless campaigning of a hard core of BMA activists obsessed with taking a public stance on Gaza runs the risk of alienating the wider public, and for little discernible gain or purpose. The BMA needs to get its house in order.

They could make a start by dealing with accusations of antisemitism in the BMA's leadership:

The British Medical Association has been accused of a cover-up after terminating an antisemitism complaint about its president despite an external review’s finding of a case to answer.

Mary McCarthy, a leading GP, was accused of creating a “hostile environment” for Jewish doctors by using her account on X to share provocative posts focusing on the conflict in Gaza.

The Times understands that the BMA appointed an external lawyer to carry out an independent review of the complaint made by Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS).

It concluded that McCarthy had a case to answer for a potential breach of the BMA’s code. The review found that she had a duty to be representative of the BMA’s membership but had posted one view of the conflict in the Middle East.

Alex Hearn, from LAAS, who made the complaint, was told four months ago that a resolution panel would be set up. However, he was then informed that according to the BMA’s articles and bylaws, only its own members and staff could make complaints. As a result, his complaint would not proceed any further, the BMA said.

What a surprise.

Hearn said that the BMA had dragged its feet since the findings of the external review and “now, at the very last moment, has orchestrated a shameful cover-up to stop the case going ahead”.

He went on: “The BMA’s leadership should hang their heads in shame. Their refusal to investigate concerns of anti-Jewish racism at the very top of their organisation suggests that there is indeed a systemic problem. What message does this send to Jewish doctors and, ultimately, to Jewish patients?”

ildren in time and expect no consequences. Effectively, UK health secretary Wes Streeting has banned puberty blockers with one hand and reintroduced them with the other – dressing up the same failed experiment as ‘research’.

A puberty blocker trial, as I understand it, was recommended by Hilary Cass as part of her review. It was a mistake. We don't need more evidence about the effects of powerful drugs – as used to chemically castrate sex offenders – on confused young children. It would be a horror show: like taking a group of "gender dysphoric" young girls, giving half of them double mastectomies, and see which group – the mutilated or the unmutilated – feels better afterwards. It's contrary to every medical ethic.

This is not a healthcare model. It’s dystopian. It tramples over ethics, evidence and common sense, echoing the darkest chapters of medical history, when vulnerable people were used as guinea pigs in experiments dressed up as ‘care’….

Let the tomboys be. Let the feminine boys wave their fairy wands and find their own path. Let kids be weird and wild. That’s childhood.

Puberty is not an error to be corrected. It’s the bridge between who we were and who we’re becoming. Blocking it doesn’t hit pause. It derails the individual onto a pathway of lifelong medicalisation.

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As a linguistics PhD student, I always find it interesting when anti-Zionist activists hugely praise Yiddish representation. It is such a contrast to the derision with which they often treat Hebrew, which to this day is the only successful example of large-scale linguistic revival. An indisputably remarkable and unmatched linguistic feat.

It illustrates how, at best, anti-Zionist activists want Jews to be: minorities all over the world who should be allowed to express their identity (at least the aspects of that identity that are deemed acceptable) within their diaspora countries, but not a liberated people. Not a people with self-determination: speaking their indigenous language daily in a nation of their own in their ancestral homelands.

Added, from Simon Schama:

"anti Zionists today also fearful of Hebrew as proof of indigeneity – however much revived as daily vernacular it remains in all crucial respects the identical language as that used by the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the ( beautiful ) Hebrew of the Mishnah"

"the Mishnah btw codified in 3rd century Galilee.. Hebrew and Judaism never left"