Mick Hartley

Blog

  • Dressing up weakness as principle

    In the Sunday Times – Starmer says that recognising a Palestinian statehood is a moral duty.

    Starmer’s announcement before this week’s UN general assembly meeting in New York has already provoked backlash in America, with a number of congressional Republican leaders writing to the UK, France, Canada and Australia on Saturday urging them to pause their plans or risk empowering Hamas and undermining Israel’s security.

    It has also been condemned by a group of Israeli hostage families, who wrote an open letter to the prime minister on Saturday stating: “We write to you with a simple plea — do not take this step until our loved ones are home and in our arms.”

    Addressing the criticism head-on, Starmer is expected to say the demands he made on Hamas this summer “remain absolute”. This includes releasing all hostages, agreeing to an immediate ceasefire, accepting it will have no role in governing Gaza, and a commitment to disarmament.

    What does that even mean? How will that be enforced? Once you have a Palestinian state – as happened in Gaza twenty years ago – Hamas or their Islamist equivalents will find the way to power. He's just giving them exactly what they want, as a reward – as has been said often enough – for terror and brutality. 

    Most recommended comment:

    Gaza was meant to be a blueprint for a Palestinian state. In 2005, Israel dismantled every settlement, withdrew every soldier, and handed the strip to its people. For a moment, there was a chance to build something better. The Palestinian Authority held power, but it soon collapsed. In 2006 Hamas won at the ballot box. By 2007, they had slaughtered rivals, driven Fatah into exile, and seized absolute power.

    Since then, Gaza has lived under a one-party dictatorship. There is no dissent, no freedom, no opposition. Speak out, and you vanish. Hamas siphoned aid, stole fuel and cement, and poured it into rockets and tunnels instead of homes, hospitals, or schools. Thirty thousand missiles later, the result speaks for itself.

    Hamas thrives on misery. They use women and children as shields, hunger as a weapon, and the suffering of innocents as propaganda. Their strategy is not governance but perpetual conflict. They have no legitimacy. Only blood, fear, and ruin.

    And yet our prime minister gives them legitimacy with weasel words. Worse, he does so in a bid to cling to votes that will desert him and Labour anyway. What happened in Tower Hamlets will happen nationally if this cowardice continues.

    Moral? Never appease terror. Never reward lies. Never dress up weakness as principle.

    Added:

  • At Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral

  • Staff networks

    Over the past twenty years or so staff networks and the notion of "allyship" have spread across the public sector like poison ivy.  Chris Bayliss at The Critic:

    The concept of “allyship” is a vague and nebulous one. Supposedly, it is meant to involve those of “non-marginalised” or “privileged” groups (heterosexuals, men, white people etc) “amplifying the voices” of and “advocating” for their “marginalised” colleagues. In practice, it usually meant intelligent if slightly spineless middle-aged Senior Civil Servants being fed intersectional social justice dogma by an HEO fresh out of university, and being judged on how completely they digested it and accepted its premises. Anybody who had any exposure to the British public sector during this period will have had the connotations of the word “ally” completely changed in their minds, and will now no longer be able to watch a documentary about the Second World War without imagining a balding 54 year old DEFRA Director wearing a rainbow lanyard storming ashore at Anzio, or launching a dogged attack through the bocage around Saint-Lô.

    If this experience was miserable enough for everyone else, it was especially humiliating for those who did not feel “marginalised” or defined by their own “protected characteristics” — those for whom being gay, or being Asian or whatever was not a professional identity. Particularly those who were slightly older, and who felt their own career progress thus far was down to their own efforts or merits, rather than a result of their being “advocated” for by “allies”. When these groups were first formed, an individual could simply choose whether to participate or not, but by the late 2010s that was ceasing to be an option one could get away with quietly, especially for those at more senior grades.

    It’s worth taking a brief moment to dwell on the especially noxious role of the so-called “mental health” networks, which were often populated mainly by individuals with the kind of personality disorders that made them especially unpleasant or professionally dangerous to be around. These networks could be the most vocal within any government department, mainly because they believed that they had lessons to teach everyone else about their own “mental health”. As such, they tended to elevate the most malign and narcissistic individuals into moral authorities within their workplaces.

    It will be difficult to prove the precise level of influence that LGBTQ+ networks had over senior officials in government, and over clinicians within the NHS, during the controversy over “gender affirming care” (hormone blockers and the removal of health body parts) during the decade while that debate was in contention in the UK. But throughout that time, scepticism toward gender ideology was framed by these groups as if it were a threat to the safety of staff. It’s known that the LGBTQ+ network within the BMA attempted to attack the methodology of the Cass Review, and that officials attempted to block Kemi Badenoch while she was Secretary of State for Women and Equality from meeting with gender critical campaigners. It is important to remember that every single decision made, and each piece of policy advice issued by officials, was done in an atmosphere in which groups like this wielded real influence over people’s careers.

    It's the familiar story of efforts to help the less fortunate taking over and becoming the tail wagging the dog. 

    Prompted by stories like this:

    Warwickshire County Council's LGBTQ+ staff group has warned of the "deeply unsettling" effect of not guaranteeing that the Pride flag will be flown at the council headquarters in the future.

    The council's new leader, Reform UK's Councillor George Finch, wanted the Progress Pride flag taken down before the end of Pride month in June but chief executive Monica Fogarty refused.

    For people like Fogarty here, keeping the Pride flag flying is a hill they're ready to die on.

    What this all means is that in organisations like the police, or the NHS, or the Civil Service – or the BBC – the people who rise to the top now are not so much those who've proved their capability and leadership skills, but those who've embraced the latest shibboleths about inclusivity and so on with the most enthusiasm: those who came top in the Stonewall seminar tests and were loudest in their commitment to the LGBTQ+ cause.

    In other words, as we've seen recently – especially with the police – the people at the top may well be idiots.

  • Monitoring the women

    Full text:

    The Taliban have ordered the Ministry of Telecommunications to obtain formal guarantees from telecom companies to provide Afghan users’ calls, data, and digital activity to the group’s security agencies. Local sources in Kandahar report that Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada issued the directive.
    According to the order, telecom companies must create special codes that, once triggered by a user, will automatically transfer all call logs, messages, and digital activity to Taliban intelligence.
    Experts warn this decision could severely restrict freedom of expression and citizens' privacy.

    It hardly needs an expert to point this out. And women, no doubt, are the main target. 

  • LGB without the T

    Added: now in the Telegraph.

    Gender-critical gay rights groups are forming a global alliance to challenge transgender advocates.

    On Saturday, the LGB Alliance announced the launch of LGB International, a coalition of worldwide LGB groups, which declares its “independence from the LGBTQIA+ establishment” to distance itself from the “legacy gay organisations which now focus entirely on transgender issues”.

    The LGB Alliance was started in 2019 following a fallout and factionalism at Stonewall, Europe’s biggest LGBT rights organisation, after it was accused of promoting a “trans agenda” at the expense of gay and lesbian rights.

    At the time, the LGB Alliance, which is made up of gender-critical lesbian, gay and bisexuals, said the point of forming a new organisation was to “counteract the confusion between sex and gender which is now widespread in the public sector and elsewhere”.

    Speaking of the group’s relaunch, Frederick Schminke, the chairman of LGB International, which does not include transgender organisations, said: “We are launching this because the organisations that once represented gay people are now entirely devoted to ‘gender identity ideology’.

    “We risk losing our hard-won rights, and as public support plummets, traditional LGBTQ+ organisations have barricaded themselves up against all reason, fostering an atmosphere where no dissenting views are tolerated.”

  • Charlie Kirk and Canada’s trans activists

    Jonathan Kay at Quillette on the gleeful response to Charlie Kirk’s murder from high-profile trans activists in Canada:

    Last week, a Canadian academic named Florence Ashley became infamous for declaring that Charlie Kirk was a “Nazi,” and for suggesting that Kirk’s murder was a welcome act of “magic.” If the name is familiar, it might be because the same scholar—a biological male who self-describes as a “transfeminine activist, academic, and slut”—was widely ridiculed after instructing pet owners to stop “gendering” their dogs and cats, lest they “normalise bioessentialist conceptions of gender.” Ashley has also exhorted social-media followers to “be gay and do crimes,” and has written about how “glamorous and provocative” it feels to have one’s genitals “bulging through a tight dress.”

    So, some weird obscure academic – does this matter? Well yes. This is Canada:

    Ashley isn’t some random postgrad, but rather a well-known professor (and former Supreme Court of Canada clerk) who’s received a long list of academic honours.

    According to the University of Alberta Faculty of Law, where Ashley teaches a mandatory first-year criminal-law course, his work “has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada, the United Nations Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health standards of care, and in position statements, reviews, and guidelines by Australian, New Zealander, Canadian, Polish, German, Swiss, and American professional and state organizations.” Mainstream Canadian news outlets treat Ashley as an authority on the transition of minors (which, naturally, he is eager to encourage). Until a British newspaper published details about Ashley’s bizarre public pronouncements, the World Health Organization even had Ashley on a committee tasked with setting treatment guidelines for gender dysphoria. (Ashley was dumped by the WHO several days after the article appeared, on the face-saving pretext that “a conflict of schedules” had emerged.)

    Ashley wasn’t the only well-known Canadian trans activist who made repellent comments about Kirk’s death. Another was trans “trailblazer” Morgane Oger, a member of the Vancouver Pride Society (and former Pride Parade Grand Marshall) who was recently awarded the Governor General of Canada’s Meritorious Service Medal.

    Oger responded to Kirk’s murder by taunting his widow with an obscene expression of mock sympathy: “Nobody deserves to lose their breadwinner. And nobody deserves to be married to someone whose death is ironic karma embodied. There’s a lesson here [for Kirk’s widow]: Never fuck hatemongering bigots.”

    And there's more. It's almost like there's a pattern.

    In 2022, a trans horror writer named Gretchen Felker-Martin wrote a novel in which trans characters fantasise about Rowling being burned alive. (In real life, Felker-Martin says, she actually wants to slit Rowling’s throat.) The same writer has also fantasised about slaughtering journalists such as Helen Joyce and Jesse Singal (“If they all had one throat, man”) because they ask “questions” regarding gender-affirming dogmas.

    Surprise, surprise—last week, the same author had an equally unhinged reaction to Kirk’s death, posting, “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi b-tch… Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie.”…

    I see no indication that any of these people are representative of transgender people in general. But it should be concerning that the political self-selection mechanisms within trans subcultures consistently serve to elevate the profiles of men who (1) heap abuse on women; (2) regard their own claims to womanhood as matters of overarching sexual and political urgency; and (3) employ rhetoric that encourages coercive, violent, and even deadly suppression of ideological opponents.

    An archetype, recently in the news for all the wrong reasons, is Chelsea Wolfe, a male cyclist who competes in women’s events. He recently told a female protester to “go suck a sawn-off shotgun.” Not surprisingly, Wolfe was also very pleased to hear that Charlie Kirk was assassinated, triumphantly declaring “We did it” alongside a story about the horrific murder, and flashing a thumbs-up sign.

    …thanks to their attention-seeking behaviour and (stereotypically “toxic”) male aggression, their extremist rhetoric has suffused the whole movement. Attendees at trans events in Toronto, for instance, now casually don “Transphobe Extermination” shirts, festooned with a noose. To trans people who’ve come to imagine that this sort of apocalyptic language is a normal part of everyday political discourse, it must come as a great shock when ordinary people react with revulsion at their equally abhorrent celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s death.

    Indeed. Perhaps these activists' sacred position as trans prophets for progressive Canada may be coming to an end. There's been a backlash:

    Things might be changing, though. DC Comics cancelled its comic-book contract with Felker-Martin following her celebration of Kirk’s death. And Ashley’s comments about Kirk were deemed so over-the-top that the University of Alberta put him on leave—so as “to allow a thorough review while supporting community safety.” While I have no doubt that Ashley will soon be back at work (regaling everyone with fascinating details of his “gender/fucking” adventures during his time off), the mere fact that his bosses felt compelled to (effectively) censure him is significant.

    This is a Canadian campus, remember—and therefore one of the most dogmatically trans-positive places on the planet. Just a few months back, the University of Alberta named Ashley one of its “spotlight” academic stars. Maybe school officials should have thought harder about what sordid details that “spotlight” would pick up.

  • Playground insults

    A kind of companion piece to Kathleen Stock's UnHerd article, here's Stella O'Malley at Spiked – Charlie Kirk’s death has exposed the bigotry of the ‘Be Kind’ brigade:

    For too many people, politics has become a kind of secular baptism, a ritual washing away of sins. You can be careless with those closest to you, even cruel, and still believe yourself virtuous. All it takes is spending a Saturday on X hurling righteous abuse at ‘right-wing bigots’ and, hey presto, you’re absolved.

    That smug worldview might look harmless when it is just an old pal excusing his shabby behaviour. But since last week, we have witnessed the same mentality on the global stage, after American conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated for his political beliefs.

    Across the progressive media, the script was familiar. Gleeful libels were spread about a 31-year-old father of two. Violence was suddenly rebranded as a legitimate moral option….

    And this is where the left-right charade collapses into farce. Once upon a time those definitions meant something. Now they are little more than Hogwarts houses for overgrown teenagers.

    Today, to raise ethical concerns about medical experimentation on children is ‘right-wing’. To question the wisdom of men competing in women’s sports is ‘right-wing’. To say you like your own culture is ‘right-wing’, too. Patriotism is effectively cast as racism….

    ‘Right-wing’ is a catch-all slur for anyone with an unfashionable opinion. ‘Left-wing’ has become a badge of virtue. What was once a serious clash of philosophies is now a playground insult hurled at whoever irritates you.

    Not just "right wing" – that's no longer enough of an insult. It's "far right" now. "Fascist".  With the occasional "Nazi" – especially for anyone with Israeli sympathies, or who refuses to buy the Gaza genocide line.

  • “For the sake of the Prophet, not for the sake of the land”

    Here's what it's really about. 

    On September 15, 2025, an activist from Gaza, Fatima Zahra Harb, whose family was “martyred,” said on Ofogh TV (Iran) that their deaths “had to happen” because “pure blood needs to be shed for the land to be liberated.” Harb said that every war gives Palestinians more energy and that more babies are born so they can increase their power in order to “kill them all and liberate the land.”

    "Pure blood needs to be shed for the land to be liberated. This is our very sacred land that has to be freed. We follow the path of Imam Hussein. We do this for the sake of the Prophet, not for the sake of the land. If they conquer Palestine, the entire Islamic culture and civilisation will be decimated."

    It's all about Islam.

  • Puerility

    Kathleen Stock in good form at UnHerd:

    As arguments rage about the precise variety of Tyler Robinson’s psychopathic politics, one thing is clear: the killer of Charlie Kirk is intensely puerile. I’m not sure what else you could call the act of engraving a bullet with “If you read this, you are GAY Lmao”, all the while planning to murder someone with it. His fine motor skills may be unusually advanced, but in other areas of development, the 22 year old is — in a perfectly literal sense — retarded for his age.

    “Retarded” has in fact become the word of the decade for a reason. Puerility is now a defining characteristic of the political internet, unifying much of the online Right and Left, and explaining why newcomers wandering in from the real world have difficulty telling the difference between groypers and leftoids….

    I first heard about Kirk’s awful murder in Berlin, where I was at the SEGM conference on clinical approaches to gender distress in young people. A local transactivist group, bent on disruption, had put up an Instagram account to help “know your enemy”, and my face was the first one posted. As I am aware from long experience, there’s a particularly queasy aesthetic to transactivist protest, and it, too, is astonishingly juvenile: malice, grandiosity, and self-pity rendered in babyish pastel colours. People dress up as clowns and skip about, ponderously performing “trans joy”; they drown out opposing voices with screaming or loud music, as if their very existence is threatened by dissent; they lie down dramatically on the road and pretend to die. In between, there are board-game nights, soft toys, and onesies.

    Inside the conference, we heard about the ways in which adolescent development can get stuck in perpetuity — descriptions which, let’s be honest, now apply to much of society at large. There’s black-and-white thinking, and a lack of tolerance for ambiguity. There’s a splitting of the world into good or bad objects, along with an inability to think through the consequences of present actions or to care about the future. There’s a fear of sexual development and reproduction; and a failure to distinguish fervent wants from real needs.

    Yes,  I hadn't thought of that – giving puberty blockers to stop normal adolescent development does seem a fitting symbol for a more general puerility. Let's all stay as children and call each other names. In more extreme form, the autogynephile obsession with wearing nappies…

    Gloating responses to Kirk’s shooting partly came from basic frustration that, during his life, he wouldn’t say what they wanted; he had always refused to toe their preferred ideological line. They probably also hated him for the complicated feelings of ambivalence his arguments gave them. But there were juvenile fantasies of power as well: life as a video game with you as the hero, and conservatives imagined as your evil antagonists. Oxford Union president-elect George Abaraonye certainly sounded like he thought he was in a game of Fortnite when he haplessly texted things like “Charlie got shot let’s fucking go” and “scoreboard fn we are so up rn” on hearing the news.

    But it’s tempting to think that it was not just the conservatism that these young people hated about Kirk: it was also that he acted ostentatiously like an adult. He was not frightened of sexual maturity and responsibility; he embraced these things. He actively told people not to give into every passing desire, but to be continent and restrained. He was also able to tolerate opposing viewpoints to his own, without feeling the threat of personal disintegration, or the need to get lost in defensive persecution complexes. Whatever else you think about the content of his particular belief system, these seem like decent qualities to aspire to; and presumably they made resentful, fearful, emotionally delayed adolescents of all ages stamp their feet and hate him all the more.

  • Judenfrei

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