James Kirkup

I write a lot about transgenderism. I do so for several reasons. Among them: because politicians still aren’t doing their job and assessing policies and representing concerns properly. Because politics fails if groups of people are silenced and ignored. Because the way some women are abused, threatened and silenced on this topic makes me angry. Because other journalists (mostly male ones) who know that this stuff matters still aren’t covering it. And because language, our ability to give form and expression to our thoughts, is important. George Orwell is probably the most over-quoted author in the language. That’s true even if you exclude all the people who cite things he didn’t say ('In a time of universal deceit…'). But sometimes nothing else will do.

I have been trying with considerable success not to give two hoots about this Harry and Meghan thing. But a detail of their departure from the royal orbit bothers me. It arises from Harry’s surrender of his royal patronages, part of his move to cease being an HRH and become a plain old duke. That detail is this: the Captain General of the Royal Marines is resigning his post in order to spend more time on Instagram. And that, bluntly, is a pretty shabby thing.

Greggs' sausage rolls are part of the national conversation. The smart shift to offer a vegan variant caught the mood and bragging about your love of Greggs is an easy way for politicos to signal their down-with-the-proles ordinariness. In fact, political types should be paying more attention to the company behind the sausage rolls, because it might just be the future (and saviour) of capitalism. Greggs is a public company, part of the FTSE 250 and a good bet for the FTSE 100 one day. That and it treats people well. The latest sign of this is the £300 bonus Greggs is paying to staff, reflecting those profits and a £35million dividend to shareholders. That bonus is on top of the firm’s existing profit share scheme.

Government by headline is always tempting, and always a mistake. Some of the worst such mistakes concern the machinery and cost of politics, where it’s all too easy to announce stuff that sounds good for a day or two yet inflicts long-term harm on the quality of politics and government. Scrapping and merging Whitehall departments generally falls into the category of 'things that sound sensible but aren’t', so reports that such a reorganisation has been canned are encouraging. In any case, there are bigger problems to fix in Whitehall, problems caused by politicians putting appearances before effectiveness. Public sector pay is a good example.

One of the (many) frustrations of writing a lot about sex and gender is knowing that there are a lot of people who are concerned about these issues but who do not, for various reasons, say so. I’ve written quite a lot about the politicians, of all parties, who have private worries and criticisms about policies and laws intended to benefit transgender people which, however inadvertently, might have implications for women and their legal rights. I’ve also written about the failure of some media outlets, including some (but not all) parts of the BBC, to cover this issue properly. I am also aware of lots of women in lots of different walks of life who worry about this stuff but do not say so. Many are fearful of the backlash, the accusations of transphobia that could follow.

First, a warning. This is one of those articles where I use the word 'penis' a lot. Yes, another one. No, I don’t enjoy it much either, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. Sorry. Now, some law. Specifically, the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Among other things, it defines the crime of rape, in Sections 1 and 5. Section 1: A person (A) commits an offence if— a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis, b) B does not consent to the penetration, and c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.   Section 5: A person commits an offence if— a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person with his penis, and b) the other person is under 13.

Put aside the surprise at the scale of the Tory gains and look at where those gains came, and consider what is now the central question of British politics: how will the Conservatives try to keep their gains at the next general election? Don’t assume that’s in 2024. The Fixed Term Parliaments Act may well not survive this election result. This majority gives Boris Johnson the scope to engage in constitutional reform, though big SNP gains mean the biggest constitutional challenge will be keeping Scotland in the Union. I sadly think we’ll see IndyRef2 in this Parliament and I fear the outcome. The Tories did badly in Scotland, but won in the English north and midlands. How well?

Jo Swinson won’t be our next prime minister but her election campaign has achieved one significant thing already: she’s helped the BBC to start doing the job of journalism on trans rights issues. The Lib Dems have taken a conscious decision to go into the election campaign as the party of trans rights and inclusion. They think that embracing the transgender issue plays well with the degree-educated, socially liberal voters in university towns. I can’t judge how well the Lib Dem trans strategy is playing out with those key voters. I can simply assess the public results of that decision, which has been a string of frankly horrible broadcast interviews by Swinson and other Lib Dem candidates.

Here’s a curiosity of the 2019 general election: given that both the big parties agree that austerity is over and Britain wants a more generous state, why is no one doing much to help the poor? And why is no one talking about that failure? These questions start with Labour. Jeremy Corbyn’s fans see him as a radical crusader for economic justice, an almost ascetic figure utterly devoted to the disadvantaged. In the mad 'story' about Corbyn and the Queen’s speech this week, the Labour leader had a perfectly good tale to tell: he spends part of his Christmas Day in a shelter for the homeless. According to the Social Metrics Commission (SMC), a cross-party group of experts (including my Social Market Foundation colleague Matt Oakley) there are 4.

A great deal of the transgender debate is unexplained. One of the most mystifying aspects is the speed and success of a small number of small organisations in achieving major influence over public bodies, politicians and officials. How has a certain idea taken hold in so many places so swiftly? People and organisations that at the start of this decade had no clear policy on or even knowledge of trans issues are now enthusiastically embracing non-binary gender identities and transition, offering gender-neutral toilets and other changes required to accommodate trans people and their interests. These changes have, among other things, surprised many people.