Joanna Williams

Good on Rishi Sunak. At long last we have a Prime Minister who has come out swinging in defence of free speech. When JK Rowling shared her opposition to Scotland’s new hate crime legislation yesterday, Sunak was quick to defend her right to speak out. If the PM truly believes that the Conservatives are the protectors of free speech then he's been asleep at the wheel Rowling declared that: ‘It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man.’ And Sunak, it seems, agrees. ‘People should not be criminalised for stating simple facts on biology,’ he announced.

Keir Starmer has a reputation for changing his mind. But on one issue at least, the Labour leader remains worryingly consistent. Addressing an LGBT+ Labour meeting in Parliament this week, Starmer declared, ‘Labour governments and the LGBT+ movement have a history of achieving incredible things together.’ His own contribution to this long march of progress has already been determined. Starmer yet again pledged that a Labour government will outlaw all forms of conversion therapy. Sir Keir is adamant that, on his watch, a conversion therapy ban will be ‘trans inclusive’. In other words, it won’t just outlaw attempts to turn homosexuals straight but, crucially, it will most likely make it illegal to try and change someone’s gender identity.

How do you solve a problem like truancy? Lockdowns and school closures may be a distant memory but far too many children are still not regularly attending school. One in five pupils is reported to be ‘persistently’ absent from the classroom, a figure which has barely budged since schools fully reopened in March 2021. It's up from around one in 10 who persistently missed school before the Covid pandemic. What’s more, the attendance gap between poorer children and their better-off peers is widening. New polling from the Centre for Social Justice suggests more than one in four parents think Covid has shown it is not essential for children to attend school every day. The think tank argues that the contract between parents and schools has been broken. It is hard to disagree.

The year has got off to a good start for Rosie Duffield. Back in November, the MP for Canterbury became the focus of an investigation by the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), following allegations of anti-Semitism and transphobia. Now she has been, in her words, ‘completely exonerated’.  Duffield’s mistake, such as it was, had been to like a tweet by comedy writer Graham Linehan – who was himself responding to comedian-turned-parliamentary-wannabe, Eddie Izzard. Izzard has spent the past few years living in ‘girl mode’ and being referred to as ‘she’ or ‘her’. Izzard had told an interviewer: ‘If I’d been in Nazi Germany, I would have been murdered for saying that I was trans.

Our Members of Parliament are not short of stuff to do. There’s immigration – of the legal and illegal varieties – an economy on life support, post-lockdown problems with education, mental health and getting people back to work, as well as the NHS collapsing under the weight of its own waiting lists. Yet, remarkably, ten of our trusted representatives have found time amid their crushing schedules to become part of a charity’s marketing campaign. The Labour party features heavily, with Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Stella Creasy, Angela Eagle and several others putting in an appearance; Alison Thewliss and Kirsten Oswald from the SNP are game, and so, too, are a number of Tories. But what important cause unites this cross-party group? Hungry children? Homelessness? No!

It was easy to choose books for my young nieces and nephews this Christmas. First, I ruled out stories about boys who think they are girls, girls who dream of having their breasts removed, and pet rabbits unhappy at being misgendered. Then I rejected books telling toddlers how to be anti-racist and older children how to be allies to their black classmates. Feminist manuals on women who changed the world, all of which feature at least one woman who was actually male, went the same way as history books that divide the past into tales of victimised black people and evil white people. Worthy tomes about climate change, rising sea levels and Greta Thunberg were also discarded. By this point, with so few books remaining, the choice was all but made for me.

Finally, after months of argument and expectation, media briefings and leaked drafts, it seems the government just might be ready to release its transgender guidance to schools. Possibly. In a few weeks. Word is that this latest iteration asserts the importance of sex over gender. It makes it clear to schools that sports teams, toilets and changing rooms should be demarcated according to biology. Only female children are to play on girls’ sports teams or sleep in girls’ dormitories on school residential trips. This is sensible and in keeping with decisions recently taken by major sporting bodies. But those hoping for a complete ban on children social transitioning – changing their name and pronouns and wearing uniform meant for the opposite sex – will be disappointed.

‘Let’s talk about sex, baby,’ sang female rap duo Salt-N-Pepa back in 1990. More than 30-years later, it can seem as if we talk about little else. Today, we are not just expected to talk frankly about all matters carnal but to be ‘sex positive’. Emma Sayle, the founder of ‘Killing Kittens’ – which organises posh orgies for bored bankers – is the latest to urge us to speak up about sex. ‘Being sex positive is just being open about sexuality and being able to talk comfortably about sex without any shame or guilt or judgment,' she said in an interview with the Times this week. Her words were revealing, but perhaps not in the way Sayle intended.

Demonstrations against Israel, some attracting many thousands of people, have become a regular occurrence. We have grown used to the sight of masked protesters draped in Palestinian flags marching in our cities, blocking train stations, and even calling for jihad. The police, meanwhile, seem to be keeping a low profile. Such light-touch policing is not normal. Think back to the 1980s and scenes of officers on horseback charging into striking coal miners. Or, more recently, the way women were dealt with at the vigil for murdered Sarah Everard. Why are pro-Palestine demonstrations being handled so differently? One answer might lie with the police, and their approach to protest.

As doctors down stethoscopes and walk out of hospitals in their ongoing strike for better pay and working conditions, the public might reasonably conclude that the NHS is underfunded. How, then, do we make sense of this week’s revelation that NHS England is set to open three new departments focusing on equality and diversity? Either there are insufficient funds to pay doctors and nurses a decent wage or there is money to splash out on rainbow lanyards and unconscious bias training. Both cannot be true at the same time. The three new NHS England departments, set to open in April 2024, will be called ‘Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’, ‘People and Culture’ and ‘People and Communities’.

What’s the point of museums? According to researchers at the University of Leicester, museums should help children explore their gender identity. Academics have issued 44-pages of detailed guidance on how museum directors can tackle 'growing uncertainty and anxiety surrounding trans-inclusive practice' while stimulating 'positive explorations of gender' for children. The University of Leicester has got this all wrong. Whether it is school sex education classes, TikTok videos, libraries hosting drag queen story hours, picture books about grandad attending Pride, or television programmes about boys who want to become girls, children are bombarded with opportunities to explore their gender identity.

Who is to blame for Birmingham City Council’s dire financial situation? The council has long been struggling to pay its bills and effectively declared itself bankrupt yesterday. In a brief statement, a spokesperson for the Labour-run council pointed the finger at ‘equal pay claims’ as the cause of the problem, explaining:  The council is still in a position where it must fund the equal pay liability that has accrued to date (in the region of £650m to £760m), but it does not have the resources to do so. Europe’s largest local authority has indeed paid a high price for its gender pay gap. After a 2012 legal case found in favour of 174 of the city’s women, the council has so far doled out £1.1billion.

Carla Foster is to be released from prison. Her 28-month sentence for illegally obtaining abortion pills and terminating a pregnancy sparked angry protests from feminists and pro-choice activists when it was handed down last month. Now, following weeks of legal dispute, the Court of Appeal has reduced her sentence to 14 months suspended. Having spent 35 days behind bars, Foster is set to be freed immediately. Good. The Court of Appeal’s judgment is to be welcomed. It demonstrates compassion for a woman who found herself in a highly unusual and distressing situation and it allows her to be reunited with her three children.

Keir Starmer clearly does not abide by the principle ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. On the contrary, with this week’s announcement of Labour’s plans to overhaul England’s education sector, Starmer has proven that even in the rare instance of something working well, Labour can be relied upon to make it worse. Come the next election, Conservative activists looking to tally up the party’s successes will almost certainly land on education. Sure, they will have to close their eyes to the devastating impact of lockdown school closures and continued disruption by striking teachers. And they might have to cross their fingers and hope no one quizzes them on the mess that is Relationships and Sex Education.

Carla Foster spent last night in a prison cell. In 2020, after having obtained abortion pills under false pretences, the 44-year-old mother of three terminated her pregnancy at between 32 and 34 weeks gestation. This week, she was found guilty under section 58 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 for administering drugs or using instruments to procure abortion. She has been sentenced to two years in prison. Foster’s imprisonment has sparked shock and anger among commentators, campaigners and politicians. ‘There is a mechanism the government can use to show mercy to women convicted today for having an abortion – it’s a royal prerogative and was last used in 2020,’ tweeted Labour’s Stella Creasy.