Regulatory capture

[LangCleg]

We've had two (well, one still standing) threads on Accenture and its inclusive LGBT event excluding lesbians by power of the state over the last couple of days.

We've also discussed the way in which the policy-setting leadership of other companies, state institutions (for example the police and the NHS), charities (for example NSPCC) and third sector orgs (for example Girl Guides) have enforced the top-down imposition of Gender Identity ideology despite obvious practical and ethical issues and conflicts of rights.

I came across someone remarking about the concept of regulatory capture on Twitter in relation to all this and, since we've also been discussing the actual power relations behind various oppression narratives, I wonder what everyone thought.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

Regulatory capture is a form of government failure which occurs when a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating. When regulatory capture occurs, the interests of firms or political groups are prioritized over the interests of the public, leading to a net loss for society. Government agencies suffering regulatory capture are called "captured agencies".

There are two basic types of regulatory capture and the second rings a few bells:

Non-materialist capture, also called cognitive capture or cultural capture, in which the regulator begins to think like the regulated industry. This can result from interest-group lobbying by the industry.

What do we think? Are there parallels?

See, for example, the only child protection charity with statutory power in the UK, the NSPCC, being entirely incapable of providing answers to safeguarding questions posed by mothers on a parenting website.

By the point of regulatory capture, only overseeing authorities - the government - can restore matters.

Which will, I fear, take a scandal of such enormous proportions that it cannot be ignored. For instance, instead of just Karen White, every trans-identifying male-bodied sex offender being transferred to the women's estate and running amok. Or large numbers of detransitioners suing the doctors who mutilated them.

But I want common sense to prevail before people are hurt. Sadly I have little hope of this happening.

By the point of regulatory capture, only overseeing authorities - the government - can restore matters.

But the women and equalities and the hate crime APPGs have been captured too. As has the Speaker of the House.

Instructive, as usual, Lang.

So, if this kind of capture has occurred, and the governing authorities are the suggested recourse, how does one go about pursuing that? Seems like base level pushback against the powerful elements pushing their lying narrative seems the most obvious and accessible - revolution, from the ground upwards stuff. There's enough of the ideas of liberal democracy still sloshing around to be able to jolt the general public out of apathy, isn't there?

What else can individuals actually DO?

Keep raising public awareness until it is in the interests of politicians to listen.

And, I'm sorry to say, as Fermats said, to wait for the inevitable scandals to force the issue.

I think we just have to keep talking. Particularly about power. Refuse to let the powerful look away - like Julia Long!

Hope that some whistleblowers start making a fuss.

Right then. So, it's digging in time, faces like flint and keep being awkward sods to the powerful.

That, I can do.

Refuse to let the powerful look away - like Julia Long!

Yes. Julia Long and Posie have been able to create some highly symbolic moments.

Labour have been captured, the Lib Dem’s, the greens, the SNP (with the notable exception of Joan ) and half the Tories.

I am resigned to the fact that all I can do is log my concerns as many places as possible and wait to say ‘I told you so’. That’s shit.

I just wanted to link to the Accenture thread that wasn't taken down.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3539529-Lesbians-removed-from-Accenture-inclusive-trans-event-by-7-police-officers

This is such an interesting discussion .My view is get more civil rights, equalities, free speech type lawyers/groups talking about the interpretation of the current law.

Work on the ones who may be a little woke at present so are not thinking deeply enough about and flatter them intellectually. Make them move away from mantras and think about the broader consequences of the "no debate" and "no consultation except with trans groups" effect on equality and human rights law itself (which is framed such as to recognise balance between competing rights at its core see www.supremecourt.uk/docs/speech-140307.pdf which whilst not about trans at all is a reconfirmation of balancing rights being at the heart of the law

Thank you for this interesting thread. I definitely recognise the phenomenon of cultural capture- in respect to the transgender ideology this feels like another example of the wider overall cultural capture of the UK by the culture of the US.

But somehow in the UK this cultural attack and then capture is given a unique and even more intense spin here because in the UK we have free at the point of delivery public health care. We also have the European Convention on Human Rights imported into our legisation via the Human Rights Act which interplays with what the NHS offers. We have our world class universities. Our case law and regulatory bodies and health system are looked to for precedent by many of the other English-speaking jurisdictions internationally. We also have (some remaining) cultural capital on the international scene.

Which makes health system capture here in the UK actually the ultimate prize.
Achieving and maintaining NHS capture- given that most of us in the UK pay into it - requires a full-scale cultural takeover of the UK public consensus and Uk government and regulatory institutions, academic and cultural sectors. TRAs also desperately need kids to take the drugs and go under the knife to literally be the photogenic poster children for this agenda- showcasing their permanent commitment to this dogma.

So I feel like this partly explains what we are seeing in terms of this hyper-individualistic, hyper-consumerist, hyper-capitalistic genderist ideology coming to the fore in the UK, very much aided by social media, the ultimate weapon of social capture.

Also this takeover seems aided by the party-political instability of recent years, meaning that political alliances are formed more in a grassroots way. We now coalesce around individual causes and make public on social media our personal individual responses to them in lieu of political party support. Amplifying and making public our alliances is part of this whole thing.

But social media is open to all (..who can avoid the ban-hammer, apparently quite hard if you are female..).

And clearly there is an opposing argument to the TWAW mantra, that WAW, TWAW are TWAW and that’s fine and that’s enough. So now we see the culture wars that we have on this issue.

So there may have been cultural capture- but I think the good news is it’s not stable or settled yet. because there are women and journalists aware of it and are shedding light and truth on this dogma, and which as soon as you see the harmful practical realities of it, it falls apart. There is scandal building. So if captured institutions can be shown this reality and encouraged to stop doing the work of TRAs for them, this dogma will not survive out in the real world. Plus when teenagers are validating something it has a limited shelf life before it becomes old, so hopefully that will put off a few kids before the social contagion gets to them. And desistors’ voices will become amplified and there will be lawsuits.

But so long as kids are raised on social media their need for attention and validation will be very strong and so long as porn is everywhere there will still be many girls for whom being trans ‘offers an escape’, so we need to lobby for our free health system to be resourced properly to support them through their anxiety and body dysphoria professionally via talking.

When I say ‘this cultural attack and then capture’ i really meant ‘THIS’ specific cultural attack btw. Admittedly i have got my tinfoil hat on most of the time these days.. but I wasn’t suggesting that American culture in general is ‘attacking’ on UK culture. I feel like this latest incarnation of men’s rights culture is though.

Richard Garside is right, it's not mentioned anywhere in the legislation. EHRC made it up themselves with help from TRA lobbyists.

Yes and it's contradicted by things like the example given for the employee requirements exemption where it clearly says in the explanatory notes that it could be considered reasonable/legitimate/proportionate for a rape counsellor role to have to be a woman to avoid causing women distress (can't remember actual wording). Which is not a "case by case" scenario - it's not personal to individual MTF trans people or men or how well or not they perform femininity.

They resulted in that ridiculous case in Sheffield where a convicted rapist on the run was reported as being a woman who might be disguised as a man - thus totally misleading the public as to the actual appearance of what was a dangerous offender who could pose a serious risk to anyone encountering (redacted due to MN sharing the same approach to pronouns).

Yes. Here we can see that regulatory capture of a supposedly free press led to possible endangerment of public safety. And there is the wider issue, that we talk about often, of misleading the public about who is committing crime.

IPSO is an interesting example because it is a self regulator and is funded by a levy on members run by a supervising org called the Regulatory Funding Company.

A list of board members is here, should anyone need it: www.regulatoryfunding.co.uk/

what was very shocking for me about the Accenture debacle is that objectively Susie Green

1. believes that children who are distressed by gender stereotypes that society imposes on them should be medicated and sterilised

2. sterilised her own child

and Accenture gave her a platform, despite both her beliefs and her behaviour being completely outside anything that should be tolerated in our society.

Gina Denholm believes that a woman is defined by clothing stereotypes and a personality type. And Accenture gave them a platform despite the deeply, offensively, sexist views they hold.

Establishment thought has been well and truly 'captured' for this to happen

But I am quite heartened by things like Rod Liddle's opinion piece stating that Susie Green should be in gaol. Because as Lang says, all we can do is keep talking, to try to change the accepted norms.

The underlying problem is the outsourcing of policy, which has been going on for years. It's Cameron's contestable policy-making but without the promised transparency. Policy is being written by those with vested interests, and the reason why people like Penny Mordaunt are so reluctant to bin it and start again is because policies are outsourced 'products' that the government is reluctant to waste. It's a systemic problem and a direct result of the Conservatives' obsession with lean government. If only we had a sane opposition!

Doesn't this arise from conflicts of interests of those people in authority not being properly questioned.

So stuff like getting freebies or nice foreign trips abroad without it being properly flagged nor questioned?

Which it itself is the heart of corruption.

And was the set of circumstances with a fat overblown middle and upper class at the expense of the working or underclsss which is generally is thought to have ultimately led to the French Revolution? And many feel is sort of being replicated today.

That kind of dynamic?

Doesn't this arise from conflicts of interests of those people in authority not being properly questioned

yes, and I don't think it's just getting nice freebies

I think trans civil servants working on policy for trans people is a massive conflict of interest. I can't find the reference, but I understood that there were trans civil servants working at the Equalities Office?

In the same way that Keith Vaz being a user of prostitutes and leading the home affairs select committee report on prostitution was incredibly troubling

See this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3542436-Solicitors-forced-to-compensate-transwoman-for-misnaming

About this article:

talkradio.co.uk/news/solicitors-penalised-misnaming-transgender-client-19032530398

The article concerns a solicitors who were originally cleared of "misnaming" a trans person because they had asked how to address the person but received no reply and had gone on to use birth name. The trans person appealed and won.

Article begins:

Details of the case were passed to talkRADIO by a whistleblower working at the watchdog concerned it is pursuing an ideological agenda.

The ruling guidance says:

The guidance includes the following quote from the US-based Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation: “When a transgender person has transitioned and is living their life as their authentic self - that is their truth. The world now sees them as who they truly are.”

Regulatory capture.

Spot on, Lang. Also *waves...

I love you lot. You're superb.
You give me ideas when I'm ready to throw in the towel, you make me think about stuff like tactics and strategy and off we go again.
You're all brilliant.

We can expect the EHRC guidelines on trans issues for schools soon (they've been delayed for ages).
I assume that they have been turning everything inside out to try to find a rationale for ensuring that girls must share toilets and changing rooms with boys and that children of faith have no rights to sex segregated spaces. It would be great to see an acknowledgement of competing rights with compromise solutions offered - but given the extent of regulatory capture in the civil service, I expect it will be the usual legally incorrect gaslighting and manipulation.

policies are outsourced 'products' that the government is reluctant to waste. It's a systemic problem and a direct result of the Conservatives' obsession with lean government

This is sooooo true.

In the GRA - isn't the privacy clause the capture of IPSO written into law?