14th October 'Nolan Investigates' podcast - Stonewall?

[Helleofabore]

This sounds interesting.

A special ‘Nolan Investigates’ podcast drops tomorrow afternoon on @BBCSounds. An 18 month investigation into the influence of a lobby group on public bodies throughout the UK. More details in the morning

It seems to be about Stonewall.

Anyone know more about it?

There is some chatter about it on Twitter.

twitter.com/stephennolan/status/1448052827088109568?s=21

twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1448205588253618176?s=21

(Tweet from JCJ says:

Okay, at last, here it is.

The BBC Ulster documentary on the influence of Stonewall on public life in the UK.

Many GC women have been interviewed for this.

Let's take the lid off this thing shall we?

The Mayor also said that nonbinary people coming up with more and more microlabels is a good thing because it allows them to get closer to the heart of who they are.

Which begs the question - why not just be "me", then, and figure out how that plays in individual interactions with others as you interact with them, like we've always done?

Being yourself is the most niche of gender identities, I guess.

We’re going to need a loaaaaaad more loos then aren’t we?

Isn’t Micro-anything supposed to be ‘bad’ these days?

"And what are you doing as a mayor?"

Bangor is a city (by ancient perspective right) of 16,000, almost 10,000 of which are students at Bangor University. Since mayoral elections are not well attended, it only takes a relatively small group of committed activists to rally enough support to win a mayoral election.

A lot of mayors in the UK are "Labour and Co-operative" candidates, because they are aware of this.

This is why it's important for people to pay attention to their local politics and local elections, field their own candidates and do their own canvassing. Otherwise this will happen everywhere. For example, one of the first things Owen Hurcum tried to do in his tenure as mayor was split people up by political party. Because of course them did.

Don't forget to give @StephenNolan some love on Twitter. The usuals are out in force. 🙄

Is an NDA much different from a thing where you can if you are rich enough stop the press from reporting on a story you'd prefer not to be in the public domain?

You mean an injunction. They're related but different. An NDA is contract law and an injunction is an order of the court. Breaching an NDA would usually lead to financial damages while breaching an injunction could see you going to jail for contempt of court.

One way in which they'd relate would be a key employee, bound by an NDA, going to a competitor, and the employer, with good reason, seeking an injunction against the employee revealing relevant secrets covered by the NDA, meaning that were the injunction to be breached, for example by the employee passing on the secrets, they'd face a threat of serious legal sanction, possibly involving jail.

So why would stonewall have ndas on bbc or ofcom

They are a charity and a lobby group ?

What’s th3 financial interest ?

Are the NDAs about Stonewall's commercial interests? This response to a FOI from the Nursing and Midwifery Council mentions damage to Stonewall's commercial interests by disclosing the requested information.

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/725049/response/1789448/attach/html/4/Clelland%20FOI%20response%20NMC%2007256%20M5B5Y8.pdf.html

We have a spreadsheet which we used to organise our response and a folder which contains some of the evidence we used but the issue with this is that it follows a set pattern of questions asked by Stonewall and disclosing this (including the feedback we received in return) would prejudice the commercial interests of Stonewall as disclosure would undermine confidence in the Workplace Equality Index (WEI) and could give other organisations entering the WEI an advantage/benchmark to work from. As Stonewall charge for their services, it could also result in any competitors/potential competitors being able to template their services based on what Stonewall’s approach is (questions asked and feedback given etc). Furthermore, as the NMC wish to continue working with Stonewall, it would also prejudice our own commercial interests by releasing these details into the public domain as Stonewall may not have confidence in our commercial relationship if we started to share such information. Under the FOI Act, section 43(2) states that information which, if released, would prejudice the commercial interests of any party can be exempt if the public interest in favour of withholding the information outweighs the interest in disclosing.

During the Stonewall FOI campaign earlier this year, a number of organisations used section 43(2) as a reason for non-disclosure. It seems unlikely that they all independently decided that Stonewall's commercial interests were so important.

@littlbrowndog

So why would stonewall have ndas on bbc or ofcom

They are a charity and a lobby group ?

What’s th3 financial interest ?

Because in theory what they are selling is clever and special. If it was shared by a purchaser then other companies can do it without paying. I think they have just acted as a commercial consulting business would.

But, and it's a big but, what they sell is not actually commercial in confidence material, it's biased policy material that has a very partisan view on how people have to behave.

Selling instructions on how people should behave is massive overreach.

It has clearly not gone well for them.

It is self-indulgent maybe because they've been doing this off their own bat.

Putting on my tinfoil hat for a moment, I'm wondering whether this is a skunkworks type project, deliberately carried out away from the centre of power. Someone senior would have approved this being produced. And certainly someone senior will have approved it being made available on Sounds. Maybe some senior people are working away trying to reinstate impartiality in the BBC.

Something this substantial doesn't get made in the spare time of a load of people, presenters, production etc, who then go along to the BBC and say "any chance of putting this up?" in the hope the BBC go "all right then".

Over 100 genders, and nobody can define ay of them. Gosh - it's so complicated.

If only there was a simple way of differentiating the population. Perhaps if we could narrow it down to two groups, perhaps - I don't know . . . might not be a practical idea . . .

Can anyone think of what criterion we could use? Bit of a puzzler, I know.

This denouement was inevitable.

Set yourself up as an authority.
Sell training in what you believe your self to be an authority on.
Roll out training.
Trainees react by saying what a load of terrible shite, who are these idiots with their genderbread twaddle, are they serious?
Told the points are important.

We all work out that Stonewall points are less useful than a Starbucks coffee card in a pandemic.

Fin.

I was particularly incensed by Ben’s assertion that in the case of two male ‘intended parents’ that there ‘is no mother’

Growing the baby with two sperm in plant pot is he?

And while protecting intellectual property is understandable, all the cloak and dagger secrecy makes me wonder like PP as to what other than IP is being hidden.

I mean I have a reasonable idea but it’s not possible to voice those concerns publicly as an individual so it needs more investigation by journalists.

Hopefully Nolan is the start of that more in depth scrutiny that is needed.

Thanks for sharing. Been binge-listening to this tonight. Just started episode 5

Article up on the BBC website now.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58917227

Note the journalist: David Thompson. I think their work is being supported by some people in the BBC who can make things happen.

Thank you Nauticent

One way in which they'd relate would be a key employee, bound by an NDA, going to a competitor, and the employer, with good reason, seeking an injunction against the employee revealing relevant secrets covered by the NDA, meaning that were the injunction to be breached, for example by the employee passing on the secrets, they'd face a threat of serious legal sanction, possibly involving jail.

That doesn't seem to me to be big enough to explain the enormous and silent silo that operates around Stonewall.

It is always money and/or sex at the root of these things. Perhaps Stonewall have information about influential people or influential people have a reason to support Stonewall's ability to make money.

They make seven million a year? That could have funded a lot of gender clinic waiting list initiatives, and yet, AFAIK there has been nothing done by Stonewall in addressing the obvious challenges that being unable to access timeous health care presents to the trans community.

It's all very, well, odd.

They have influence, they have money. So, what do the actually DO with those things? Seems to me they just examine their navels, which is poor return for the resources they have.

I'm willing to bet that there is the usual story at the root of this. Someone/someones in the public eye has is/are bound to be absolutely shitting themselves tonight because they have realised that someone/someones at the BBC has managed to check mate them with a tiny NI podcast.

Good for Ben when their child wants to explore who their mother was.

It will happen once they are older without a doubt. We all want to know our history

So stonewall don’t want anyone to know how to answer the questions and move up the league

So they are protecting the league and being paid for it

Is this like a pyramid scheme ?

(Up to ep. 5) Whoop! This is so good.

It's like the debate we always wanted to happen, happening via neutral intermediary. And as we always knew the Stonewall case is made of soggy tissue paper.

Whatsisface nonbinary mayor - if I wasn't GC already that would do it like a shot. It was someone talking similar stereotype rooted bollocks on word of mouth (and reaction to them) that got me questioning in the first place.

I've done 1-4 so far, I'm not much of a podcast fan usually but this has been worth it.
Also fascinated to find out who's authorised it at the bbc...

Got to episode four. The sing song voice telling the kid about the hundred genders just made me want to scream. And the NB Mayor was a gift. He pretty much said that "cis" people are a bunch of stereotypes.

Not RTFT but I just saw this write up on the main BBC News website
Stonewall’s influence on BBC and Ofcom revealed
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58917227

[quote yourhairiswinterfire]Article up on the BBC website now.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58917227[/quote]
It's good to see that there are journalists at the BBC who are able to report impartially on what's happening.

Thanks for the heads up OP, I have just started listening.

I really hope this podcast get reported everywhere, and finally blows the lid off this whole shitshow!

The journalist who wrote that article is Thompson from the podcast. I find it significant that they're giving him rein to hammer home how serious this is rather than handing it over to someone who will toe the usual BBC line.