Kemi Badenoch on Cass - calls for review

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/148061a7-bcea-46c7-84e6-be6ee29d7ce2?shareToken=2f582f76ec269e6e20578142389f9472

'Over three decades, politicians of all parties have outsourced power to so-called independent institutions. They were meant to take the politics out of decision-making but have themselves become politicised often with little to no ministerial oversight. They are no longer impartial. As politicians ceded control, many institutions became captured by a minority of ideological activists. When ministers raise the alarm or intervene this is demonised by Labour MPs such as Yvette Cooper as engaging in “culture wars”.'

...

''It is also time for an in-depth review of decision-making across the public sector. How is it that senior leaders ignore the law and allow groups like Stonewall to make up what it should be?''

There is already a petition calling for this which the government felt wasn't necessary.

What a grifter. She has done very little for a person with such power. Her own party created this benign or not so benign as it turns out, negligent culture by doing very little.

She will do nothing but write about it. That she's Michael Gove's protégé tells you a fair bit about her.

when was the petition? It might carry a bit more weight now

I hope the Cass report is a game changer. Clear evidence that not only the NHS has been captured by a queer theory ideology that directly influenced the treatment of children for their political gain but most of our institutions have signed up to persuading children they can change sex. If that isn't worthy of an enquiry I don't know what is.

BUT, it's early days with the lobby groups derailing / dismissing Cass and so many (understandably) ready to turn this into a political argument rather than an issue of institutional abuse of children.

The government response to the petition was before Cass. In theory, Cass could give them room to revisit the decision?

As to who it would be...maybe it would be the PM? This covers so so many areas. It doesn't just sit in one place.

Posting separately as I might get deleted

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/643132

Look up "Hold a statutory public inquiry into Gender Identity Ideology and Queer Theory" and you'll find it

Do you mean this one?

For an idea of what happens on that situation, look to Scotland.

Law, govt, media, health, education, all far too closely involved.

Amen to this. I would like to see some real change now, and outsourcing central government functions to charities ain't it.

Yes.

Kemi makes the point that it is all parties and also makes the point that the ideology has been been quick to embed itself everywhere, nowhere has been imune, but that the UK and England in particular has turned round further and faster than almost anywhere else.

Can she do this if it is not her department? ie health or education rather than business? And can she do it unilaterally without support of the whole cabinet and /or the Prime Minister?

@FlakyPoet "Do you think that she is waiting for the public to demand it?"

Yes, I think that's part of it. Now is the time for people to start up conversations IRL.

"I was reading that.....
"Did you see that....
"Isn't it shocking what's being reported....

And no harm in boosting the petition linked above. Even thought the govt has said a public inquiry is not needed the more signatures it gets the better.

If we can get it to 100k signatures then there will need to be a debate.

https://archive.ph/ftP4v

Just dropping an archived version here so discussion can continue when the sharetoken expires (24 hours?).

Quangos go back a long way. Trying to find out how far back through googling, I found a speech made by Thatcher in Oct 1978 which includes:

"Just compare the years of Clement Attlee and Hugh Gaitskell with those of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. Today, instead of the voice of compassion, the croak of the Quango is heard in the land. There may not be enough jobs for the workers, but there are certainly plenty of jobs for the boys.

That is the house that Harold built, to which his successor has not been slow to add a wing or two of his own."

And a Guardian article from 2009 refers to: "First it was Margaret Thatcher, then Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. Now David Cameron has joined battle, promising that millions of pounds will be saved by reducing the number of quangos."

So the outsourcing of decisions and responsibilities has indeed been going on for decades - 50 years or so if Harold Wilson was involved.

I expect it largely worked, for as long as the people in charge had integrity and stuck to the job in hand. But then, people with agendas infiltrated and changed the course of the ship, as it were, exactly as they did with the Green Party and the LibDems. Whilst smaller organisations can be nimbler and more responsive to changing requirements, being smaller makes them vulnerable to infiltration and takeover. Fewer people are needed to take it over! There's a certain amount of safety in being a large lumbering organisation (although it just means you need more people and it takes longer).

@ChristinaXYZ - no she can't. That's for Victoria Atkins, who, I'd take a lot more seriously that Badenoch.

That's why this article is so cheap. She could ask her colleague Victoria Atkins, who made her own response a few days ago, to launch an inquiry. But instead she's written this.

Playing to a gallery.

And why not, she's on the Equality commission, she's putting a bit of gunpowder behind her request. And we all want this issue amplifying, which kemi is doing

So she shouldn’t have written this article then? She shouldn’t do anything?

Really? I'd say it indicates a lack of a joined up approach. After all, she's been behind Truss on this. And now Victoria Atkins. Less a trail blazer and much more, on brand.

She's Minister for Women and Equalities, seems to be exactly her department?

If we anticipate Cass being discussed in the HoC next week then I'd imagine the more noise/letters/emails on this the better.

Kemi is women’s minister. Issues that impact on women will inevitably require action by other departments. Her role is to highlight them and to raise them in Cabinet.

From the narrow prism of women’s rights the idea of a Labour government is terrifying. Rishi probably won’t last long after the GE, and Kemi is a possible replacement. She is eloquent. She would make a damn fine leader of the opposition. Can you imagine her incisive approach whilst Keir, Angela et al prevaricate.

You speak about her in her own words, as if she is powerless now. In fact she is a government minister, in a government that has prevaricated endlessly on transgenderism. You would give her credit for being a future fine leader of a group of people who have made this country into a mess, which includes institutions riddled with gender woo.

This attitude, where a government minister is not in power but is instead casts themselves as a kind of truth teller to power but strangely incapable of using the power given to her, is ludicrous. It is also the reason in part why there will be a Labour government.

Fine words butter no parsnips

I agree with the proposal to review

I prefer it to politicians blathering about “culture wars” which is deflective nonsense and which doesn’t help women. The opposite it helps TRAs

Certainly the Tories implemented a lot of this kind of move to farm things out. That being said, it seems to me like it's been a trend in governments across the board in the last 20 years, if you look outside the UK. In part because of trying to save money, but it's also typically tied up with wanting to be seen to be consulting with experts and stakeholders.

In fact I would say conservative governments tend to justify it with small government and depoliticizing kinds of arguments, and progressive governments by "involving stakeholders" arguments. They get to the same situation in the end.

It's all tied up with lobbying, and IIRC Tony Blair thought that was going to be a huge battle in the future of democracy.