Starmer's new Cabinet Secretary, sigh

[fanOfBen]

https://archive.ph/vPJLN
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/02/20/starmer-cabinet-secretary-staff-join-non-binary-book-club/

"As part of an annual review, she set the employee a target of joining the department’s “gender non-conforming book club”, where government workers supposedly read Middlesex, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides about an intersex American, as well as books about people transitioning gender, the source said."

And lots more.

Oh ffs

Why???

They are a really big bunch of twats.

Sounds very tiresome. She is also alarmingly cosy with Palantir. Possibly both tendencies show she does not think things through for herself , and operates on "vibes" instead? I'm not impressed.

FFS, trust Starmer to make another dodgy appointment. So, on top of all the other question marks over her track record, he’s shown, yet again, where his real sympathies lie. Or maybe he thinks appointing a woman will enable him to fight off the accusations of a boys’ club at No.10. His judgement is just terrible.

His judgement is really shite, I agree

Sigh. Another gift to Reform from Starmer.

So he's appointed a trans extremist to be his new Cabinaet Secretary with Labour being today being outed by the Times for repeatedly working with Brendan Cox - despite his previous admissions of sexual misconduct. That's another powerful man with a history of abusing women who's continued in powerful positions aided and abetted by this government.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/jess-phillips-jo-cox-brendan-dgt9qdr8v

Archive link - https://archive.ph/iIz5k

Not meaning to derail this thread - just wanted to share another example of Starmer's lack of judgment / open disinterest when it comes to VAWG.

As a civil servant, objectives like that are often suggested by employees as part of their corporate contribution rather than imposed from above. It would normally be a much smaller time percentage though, an hour a week at most than a day.

Isn't that basically dictating an employees personal beliefs as a condition of employment as well as taking a clear political position, which I thought the civil service weren't supposed to do? If it's a target it's pretty non-negotiable. It's all a little bit 1984/ Stasi as well as quite clearly, I'd have thought, illegal.

What the fuck is Starmer playing at?

Question marks? There has been one investigation over a financial matter, which proved to be unfounded. And accusations of bullying-which in senior women tends to mean “did not put up with bullshit from men”

Corporate objectives like that are usually written in collaboration with the employee, not set by the manager, after a discussion. Think the former employee would have a hard job arguing they were forced into it at the time, maybe they were and we don’t know about it - but it’s not reported in that way.

Which is the excuse women in senior roles who bully men and women usually use. If you haven't been on the receiving end of such bullying then lucky you.

Yeah, right. Just shows-women are unsuitable for senior roles. Not knowing their place.

It's interesting that the Telegraph has chosen to highlight 15% of the role which included recruiting disabled staff, which presumably most of us are fine with though for some reason the Telegraph has put it in inverted commas. Truly the forces of anti woke will come for disabled people and women next.

Yes, the rest is very Stonewall and cringey but the political landscape has shifted massively in the last 5 years and I suspect this would not be part of a performance plan now. The Telegraph clearly have a huge agenda around Labour being seen to fail and would be gunning for anyone taking the role.

Perhaps we can just wait and see how she does.

Is it known that the complaints came from men not women?

Yes, when I knew about that but not about the non-binary club target etc. I was inclined to dismiss it as likely nothing, given that nothing had been proven. I've seen both sides of the senior women thing.

The Guardian is not a fan either:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/19/antonia-romeo-head-of-civil-service-shows-poor-judgment-say-former-colleagues

Is it known that the complaints came from men not women?

Mostly women, according to the Guardian.

In one performance review she told a civil servant that she needed to spend up to 20% of her job - ie one day a week every week - working on transgender inclusivity projects, paid for by the taxpayer, and at the expense of doing her actual job.

Starmer has appointed a clown as the UK's cabinet secretary.

No doubt she'll be gone in a few months with a huge payoff

IMO it makes it worse that she only did this because trans was fashionable five years ago.

The whole point of a civil service is that it's meant to be neutral and above trends, quietly getting on with the job of government.

She is very clearly not fit for purpose. The Tories made a huge error in letting her get away with her nonsense, Labour have made a huge error in promoting her

It doesn’t look promising. Bugger. They finally appoint a woman to the role and she’s totally TWAW. Bugger again.

God almighty, is there nothing that Starmer won't cock right up?! She sounds awful, and I'm so tired of these endless fuck ups from Starmer and the government

How many employment tribunals do we need until we see the utter bullying, discrimination and victimisation of employees who don't conform to the proscribed ideology of 2+2=5?

Maybe the employee was fine with it - but it's still a breach of civil service neutrality - but maybe not.

The Sandie Peggie evidence from other employees was interesting in this regard. Walking on eggshells didn't do it justice.

Aside from all the ideological stuff, why is joining a book club a vital part of a civil servant's job? I say this as somebody who loves reading, but why is that a priority and do they not have more pressing things to tackle?

Also, wouldn't we have a better civil service if they recruited on merit and not diversity targets?