Lorna Young v Manchester City Council, Employment Tribunal, May 2026

[Mmmnotsure]

Lorna Young is taking her former employer, Manchester City Council, to Employment Tribunal. The case began today. It is being live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets https://x.com/tribunaltweets
and coverage is also available on their Substack
https://tribunaltweets.substack.com/p/lorna-young-vs-manchester-city-council

Lorna Young was Equality Team Manager at MCC. She was dismissed, among other grounds, for her social media activity.

Lorna Young is gender critical and Catholic, and opposes surrogacy. She is claiming unfair dismissal, and discrimination and harassment because of religion or belief, and disability.

I don’t know him yet. I had got addicted to my hobby of watching trials with him on the list. I hear a lot about his bird 🦅 though.

My list is open.

It is because of Ben Cooper that I am in possession of an emotional support stone.

How do I get one @CorporalKlingfilm - do I need to have a gender identity? I need a ess in my life.

Well, you find a stone on a beach that feels really good in your hand when you hold it tight, so the whole vibe is 'relaxed and comforting'. Then you dab in your favourite colours and patterns, maybe like some dotted rock art from ancient times or a bit of cubist or abstract art - anyway from before all this madness began.

Then you have it close to hand when following tribunals. Everytime one of the Respondant's awful witnesses or barristers like Jane Russell comes out with something infuriating, you give your emotional support stone a tight squeeze instead of shouting so loud you frighten your cat / partner / family / house-mate / neighbour / postie / crew of the International Space Station.

I've been told to avoid stress.

I’m afraid I’d probably use my ESS to throw around. So maybe best I stick to cursing under my breath 😬

I read an interview with Ben Cooper where he said he's surprised he has a fan base of MumsNetters. Those of us who followed Allison Bailey's and Jo Phoenix's court cases blow-by-push know why.

I will not easily forget Kirrin Metcalfe explaining why GCC should cast Allison Bailey into the outer darkness while Ben Cooper - and the rest of the tribunal! - listened gobsmacked. All he had to do was let her keep talking and he did. And in Jo Phoenix's tribunal when a witness explained that the Open University were trying to avoid adverse publicity "it would be cruel to ask how that's going".

His ability to continue calm and reasonable while politely exposing utter fuckwittery should be legendary. The rest of us would be lying on the floor banging our fists and screaming.

link please?!

Sorry I don't have a link to the interview - could have been Times or Sunday Times, or could have been a law specialist magazine. The legal cases are on Tribunal Tweets and also discussed at length here on MumsNet threads!

@KnottyAuty

I do have a link. The Times have a regular "Lawyer of the Week" (although not every week). Back in 2022 it was the turn of Ben Cooper.

Here is a share token for the article:

https://www.thetimes.com/article/59e8be26-131d-11ed-b5dc-213f5c972cc4?shareToken=ffdc5b8d4baeb2e5f853f5b96b540adb&ver=article

And here is an archive link:

https://archive.ph/LHi1f

The relevant part is here:

What is the funniest thing that has happened in your job?
As a result of my work in this area, apparently becoming an object of admiration on Mumsnet [the internet parents’ forum] — improbable in many ways.

.

Incidentally, my DH used a whole number of Ben's arguments in his Reply to Defence in his case against the WI.

So I am also in the Ben Cooper fan club.

Ah the memories - mum, support worker & emotional support dog all to support Kirrin and her incoherent evidence. I still remain gob smacked at how many incredibly intelligent high level ppl sat through lectures from kirrin about how men can be women cos reasons - and apparently beloved her

thank you!
I really enjoy hearing the "behind the scenes" bits

Ben Cooper isn't on X but there was a different Ben Cooper. I think in his bio. he said he was an urban explorer. Due to mistaken identity he was rapidly peaked 😁

Oh yes - IIRC he took the mistaken identity rather well!

Thanks for sharing! Love that in the article BCKC’s asked:

What law would you enact?
Automatic costs penalties for shoddy court bundles.

No more bundle issues!

Don't mention the bundles, you might summon a burly ghost in ladies clothes .

Automatic costs penalties for shoddy court bundles.

How about having to eat a random Revel from a court provided packet containing only coffee and orange ones?

I think that comes under the heading of Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

If you go to the Supreme Court website, you can watch the hearings for the For Women Scotland case here:
supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2024-0042#watch-hearings
Ben represented one of the groups of intervenors, and you can see his submission from about 59 mins in on the "26 November 2024 - Afternoon session" video. It's quite a dry technical argument, but he does a really good job of making it understandable to a non-legal audience, and deals with the questions from the bench so well that they specifically thanked him in the judgment

Thank you @Another2Cats

There's nothing really improbable about MNetters admiring BC. Just for starters Maya Forstater was a MumsNetter, there's @KnottyAuty 's policy audit group and didn't FWS first meet on MumsNet? And we can recognise when someone's doing a fine job.

But it's a funny old world where we have to do this stuff at all.

See, that wouldn't be a punishment at all. If anyone has any coffee or orange Revels they don't want, I'm happy to provide a removal service.

Yes, also I've seen a number of names on here like Jo Phoenix, Jane Clare Jones, Graham Linehan, Bidisha, Harry Miller ... there are also most definitely a number of incognito politicians, journalists, blogging writers and columnists.

It's been a very influential place over the past decade plus, a supportive place, and a very knowlegable place. And so very witty at times.