James Murray is the new Secretary of State for health

[Theeyeballsinthesky]

Replacing Wes Streeting

www.gov.uk/government/news/appointments-14-may-2026

Tip for James in his new job - make sure the NHS follows the law, because that helps you hit your budget targets as well as increasing public satisfaction…result!

Voted in favour of the assisted dying bill, doesn't know what a woman is.

https://x.com/Wommando/status/2055020433255121241?s=20

And supports conversion therapy ban.

Conversion therapy is wrong - and a ban isn't really a ban if it can be bypassed with 'consent'.

If this loophole remains, the truth is that people in some of the most vulnerable situations will be left exposed to this deeply harmful practice.

https://x.com/roseveniceallan/status/2055013483498918107?s=20>

And the shit show continues...

Well have just read a wiki bio and it doesn't seem to have had any post whether as a local councillor or as a MP relating to heallth.

Can only hope as a gay man, he will appreciate the two edge sword of converesion therapy.

NB I am, maybe wrongly, assuming he is gay because the bio mentiones he has a husband. But maybe I am being quaint and old fashioned to think this!

This is what he said in Parliament last year in response to the SC ruling:

1 May 2025
The Supreme Court ruling made it clear that the provision of single-sex spaces is on the basis of biological sex. Providers should note and follow the ruling.
It is important that we ensure dignity and respect for all. Trans people should have access to services they need but in keeping with the ruling.
The Equality & Human Rights Commission, as Britain’s Equalities watchdog, is developing updated guidance to support service providers. Ministers will consider the EHRC’s updated draft once they have submitted it following further work in light of this ruling.
The Government is considering the implications of the Court’s judgment, including what this means for Government buildings.

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2025-04-23/47441

Thanks for that quote - but a bit led down by that evasive on message bits about the Supreme Court ruling.

So remember - he will not be in post for very long at all

there WILL be a leadership election

There likely will be a GE

He will be in post for 5 minutes

also check the celebrations...

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1td9fbq/good_news_new_health_secretary_is_james_murray/

Oh lord.

They're saying that if they hear the words trans people should be treated with 'dignity and respect' one more time they're going to scream.

So the very thing they've been campaigning for has become so clichéd it's positively hackneyed - to the point of parody.

Oh dear.

This fabulous video needs to be in this thread:

James Brewer identifies as an Olympic-level mental gymnast. Going for gold there 🥇

What a worry he is. Clueless, evasive and telling lies all in one interview.

What a weasel he is.
will fit right into Starmers cabinet.

How does JHB manage to stay calm talking to numpties like that?

I'm trying not to despair, but it feels like so many of our very hard-fought and hard-won gains are about to be at best disregarded, at worst undermined, by this bunch of cynical, self-serving chancers.

This ideology makes absolutely every proponent of it look like a first class twat.

Transwomen are women, but you can invoke the single sex exception to exclude them from women's sports on the basis that...um, they're not women.

There's no way not to look like a fool.

And a politician should know that. They're so unprepared.

Their petrified reluctance to support women and reality is palpable.

Naomi Cunningham is right. These cowardly fucks will hide behind the law. Wringing their hands and bemoaning it whilst half-heartedly making a stab at following it. Or saying they'll follow it whilst suffering from such high-grade inertia, that nothing ever gets done.

Because she knows that the heat she applies is bring the invisible ink out into plain view.

There won’t be a GE

I’m not having this argument for the 15th time on this site in a week. OK Fine there won’t be.

Don’t then. I have not come across you so far but I sense your type.

"your type"? I assume that means "someone I do not agree with".

Fine. Cut and paste from another thread:

I am so, so very bored of typing out the same rebuttal to this every 2 pages.

Nobody is saying the public directly decides the date of a general election. Of course they don’t. The Prime Minister requests dissolution, and the government chooses the timing within the five-year limit. That is literally the point.

The argument is not “the public can force one tomorrow”. The argument is that a new PM, installed after a catastrophic collapse in public support, has a legitimacy problem. They may be legally entitled to govern, but legality and political legitimacy are not the same thing.

Yes, Labour has a huge majority. But a huge majority won in 2024 by Keir Starmer, on Keir Starmer’s pitch, does not automatically give some replacement leader a moral blank cheque to run a different government for years without asking the country.

And “they know they won’t get this majority again” is exactly why it looks so grubby. That is not a principled democratic argument. That is just “we know the public no longer wants us, so we should cling on as long as possible.”

There is plenty of precedent for going early to get authority: Eden in 1955, Wilson in 1966, Heath in February 1974, Wilson again in October 1974, May in 2017, Johnson in 2019. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but the reason is obvious: a Prime Minister often wants a mandate for their own leadership and programme.

Of course Labour might try to hang on. Parties often do. But if they dump Starmer after a terrible local election result and install a new leader, I think they will be under enormous pressure to go to the country. Not because the public sets the date, but because a government that is clearly unwanted cannot just hide behind parliamentary arithmetic forever without damaging itself even more.

I’m well aware of how it all works. Thank you for your opinion.

Then your certain assertion there won’t be a GE, seems like a stretch.

Like yours that there will be is quite the stretch too. Whatever either of us think, politics is very unpredictable and there is a fair way to go yet. I responded maybe a bit too directly to your assertion for that reason. The other position would say that a new leader - whoever it is - would need some time to ‘prove’ themselves, ie do things to stop a Reform rout.
I haven’t said which opinion I hold but I do know there are many many bridges to cross yet.

So painful to watch. I'd love a an update to date interview with Julia and James. Wonder if his definition has changed? All he was interested in was 'taking the heat out of the debate'.

I reckon 60/40 in favour of a GE within 6-9 months.

based on, as you say, leader needs time to show change. But the country won’t wait long.

(all other things aside, such as a shooting war between NATO and Russia, Iran getting and staying hot with the UK involved, large economical event of some sort, large UK terrorist event.)

I generally don’t go to the effort of pointing this second part out as well, but I don’t necessarily want the things that I am talking about to happen. I am just commenting on them because I think they are important to be discussed and sometimes there are blindspots in the media about these things.

I personally want stability, economic stability most of all and the issues that could lead to civil unrest to be addressed so that the country does not feel on edge. I am not in any way an agent of chaos. I want strong stable predictable Britain to come back.