Nice of the UK's Attorney General to wade in in yet another area following her unuseful intervention on the Northern Ireland Protocol. This time it's trans issues.
In an interview last week, Suella Braverman said schools in England do not have to accommodate pupils who want to change gender, and are under no legal obligation to address them by a new pronoun or let them wear a different uniform...The attorney general told the Times that under the law, under-18s cannot legally change their gender, so schools are entitled to treat all children by the gender of their birth. She also said some teachers were effectively encouraging gender dysphoria by taking an "unquestioning" attitude.
But those who actually work in schools and with children take a rather different view of matters:
Headteachers, however, who are increasingly having to navigate their way through these issues, fear that not listening to young people "would risk damaging mental health" at a time when pupils have already suffered during the pandemic...
This prompted criticism from Caroline Derbyshire, the executive head at Saffron Walden county high school, leader of the Saffron academy trust and chair of the Headteachers' Roundtable – a non-party-political headteachers' group operating as a thinktank.
She said: "No good can come of any young person being forced to adopt a gender they feel miserable with. It certainly won't improve their learning.
"Schools do all kinds of things to safeguard the welfare of young people that they are not 'bound' to do by law," she went on. "I am a believer in rules and following them, but I think that not listening to young people and their parents on this quite particular and personal matter would risk damaging mental health."
Interestingly the article notes that Braverman's thoughts are 'at odds with the Department of Education'
"Schools should be a safe and welcoming space for all pupils, regardless of how they identify," a DfE spokesperson said. "We recognise that gender identity can be a complex and sensitive topic for schools to navigate, which is why we will be working with the Equality and Human Rights Commission to make sure we are giving the clearest possible guidance to schools."
Well there's a surprise. But this is of a piece with a Tory government that appears dead set on moving rightwards in order to counter the fallout from the Covid-19 restrictions controversy. And a Tory party that itself appears to have realised that Johnson himself is now a liability (though why it took them this long is a bit of a mystery given polling figures and that Labour's figures have ticked upwards again - Labour has been ahead in every poll since December).
To all of this the counter is:
With Johnson's future in the balance, No 10 has begun launching a number of rightwing, nationalistic policies in recent weeks. These include the return of imperial measures, plans to override the Northern Ireland protocol, a hint about expanding grammar schools, a review of fracking, and repeated promises to tear up more EU regulation.
That's an interesting approach given that Labour remains ahead - is the expectation that this sort of 'blue meat' will appeal to former Labour voters or even entice some who have gone back to Labour to come back to the Tories? That seems like the thinking...
A cabinet minister told the Guardian that Johnson appeared to be trying to stop the right of the party turning against him in the event of a leadership challenge, citing policies such as the review of fracking – which is electorally unpopular but appeals to a minority in parliament.
But Tory pollsters and some centrist MPs warned that this "core vote" direction was the wrong route to go down with public trust in Johnson so low among swing voters. Tobias Ellwood, a Tory former minister and chair of the defence committee, warned: "We will lose the next election on the current trajectory as reflected in recent elections.
One would have thought so. And it ignores the core issue which is Johnson and his administration. All the - frankly, risible policies been chucked around which appeal to small groups of voters can't really distract attention from Johnson. And there's a further problem. Even if he goes which of the current cast of political non-entities will take over? Is this a sort of Thatcher/John Major moment being repeated where a larger political figure (though Johnson is no Thatcher) is replaced by a lesser one again?
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