Howie Sel

When Whitehall's Awareness Calendar Forgets Britain's History Britain's Foreign Office reportedly found room for 110 awareness days in its diplomatic calendar for 2026. Among them were Bi-visibility Day, International Lesbian Week, Transgender Awareness Month and International Allyship Day. Yet Remembrance Sunday, D-Day, VE Day and St George's Day were apparently overlooked. It is an extraordinary set of priorities for a department whose principal duty is to represent Britain abroad. The calendar, reportedly circulated to British diplomats, includes six observances devoted to transgender and intersex causes and around twenty relating to mental health and neurodiversity. The question is why these campaigns command space in an official diplomatic calendar while events central to Britain's history, national identity and sacrifice are overlooked. Remembrance Sunday is particularly revealing. Each November, the monarch, senior politicians, military leaders and thousands of veterans gather at the Cenotaph to honour those who died in Britain's service. It is one of the country's most solemn national occasions, recognised across generations and political divisions. Yet officials preparing a calendar for British diplomats apparently considered International Lesbian Week worthy of inclusion while overlooking the national service of remembrance. The Foreign Office insists that it continues to honour the war dead. It hosts international diplomats at the Cenotaph, observes the two-minute silence on Armistice Day and supports the Royal British Legion. Those are important facts. But they do not explain the calendar's omissions. If the department already recognises Remembrance Sunday as a major diplomatic occasion, why was it absent from a document intended to remind diplomats of significant dates? The wider problem is how deeply progressive politics and identity-based campaigns have become embedded in Britain's institutions. Across Whitehall, diversity, inclusion and awareness programmes increasingly shape administrative priorities, often with little obvious connection to departments' core duties. The Foreign Office calendar raises a troubling question: whose values are being promoted by officials entrusted with representing Britain, and why do these campaigns receive such prominence while the country's own national commemorations are overlooked? For the Foreign Office, that distinction matters especially. Diplomats represent a country with a long history, constitutional traditions and responsibilities extending far beyond contemporary political fashions. D-Day and VE Day are milestones in the defeat of Nazi Germany. St George's Day forms part of England's national heritage. Remembrance Sunday honours those whose sacrifices helped preserve the freedoms enjoyed by subsequent generations. These occasions deserve recognition in any official calendar claiming to identify significant dates for Britain's representatives abroad. The Foreign Office should publish its calendar and explain its choices. Awareness campaigns have their place, but Britain's national commemorations carry a different weight. When 110 awareness events make the list while Remembrance Sunday is apparently overlooked, the public is entitled to question Whitehall's priorities. "Remembrance Sunday honours those whose sacrifices helped preserve the freedoms enjoyed by subsequent generations."

Gender, Marxism and the Battle for Britain's Institutions In April 2019, two anarchist writers published a manifesto calling for the abolition of gender, capitalism and the existing social order. Vikky Storm and Eme Flores called it The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto. Its authors described gender as a system of class oppression and advocated revolutionary action to destroy it. They went further, arguing that armed organisations and political violence would be necessary to achieve their aims. The manifesto's intellectual roots are unmistakable. Its authors draw directly upon Karl Marx, describe gender as a system of class oppression and explicitly identify their revolutionary programme with communism. That matters because Marxist, feminist and queer theories have long been studied and debated within British universities. The question is how far such theories influence the institutions that educate our children, advise ministers and help shape public policy. Academic study does not amount to endorsement, but neither should ideas escape scrutiny simply because they are presented in the language of social justice. Consider Labour's proposed Conversion Practices Bill. Equalities minister Olivia Bailey confirmed in July that her officials had consulted LGBT organisations and victim groups while developing the legislation. In October, representatives of Stonewall, Galop and the Ban Conversion Practices Coalition gave evidence to Parliament. Organisations critical of the proposals were also heard. Such consultation is legitimate. The question is whether the evidence presented receives sufficient independent scrutiny. The Government's own impact assessment provides a useful example. It relies partly on research commissioned by Stonewall to estimate that between 75,000 and 93,000 people experience conversion practices annually in England and Wales. Yet the assessment acknowledges substantial limitations in the available evidence and the assumptions used to produce that estimate. Figures of this kind deserve careful examination before they become part of the case for new criminal offences. The legislation itself includes psychological, emotional and economic pressure among the factors courts may consider when assessing alleged abuse. Ministers insist that ordinary parental conversations, religious beliefs and legitimate healthcare will remain protected. The draft also sets a high threshold for criminal conviction. Nevertheless, questions remain about how those protections will operate in practice, particularly when families, therapists and religious leaders disagree over gender identity. None of this excuses coercion, threats or abuse. People should be protected from genuine harm, regardless of their sexuality or identity. But protecting vulnerable people also requires laws grounded in clear definitions, reliable evidence and respect for freedom of conscience. The manifesto illustrates how far some revolutionary theories depart from ordinary arguments about civil rights. Whether those ideas have influenced British policy requires evidence of actual institutional links, rather than ideological similarities alone. That is precisely why scrutiny matters. Parliament should know whose evidence it is using, what assumptions underpin it and whether competing views have been fairly considered. When contested ideas enter public policy, the public deserves to see the reasoning. The proper test of legislation is whether it addresses demonstrable harm without granting the state unnecessary power over private life. That standard should apply regardless of which campaigners, academics or ministers support it. "Vikky Storm and Eme Flores argued that armed organisations and political violence would be necessary to achieve their aims."

When the State Comes Between Parents and Their Children There was a time when British parents could question their children's decisions without wondering whether the police might become involved. When a priest could offer prayer without consulting a solicitor. When a therapist could explore a troubled young person's doubts without fearing that an honest conversation might later be construed as abuse. Labour's proposed Conversion Practices Bill threatens to make those freedoms less secure, extending the reach of the state into some of the most private relationships in British life. The legislation carries a maximum sentence of five years for abusive attempts to change someone's sexual orientation or transgender identity. The Bill, overseen by Labour equalities minister Olivia Bailey, comes with government assurances that ordinary conversations, parental decisions and religious beliefs will remain protected. Yet the Bill expressly includes economic, psychological and emotional pressure among the factors courts may consider when deciding whether conduct is abusive. A criminal conviction requires serious harm or serious distress with substantial consequences. Who decides when parental concern becomes unacceptable pressure, and how much uncertainty must families endure before that distinction is settled? Consider a mother whose teenage daughter wants to begin medical treatment to change sex. She refuses to fund it, questions whether her daughter fully understands the consequences and urges her to wait. Such decisions belong at the heart of parental responsibility. Yet under Labour's proposals, critics fear that determined opposition could be interpreted as emotional or economic pressure. Ministers dismiss those concerns, but assurances made in Parliament offer little comfort when the statutory language leaves room for dispute. Parents should not need legal advice before exercising ordinary judgement over their children's welfare. Now the Church of England has intervened, warning that the legislation must not inadvertently criminalise prayer or pastoral care. The Catholic bishops have gone further, calling for the Bill to be abandoned. Their objections are especially damaging because ministers have cited the Church of England's earlier support for banning conversion therapy. That endorsement dates from 2017, before the present proposals extended to gender identity. Labour cannot reasonably treat support for one principle as unconditional approval of every law subsequently introduced in its name. The wider problem is the steady advance of progressive ideology through Britain's institutions. Increasingly, contested beliefs about identity are treated as settled truths, while those who question them risk being portrayed as intolerant. Schools, professional bodies and public authorities have become battlegrounds over what people may say, believe and teach. Now Parliament is being asked to introduce criminal sanctions into an area already fraught with ideological disagreement. The danger is that the law becomes another means of enforcing conformity. Nobody should be subjected to violence, threats, humiliation or coercion because of their sexuality or identity. Existing criminal law already prohibits many such abuses. If ministers believe serious gaps remain, they should identify them, demonstrate why existing protections are inadequate and draft precise offences to address them. Instead, Labour has produced legislation sufficiently troubling that Britain's major Christian denominations are publicly questioning its consequences. A free society depends upon boundaries that governments must respect. Parents must be free to guide their children, therapists to question, clergy to pray and citizens to disagree without fear of prosecution. Labour should withdraw this Bill. A government that cannot distinguish between protecting the vulnerable and policing private conscience has no business extending criminal law into the family home.

"Iran has told Britain, in its own words, that it treats the Channel as a weapon. Iranian officials said their smuggling routes are "owned" in part by the IRGC and are "more useful" to Tehran than a missile"