Belinda Brown: ‘Our Children Are Being Sexualised in the Place Where They Should Be Getting an Education’ | British Thought Leaders

Enjoy (video, 28:47). Belinda will be one of the speakers at the next ICMI to be held in Budapest next August 10,11.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Audio / video #314 from our archives: Gillette – The Buy a Man Regrets (2019)

We’re linking daily to selected audio / video files from our YouTube channel. Today’s file is here (video, 3:26).


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Audio / video #313 from our archives: Patrick Christys interviews Mike Buchanan on Prince Harry, feminist, and more (2018)

We’re linking daily to selected audio / video files from our YouTube channel. Today’s file is here (audio, 10:07).


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.j4mb

Pearl Davis: Podcast Host Gives Woman A REALITY CHECK

Enjoy (video, 14:33).


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

The End of Woman – Janice Fiamengo and Tom Golden Speak with Author Carrie Gress

Excellent (video, 46:40). At one point they discuss the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). I used a quotation from him on the back cover of one of my early international bestsellers, The Fraud of the Rings (2009):

A system could not well have been devised more studiously hostile to human happiness than marriage.

Staying on the Shelley theme, the other quotation on the back cover, from Shelley Winters (1920-2006), who outlived Percy by 56 years:

In Hollywood, all the marriages are happy. It’s trying to live together afterwards that causes all the problems.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Female Pool Player Refuses To Compete Against Transgender Biological Male

Our thanks to Elizabeth Hobson for this (video, 3:24).


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Golddigger Chloe Coster, 15, pretended to fall in love with man, 35, she met online before stabbing him in the head when he didn’t buy her the gifts she wanted

Our thanks to Gerry and Steve for this. Gerry writes:

Ho hum! Another strong and independent woman defending herself from the patriarchy.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Audio / video #312 from our archives: Mike Buchanan and Elizabeth Hobson wish J4MB supporters a Merry Xmas (2018)

We’re linking daily to selected audio / video files from our YouTube channel. Today’s file is here (video, 27:13).


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Pearl Davis: The Ground-Breaking Fight Against Domestic Abuse | Erin Pizzey

Enjoy (video, 51:55).


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Audio / video #311 from our archives: Mike Buchanan and Elizabeth Hobson interview Philip Davies MP (2018)

We’re linking daily to selected audio / video files from our YouTube channel. Today’s file is here (video, 21:41).


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

World Premiere of New Documentary, ‘MEN TOO: Male Victims of Domestic Violence’: Thursday, November 30

Our thanks to the Washington DC-based Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance (DAVIA) for this press release. We’re an active member of DAVIA which is sponsoring the International Conference on Men’s Issues in Budapest, Hungary, in August 2024.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

The Jewish Chronicle: Rebecca Steinfeld, Oxford student and circumcision critic, has Board of Deputies links

Our thanks to Jakob (a Jewish intactivist and friend) for this. We take our hats off to Rebecca Steinfeld.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Audio / video #310 from our archives: Foetal Alcohol Syndrome discussed on BBC Politics Live (2018)

We’re linking daily to selected audio / video files from our YouTube channel. Today’s file is here (video, 13:51).


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

‘I want my daughter to be safe’: Starmer reveals personal mission to tackle violence against women and girls

Another ridiculous piece in The Independent. It starts with this:

Sir Keir Starmer has told of his own personal commitment to tackling violence against women in the hope that his young daughter and her friends feel safe.

Women and girls are hard-wired to feel anxious, regardless of the likelihood of harm coming to them (far lower than for men and boys). Starmer would do better to tell women and girls that they are far safer than men and boys when it comes to assault, but of course that narrative wouldn’t help sustain the taxpayer-funded feminist industries dedicated to making women and girls feel more anxious that reality would suggest they should be.

We confidently predict that if Labour wins the next general election, which appears highly likely, they will introduce juryless rape trials, despite not mentioning the issue in their manifesto. Harold Wilson’s Labour government did exactly that with regard to the Abortion Act 1967.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

BRIT Awards to ‘have major change’ for 2024 ceremony after ‘woke’ gender-neutral categories backlash

Our thanks to Nigel for this. He writes;

More entertainment from the Gender Studies brigade, this time in the more frothy ephemeral world of “pop”, where it appears being more equal gender wise resulted in an all-male shortlist. Despite, supposedly, being about not discriminating and choosing the best.

It seems gender is actually super important and every list must include artistes with vaginas, to ensure that some privileged white guy doesn’t win again. Of course if the five on the list had all had vaginas then no one would have been a bit bothered. I do hope many other artists with penises join Sam Smith and declare themselves “non-binary” and see how the luvvies sort that one out!


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

MEN TOO – Domestic Volence Against Men

Our thanks to Sean Bw Parker for this:

Odette Van Rensburg is a South African documentary filmmaker, whose last two pieces have been Disconnected (about suicide) and The Bonfire of Agreed Terms (false allegations) released by Dogs On The Run films. In MEN TOO – Domestic Violence Against Men, Rensburg turns her laser focus to this most egregiously under-reported of subjects.

Odette often prefers her work to speak for itself, and in the words of its own subjects. MEN TOO opens with Erin Pizzey, founder of the Women’s Refuge movement in the UK. Pizzey was discredited and disowned by the wider political-feminism movement when she dared suggest that as many men were coming for her help as women. Pizzey speaks in a non-partisan and direct way throughout, pointing out uncomfortable realities relating to how sexual politics has unfolded over time.

She is echoed by Phil Mitchell, an academic researcher and public communicator on the theme of violence against men; and from across the pond by John Davis, the man behind the Gender Studies for Men group. There is a golden thread of pain through MEN TOO, and that is the blithe deafness of the mainstream media to the plight of abused men. The stats are 50/50, weighted to women often being the main instigators when psychological abuse and coercive control are taken into account.

But this statistical reality is inconvenient for heavily-funded VAWG (Violence Against Women and Girls) charity programmes around the world, be they Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis or UN Women. ‘Positive Conclusions’ gives his heartbreaking testimony in disguise; Australian wokeist’s nightmare Bettina Arndt clearly hasn’t read the Sisterhood memo, and is having none of it.

The golden thread running through Rensburg’s own work is ‘stigma’, whether that be of suicide (often in the family) or living through the injustice of false allegations. These false allegations are the low-hanging fruit of VAWG, and believe the victims policies across the world (notably chronic in India, Spain, Argentina and Australia of late) have weaponised them to the hilt. Though VAWG policies are now firmly embedded in the mainstream, their shills on television and social media are acting as if they’re still in the first wave of feminism, flinging themselves in front of racehorses no matter how many Equality Acts are passed.

The reality is that reality itself is seen as obstreperous to the cause, as unnecessary as the men themselves in this deliberately concocted mirror-world. Released on International Stop Violence Against Men Day, MEN TOO is a tight, snappily edited and compelling piece of visual education – and seeing Erin Pizzey keeping it brutally real after all these years is genuinely empowering.

Sean Bw Parker is a an artist and writer on cultural theory and justice reform.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Would you like to watch videos of the talks from next year’s ICMI in Budapest?

On our YouTube channel we have playlists of the talks (and more) of every ICMI held since the first held near Detroit in 2014 – here. Tom Caulfield, our Technical Director, has been responsible for the video recording and editing at every ICMI since ICMI16 in London, apart from the one that just took place in India. He’s done a great job, often in very challenging circumstances.

The amount of equipment that needs to be taken to ICMIs is huge and includes three video cameras, tripods and lighting. Tom has run successful crowdfunders for every event he’s covered, and his crowdfunder for the Budapest conference is here. Launched only recently, it’s already received £725 towards the £3,000 target from generous supporters. The money will all go towards covering the cost of transport and accommodation. Tom has never charged anything for his services. If he charged his time at commercial rates, ICMIs would be financially unaffordable. The organizers of the events make little if any profit, and sometimes a loss.

Following a serious health issue early this year, Tom plans to retire from video recording ICMI talks after Budapest. He’s been training another very competent video maker, Andy, who will join him in Budapest, and video record later ICMIs in Europe and possibly beyond.

These videos will one day be recognized as the extraordinary body of work that they are. Please donate what you can to help Tom meet the £3,000 target and thereby ensure there will be videos recorded in Budapest. Thank you, and have a good weekend.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.

Free Speech Union: weekly newsletter

Dear Mike Buchanan,

Welcome to the FSU’s weekly newsletter, our round-up of the free speech news of the week. As with all our work, this newsletter depends on the support of our members and donors, so if you’re not already a paying member please sign up today or encourage a friend to join and help turn the tide against cancel culture. You can share our newsletters on social media with the buttons at the bottom of this email (although not if you’re reading this on a desktop). If someone has shared this newsletter with you and you’d like to join the FSU, you can find our website here.

FSU Christmas Comedy Festival – get your tickets here

If you’ve never been to one of our comedy nights before, come along and find out just how good they are. Our spectacular, annual Comedy Benefit will take place just before Christmas, on Wednesday 20th December. Our MC for the evening is FSU favourite Dominic Frisby and he will be joined on stage by a fantastic line-up: Francis Foster, Daniel O’Reilly, Tania Edwards and Alistair Williams. Come and let your hair down with the FSU staff as we celebrate another successful year defending free speech. So, round up your friends and family and get your tickets here.

Twice cancelled Edinburgh University screening of gender-critical film finally takes place

Trans activist staff and students at the University of Edinburgh failed to stop a campus screening of the first feature-length documentary about the clash between trans ideology and women’s rights (BBC, Herald, Times).

Directed by academics and film-makers Deirdre O’Neill and Michael Wayne, Adult Human Female explores the claim that women’s hard-won, sex-based rights have been damaged by one of the central tenets of gender ideology, namely, that we each have a ‘gendered soul’ (i.e., who we feel ourselves to be) and that in policy as in law, this ‘feeling’ matters more than the immutable reality of biological sex.

Earlier this year, a large group of trans activist students and their academic ‘allies’ at the University were twice able to prevent the screening of Adult Human Female, on the basis that its interviews with female prisoners, lesbians and feminist academics about the impact that gender recognition self-ID has had on their lives were “hateful” and “blatantly transphobic”.

The first attempt to show the film last December was halted amid safety concerns after protestors formed a blockade around the venue. Police were called but no arrests were made. A second attempt to show it was again cancelled in similar circumstances in April. (Scottish Daily Express).

At the time, a spokesperson for the University said: “We are in discussion with the organisers of the screening of the film, and others in our community, with the aim of identifying a suitable approach for screening the film safely.”

Whoever the “others in our community” actually were, the prestigious Russell Group university does at least belatedly seem to have realised that if it’s going to uphold its legal responsibility to defend academic freedom, then it can’t keep gifting this small troupe of censorious individuals a heckler’s veto over what is, in strictly administrative terms, a perfectly lawful event organised on campus by academic members of staff.

And so it came to pass that at the third time of asking, and with enhanced security measures in place, the event was finally able to go ahead.

In the build-up to the screening, student posters – titled “Transphobia Stinks!” – appeared on campus carrying the boast: “Student protesters have prevented this screening from taking place twice before, and we can do it again!”.

Alas, in the end fewer than 100 trans activists braved the cold weather, and those that did limited themselves to exercising their right to protest while “sharing speeches of trans love” (The Tab).

Speaking outside the screening, and flanked by almost 0.2% of the University’s total student population, Skye Marriner, president of the Edinburgh College Students’ Association (ECSA) said the film was not supported by the student body in Edinburgh. (In fact, a good many students did attend the screening).

“It actively harms trans people, and it supports transphobic language, and that’s not OK,” Ms Marriner continued. “If the trans community says they are not comfortable with this then that is something we need to respect.”

In an unwitting echo of comic character Father Ted’s “down with this sort of thing” slogan, uttered to ridiculous effect during an episode of the Irish sitcom in which the fictitious priest protests outside a remote island screening of salacious movie The Passion of St Tibulus, Ms Marriner added that the protesters were there to show people that “this kind of thing” was not welcome on campus. Careful now.

Professor Jonathan Hearn, who is a founding member of the University of Edinburgh branch of Academics for Academic Freedom, which organised the event, said he was relieved the screening was finally going ahead and he was perfectly happy for people to demonstrate.

“It’s become a matter of principle for the university to show that it can stand by its academic freedom and freedom of speech policies,” he said. “It’s just important symbolically to show that people can show films that are controversial, though I am not sure how controversial it is, and people can protest too.”

Latest episode of the FSU’s weekly podcast out now

The latest episode of our weekly podcast is out now. This week’s talking points include: the woke battle of the sexes, the decline of political impartiality in the civil service, self-censorship in teaching, and what Dr Peter Hughes describes in a recent article for Unherd as “the tyranny of pathological kindness”.

The link to download the episode in full is here.

Civil servants deleted clause barring teachers from pushing political views

Civil servants temporarily removed a ban on “political indoctrination” from the government’s model academy funding agreement back in 2020, creating a risk that academy schools may not know their legal obligation regarding impartiality. It was only when the deletion was spotted by political advisers to Nadhim Zahawi, the then education secretary in 2021, that the clause was reinstated (Telegraph).

Interestingly, the FSU analysed 14 academy school funding agreement that same year, and found that seven didn’t contain anti-indoctrination clauses.

Funding agreements are the terms on which the Department for Education (DfE) agrees to fund an academy school. As such, they are vitally important because they form an academy’s governing document. They also complement the law made by Parliament, which means there is overlap regarding impartiality – for instance, the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014 oblige academies to uphold impartiality, and funding agreements should contain the same obligation.

However, this overlap doesn’t mean that the impartiality provisions contained in funding agreements are therefore redundant, or that it doesn’t matter if they are absent. Often, academy proprietors aren’t aware that for legal purposes they are in fact “independent schools”, and therefore bound by the 2014 regulations.

In such instances, they may well think that they need look no further than the funding agreement – but of course, if the funding agreement in question doesn’t contain an impartiality provision, then the risk arises that they may treat teachers who push their political views in the classroom with a good deal more leniency than otherwise.

An entirely hypothetical risk, you might think – after all, the type of person who rises in public life by their own merits, abilities and industry to become a high-status, well-remunerated academy proprietor is unlikely to pass muster as the type of slow-witted, legal bungler this scenario would appear to require.

And yet this is neither a simple nor a clear area of law – the FSU’s Chief Legal Counsel, Dr Bryn Harris, has, for instance, seen a formal opinion from a KC specialising in education law which mistakenly stated that academy schools are not bound by the impartiality provisions of the 2014 regulations.

If KCs struggle to land a formal opinion in this difficult terrain, what price a hard-pressed academy proprietor giving the thing up as a bad job having failed to find the relevant clause in their funding agreement?

Speaking to the Telegraph, Dr Harris said: “Academy funding agreements are where schools go to understand what their obligations are.

“There’s a real risk that absent a clear agreement, academy schools may actually not know their legal obligation regarding impartiality,” he added. “It’s not just that it leaves the academy not knowing what their duties are, it may also complicate enforcing those duties with the relevant regulator.”

News of the temporary deletion comes as schools have been accused of breaching impartiality rules by teaching critical race theory and radical gender ideology.

A report by Don’t Divide Us (DDU), a campaign group challenging the idea that Britain is systemically racist, claimed earlier this year that pupils in England are being taught contested political beliefs related to controversial racial ideology as fact. Of 49 third-party organisations providing teacher training or resources for schools that DDU surveyed, 48 were promoting contested political beliefs around race theory as fact, the research found.

FSU member Emma campaigning for single-sex spaces in gyms – show your support

FSU member Emma is taking legal action against David Lloyd Leisure (DL) in order to hold the health club to account for misleading customers over its single-sex toilets and changing rooms policy.

Emma is a longstanding member of DL in York. As a mother to two young daughters, what first attracted her to the club was its repeated description of itself in marketing materials as “family friendly”.

In recent years, however, Emma has grown increasingly concerned at media reports of boys who identify as girls accessing girls’ toilets and changing rooms in schools (e.g., Mail, Telegraph).

Curious as to whether this was becoming a problem in other contexts, Emma decided to put DL’s marketing boast to the test and posed a simple question to the “family friendly” club’s operations manager: “Does our family membership also include the prospect of our daughters being naked in front of, and alongside, naked, adult men whilst using the ‘female’ signposted changing room?”, she asked.

What followed was weeks of delay, as the club’s local representatives attempted to smother Emma’s awkward yet intellectually piercing question beneath layers of bureaucratic proceduralism and vacuous woke platitudes.

Decisions were made on a case-by-case basis, one staff member temporized. It was important for the club to treat everyone with respect, said another, remembering a good one.

Emma continued to put her question, however, until eventually it transpired that the club’s operational manager needed to get an answer from head office.

Aptly enough given the topic, that answer, when it arrived, wasn’t binary: “Whilst you ask for a straightforward answer of yes or no the answer relates to a topic that is anything but straightforward,” the regional manager philosophised.

A month later, Emma finally secured a meeting with representatives from the club, where she was told that DL has adopted something called “UK Active Guidance”, a document that apparently allows members to access changing rooms according to their “gendered appearance”.

What did “gendered appearance” mean, or even look like? The club’s representatives didn’t know. Had this guidance been adopted recently? DL had always followed this guidance, they said, and went on to claim that this was made clear to customers.

And what about the prospect of Emma’s 11- and 13-year-old daughters having to undress in a female changing room while looking at a male stranger’s penis – was that something DL regarded as “family friendly”? Should Emma or her daughters ever feel intimidated, threatened or unsafe, then she should report that immediately to management, they suggested.

As Emma says over on her legal crowdfunder: “In accordance with our gender-critical beliefs, we do not accept that a man can become a woman in order to access the female single-sex spaces our daughters are using. Had DL made their changing room policy clear to us up-front, we would never have joined.”

Emma hopes that by taking legal action against DL she will give pause for thought to the many other companies and institutions currently sacrificing women’s and girls’ rights to privacy and dignity at the altar of unthinking, philosophically incoherent ‘inclusivity’.

To find out more about the case and show your support, click here.

FSU member Mike Fairclough’s legal crowdfunder – show your support

Former headteacher and FSU member Mike Fairclough is taking his ex-employer to the Employment Tribunal after he claims he was discriminated against, harassed and bullied simply for exercising his right to lawful free speech and speaking out against the impact of Covid restrictions on young people.

Mr Fairclough says the local authority commissioned three separate investigations into his conduct after he publicly questioned lockdown policies and the Covid vaccine rollout to children.

Despite being cleared of wrongdoing on each occasion, the council has since refused to confirm that he will not be subject to further investigations if the same complaint is raised in the future. The process becoming the punishment prompted Mr Fairclough to tender his resignation on the basis that he considered himself to be constructively dismissed. This was, he said, “a deliberate attempt to silence ‘disapproved of views’ using the complaints procedure”.

With the help of the FSU and civil liberties barrister Paul Diamond, Mr Fairclough is bringing his claim in the Employment Tribunal. Now he needs your help. If you can, please support this case, which raises substantive issues on freedom of speech the State suppression of opposing views. The link to the crowdfunder is here.

Mr Fairclough joined the hosts of the Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast, Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan, to discuss his case recently – the link to the episode is available here.

Mike also recently sat down with the leader of the Reclaim Party, Laurence Fox, to discuss pandemic policy, and how the state was able to silence dissenting voices and create the conditions for people expressing their lawful opinions to be publicly vilified – the link to the interview is here.

King’s College London tells promotion-seeking academics: Back Stonewall

It has for some time now been de rigeur for administrators at US universities to demand ‘diversity statements’ for academic job applicants, as a form of political litmus test to ensure that Conservatives ‘undesirable’ candidates can be rejected even before their research and teaching are evaluated.

Although things haven’t quite degenerated to that extent in the UK, nonetheless, King’s College London is now telling academics that showing support for the LGBT charity Stonewall could help them achieve a promotion (Telegraph).

The prestigious Russell Group university has distributed guidance to its current academic staff on education and research contracts about how they can rise to become readers or professors.

As part of any promotion application, staff must now submit an application form that runs to eight pages, one of which is titled “inclusion and support” and lists working with groups such as Stonewall as an example of good practice. Other sections cover teaching, research impact and academic leadership.

“You should evidence how you create an inclusive environment where colleagues are valued and able to succeed,” states the accompanying guidance on how to fill out the form from KCL’s Human Resources team.

It goes on to explain that “part five of the promotion application form [i.e., the “inclusion and support” section] should be used to fulfill this criteria, demonstrating specific activity undertaken to support the university’s equality, diversity and inclusion ambitions”.

In a list of appropriate examples, the guidance mentions “participating in equality, diversity and inclusion activity such as Athena SWAN, [Advance HE’s] Race Equality [Charter] and Stonewall LGBTQ groups”.

KCL’s guidance has been criticised by one lecturer at the university, who claimed managers were effectively asking him to “campaign on Stonewall’s behalf”. Dr John Armstrong, a reader in financial mathematics and FSU Advisory Council Member, said: “We are being told that if we campaign on Stonewall’s behalf it will help with promotion.

“There are no college-approved groups that support the needs of female staff or that support academic freedom. This clear bias is discriminatory and undermines the impartiality and credibility of KCL research.”

As to the question of what the purpose of all this ostensibly pointless virtue signalling really is, Prof Alan Sokal gave a fascinating, class-based answer during our recent, ‘Is there a Left way back from woke?’ event (which you can watch in full here).

Woke ideology, he said, is a way for members of the upper strata of the professional managerial class – i.e., people with managerial authority, and especially those who work in corporate Human Resources departments – to control and regulate the speech and behaviour of other, subordinate members of their class.

And how do they achieve that? By adopting initiatives exactly like KCL’s new promotion application scheme, in which adherence to woke ideology becomes a trump card that sharp-elbowed members of the professional managerial class can play if they want to get ahead in the ultra-competitive, intra-class battle for jobs, power and influence.

Kind regards,

Freddie Attenborough

Communications Officer

Top-Secret US Military Jet Flown By Diverse GIRL-BOSS Crew CRASH LANDS After Missing MASSIVE Runway

Last March we posted a blog piece titled Janice M Harrington (1921-44). It related the story of a young woman who was piloting an aircraft in WW2, crash-landed it, the all-female crew were all killed. Her full name ended up on my local war memorial, in larger letters than the men’s names, at the top of the list (which was otherwise sorted by surnames in alphabetical order). The men’s first names weren’t given.

Our thanks to Emmanuel for this story (video, 11:46) from an American military base in Hawaii. Women should be excluded from front-line combat roles, and any roles requiring the operation of expensive equipment.


If you’d like email notifications of our new blog pieces, please enter your email address in the box near the top of the right-hand column and click ‘Subscribe’.

Our YouTube channel is here, our Facebook channel here, our Twitter channel here.

If everyone who reads this gives us £5.00 – or even better, £5.00 or more, monthly – we could change the world. You can support our work by making a donation here.