Humza Yousaf has announced he is resigning as First Minister of Scotland. Mr Yousaf’s decision to abruptly end the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens last week following a bitter row over government climate targets caused his leadership to unravel, precipitating what Tom Harris, writing for the Telegraph, describes as “the country’s greatest political crisis since devolution began in 1999”. Following this surprise decision to scrap the SNP’s coalition deal, it was clear that the career of the anointed heir to Nicola Sturgeon was hanging by a thread. A motion of no confidenc ..read more

Humza Yousaf has announced he is resigning as First Minister of Scotland. Mr Yousaf’s decision to abruptly end the SNP’s power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens last week following a bitter row over government climate targets caused his leadership to unravel, precipitating what Tom Harris, writing for the Telegraph, describes as “the country’s greatest political crisis since devolution began in 1999”. Following this surprise decision to scrap the SNP’s coalition deal, it was clear that the career of the anointed heir to Nicola Sturgeon was hanging by a thread. A motion of no confidenc ..read more

The FSU recently scored two significant victories in its ongoing campaign against speech-restricting Public Spaces Protection Orders (PSPOs). These are when a local authority decides to make certain speech illegal in its locality, often disregarding the legal protections for free speech. As first reported by the Telegraph, Redbridge Council has agreed not to renew its current PSPO – which criminalises among other things behaviour which causes or is likely to cause harassment alarm or distress to another person’ – after the FSU wrote to them pointing out it was unlawful and threatening a judici ..read more

Health Secretary Victoria Atkins will this week announce changes to the NHS constitution, ensuring clarity in healthcare by banning phrases like “chestfeeding” and “people who have ovaries”, and prioritising use of biologically precise, sex-based language that meets the medical needs of women (LBC, Mail, Telegraph). The NHS constitution sets out patients’ rights, and the revised iteration will emphasise the importance of using “sex-specific” language in the health service after references to women were expunged from advice on the menopause and diseases such as cervical and ovarian cancer. All ..read more

A social worker who was helped by the FSU has been awarded almost £58,000 in damages from Westminster City Council and Social Work England in a landmark judgment (Times). Meade, from Dartford, Kent, brought a case against the council and Social Work England in 2022 for harassment and sex discrimination after she was suspended for posting gender critical views on her private Facebook account. The dedicated social worker with an unblemished 20-year record was suspended from her job at Westminster City Council after a single complaint was made by a Mr Aedan Wolton, then a colleague of hers and no ..read more

Earlier this month, Dr Hilary Cass published her long-awaited review into support and treatment options for children who suffer from gender confusion. Writing for the Guardian, Dr David Bell, the former staff governor and Tavistock GIDS whistleblower describes it as the most extensive and thoroughgoing evidence-based review of this topic ever undertaken. The Cass Review offers a strong – some would say unanswerable – challenge to the ‘gender affirmative model’ which in recent years has become the norm in the NHS’s Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). Faced with cases of gender ..read more

Click here to read the article She is being helped in her legal action by the Free Speech Union, which helped to organise the crowdfunding campaign. Toby Young, general secretary of the Free Speech Union, said: “For Newcastle to punish a fan for saying she thinks sex is biological and immutable — a view 99 per cent of their fans and 100 per cent of the club’s owners agree with — is a grotesque interference in free speech. Jill Levene, legal counsel of the Free Speech Union, said: “Linzi expressed her legally protected gender-critical beliefs and as a result found herself investigated by the po ..read more

The outgoing head of the government’s climate watchdog has told the Guardian that “Net Zero” has become an unhelpful slogan because “the culture warriors” have “taken against it”. Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said “sensible” improvements to the economy and people’s were being blocked by a populist response to the net zero label. “Net zero has definitely become a slogan that I feel occasionally is now unhelpful, because it’s so associated with the campaigns against it,” he said. “That wasn’t something I expected. “It’s the culture warriors who have rea ..read more

“DEI was supposed to help people like me. It didn’t,” writes Raquel Rosario Sánchez for Quillette. She continues: In February, the Calgary-based Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy published a study on the effectiveness of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), authored by David Millard Haskell, a professor of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario. Haskell reviewed decades of research into the topic, including seven studies published in well-known journals, and meta-analyses covering hundreds of others. His conclusion is that DEI training is generally both divisive and counte ..read more

Public art should be “decolonised” or risk being removed, according to Welsh Government guidance. As reported by the Telegraph, the devolved Labour administration has finalised official guidelines which instructs public bodies, including Wales’s National Museum in Cardiff, on how to ensure statues, plaques and paintings project the “right historic narrative”. The report continues: Guidance states that art in public spaces must be “decolonised” and should “celebrate the achievements of our diverse society”. The term “decolonisation” refers to a process of ensuring history and other disciplines ..read more