It is very early days after Dr Hilary Cass’s review on gender services provided by the NHS in England. I am not a doctor, but my initial thought is that it is completely devastating for the transgender argument. No one denies that there is such a thing as gender dysphoria, nor that there are people who wish to live their lives as the opposite sex or indeed sometimes as non-binary. The issue is how medicine ought to treat children who present with gender dysphoria. Up to now the tendency both medically and politically has been to accept that when a boy or indeed a man claims to be a gi ..read more

  I had never heard of Wilma Brown the former Labour candidate who was suspended for liking various posts on Twitter/X. I had likewise never heard of the person who had gathered the various posts which can be found here. But it is necessary to point out that in most cases the posts liked by Wilma Brown were innocuous, arguable, or true. The first post liked is Humza Yousless is going to be raging, as @jk_rowling is being called the new Queen of Scots. She's slain Humza Yousless and the trans movement, by using her speciality weapon, words, well played ma'am #DoffsCap Does the Labour par ..read more

  The biggest question of our age is apparently “What is a woman?” The Labour Party is unable to come up with a definition. I think also J.K. Rowling’s recent attempt in terms of DNA and large gametes fails on the grounds that we have only known about such things for a short time while we have know what a woman is from when time began. The question in fact is much simpler to answer than anyone realises. The answer to “what is a woman?” is the same as the answer to “what is grass?”, “what is the sky?”, “what are bricks?” and what are any number of other things we talk about. We have a sh ..read more

  The year 2024 could turn out to be one of the most monumental years in British politics, but no one is interested. Labour could win 450 seats and more. The Conservatives could be reduced to 100 or even less. It is possible that the Lib Dems might be the opposition. In Scotland it is reasonable to expect that the SNP will be reduced to less than 20 seats. After the past week things may be even worse for the SNP. There may come a point when enough Scots decide to punish the SNP by voting for the party most likely to defeat the SNP in each constituency. In that case the SNP could be redu ..read more

  I have very limited experience with the Scottish police, which is as it should be in a free society. They are invariably pleasant, polite and helpful. The police don’t stop you for no reason. They don’t come round your house or place of work without cause. If you are a law-abiding citizen, you have no reason to fear the police at all. This is what makes Scotland different from most countries. The police do important work and I wish they were allowed to just get on with it. They have to conclude their investigation into SNP finances.  The have to investigate serious crimes like frau ..read more

  I wish to report a hate crime. Not merely am I reporting one hate crime I am reporting five hate crimes under each of the protected characteristics. Unfortunately, I was born with a blue nose. But not merely is my nose blue, the whole of my body is blue too. I may not look blue to you, but I identify as blue and in particular I identify as having a blue nose. Recently my husband who has a tendency to wear white and green stripes took to mocking my blue nose. He called me a Hun and he didn’t use it as short for Honey. He thinks that blue people are worse than everyone else who lives in ..read more

  I have concerns about Humza Yousaf’s hate crime legislation, but I don’t expect anything much to happen on April Fools Day or indeed in the months that follow. I have been writing regularly for about twelve years and for the most part it has been trouble free. There has been the usual online name calling and one or two offline complaints. I have been able to express whatever views I want about almost any topic. Freedom of expression has limits and I accept that. There are things that a sensible writer ought not to express. We all should sometimes check ourselves. Do I really need to ..read more

  Apparently after a year in office Humza Yousaf lacks a big idea. What could the big idea be? My guess is that it will be some variant on a theme that Scottish independence is wonderful and will solve all of Scotland’s problems instantly and turn us into Denmark? Is that the big idea? In fact, Scotland only has three ideas, socialism, authoritarianism and nationalism, and everyone believes at least two of them. The big idea would be to believe something else.   Almost everyone in Scotland is either a hard nationalist (believer in independence) or a soft nationalist (believer that ..read more

  There is a lot of misunderstanding about what a hate crime is in Scotland. For which reason we must turn to the police for guidance. Police Scotland tells us Hate crime is behaviour which is both criminal and rooted in prejudice. The legal definition of hate crime is "any crime which is understood by the victim or any other person as being motivated (wholly or partly) by malice or ill will towards a social group." It goes on to explain hate crimes are related to groups with protected characteristics There are five groups or ‘protected characteristics’ covered by the hate crime legisl ..read more

  I’ve often wondered why the western corner of Eurasia called Europe was responsible for so much of the world’s development. European conquered everywhere, invented everything and wrote most of the world’s important literature and music. It was not always so. At various times Indian civilisation was more advanced than Europe. The same can be said for Japanese civilization, Chinese civilization, and the various civilizations of the Middle East. I don’t think there is anything special about Europeans in terms of genetics. Like everyone else in the world we have a mixture of ancestors who ..read more