Politics
Girlguiding is not for boys
With all the grace of a sulky teenager, Girlguiding finally issued a statement this week, announcing that it will comply with the law on single-sex spaces. ‘Trans girls’ (aka boys) will have to leave the organisation by 6 September. It might as well have read: ‘The nasty judges made us do it.’ Naturally, there was also a link to mental-health support for those upset by the discovery that boys aren’t allowed in.
Girlguides should always be prepared. But it seems the leadership have been shocked by the mess in which they now find themselves. For most of its existence, Girlguiding didn’t have any policies on trans members or volunteers. That’s because the concept of ‘trans children’ had not been invented. Kids who didn’t conform with sex stereotypes were not thought to have some sort of mismatch between their bodies and their minds, and adults knew better than to pander to childhood fantasies. Meanwhile, cross-dressing men weren’t so bold as to assume they’d be welcome in a role volunteering with teenage girls. In short, there was no ‘trans inclusion’ policy because institutional lying hadn’t been normalised.
Then, in 2017, Girlguiding met with Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence to develop policies to accommodate boys and men who identified as trans. Rank-and-file members were not consulted. Those who raised legitimate concerns were not simply silenced, but publicly smeared and shamed.
In 2018, long-serving guide leaders Katie Alcock and Helen Watts were forced out after being investigated for social-media posts in which they raised safeguarding concerns. Their crime was to have questioned the newly developed trans-inclusion policy, which admitted men and boys on the basis of a self-declared female identity. Watts, a volunteer of 15 years, saw her Rainbows Unit for girls aged five to seven closed. Alcock later reached a financial settlement, telling the Daily Mail that the process was akin to interrogation by ‘the secret police in some totalitarian state’. She claimed to have been ‘treated no differently from a child abuser. Yet all I’d done was say safeguarding should come before anything else.’
By 2022, what had been waved away as hypothetical risk had become embarrassingly concrete. Girlguiding was forced to investigate one of its commissioners, Nottinghamshire bus driver Monica Sulley, who oversaw multiple units, after he posted Instagram images in fetish gear, posing with what appeared to be a replica firearm, a holstered handgun and a sword, with captions including: ‘Now behave yourselves or Mistress will have to punish you #mistress.’
But Girlguiding’s disastrous trans-inclusion policies did more than open the tent flap to creepy men and confused boys: they effectively groomed girls to give up their rights. Last week, Janet Murray, writing in the Telegraph, uncovered a splinter group, Guiders Against Trans Exclusion (GATE), which has provided advice on how leaders can campaign for boys to remain, from lobbying politicians to attending protests. A publicly available briefing directs leaders to buy political badges and introduce ‘trans rights’ materials into their units.
This has been successful. A video from Thatcham Rangers shows girls holding placards reading ‘Trans girls are girls’ and ‘Our story includes trans girls’, while reciting the Girlguiding promise.
We are told children should get off their phones, join clubs and do something wholesome, away from adult concerns. Girlguiding is perfectly placed to offer that. But it is understandable that parents, and girls themselves, want the reassurance that they will be safe, that there will be no horny teenage boys pretending to be teenage girls who are tagging along on camping trips, and that their daughters won’t be accompanied to the loo by adult male volunteers. They also need to be sure that their children won’t be subjected to extremist ideological views, and this includes the fiction that boys are really girls if they say so.
The promise each Girlguiding member makes is schmaltzy but based on decent principles: Do your best, be true to yourself, develop your beliefs, serve the king, your community, and help other people. But in Girlguiding’s pitiful statement, there is no sign of these values. There is neither contrition nor shame from the leaders – not for the women they drove out, not for the families they alienated, and not for the girls they put at risk. They have not done their best, developed their beliefs or served anyone but themselves. It seems the professionals at the top of Girlguiding were too busy polishing their rainbow badges to remember their duty to the girls they were meant to protect.
Jo Bartosch is co-author of Pornocracy. Order it here.
On 25 March, LBC host Tom Swarbrick retweeted a clearly Islamophobic post:
Tom Swarbrick from LBC and now a guest on Good Morning Britain retweeted this tweet calling Muslims in the West dirty. pic.twitter.com/AV7mkJFe1d
— Mukhtar (@I_amMukhtar) March 25, 2026
To make matters worse, the post was from a known liar and propagandist.
“I hope you all cry forever”
As we reported in 2018, Swarbrick is an establishment hack with zero integrity. James Wright reported for us at the time:
Text messages leaked to BuzzFeed show that an LBC presenter tried to stage-manage an interview with a Conservative cabinet minister.
LBC‘s Tom Swarbrick was trying to bag an interview with the unnamed government figure. In the process, he sent the minister the interviewing questions and promised to be gentle. In the end, the interview didn’t go ahead.
The fact that he’s still at LBC shows they’ve got about as much integrity as him.
Here’s how people responded to his retweet:
Why is LBC presenter Tom Swarbrick endorsing a comment that Muslims are “smelly”? pic.twitter.com/eLZBMZs3LQ
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) March 25, 2026
Tom Swarbrick will post about “dirty Muslims” before delivering a solemn monologue on LBC about why “from the river to the sea” is chilling antisemitism. https://t.co/O06W22fPcm
— Karl Hansen (@karl_fh) March 25, 2026
Swarbrick was retweeting a post from Nioh Berg.
Many are quoting @NiohBerg as the voice of the oppressed Iranian, the one we must free, the truth of their people, and what they want and need.
What they forget is Nioh isn’t Iranian.
He’s Chandresh. An Indian paid by Israel, to pretend, but who forgot to delete. pic.twitter.com/cSTy8ZeiDM
— Ewan MacKenna (@EwanMacKenna) March 1, 2026
Berg notoriously posted the following in early March, and was retweeted by every moron online as a result (we now know definitively that it was the Americans who bombed the school):
🔴 BREAKING:
The regime in Iran has now confessed that the IRGC mistakenly bombed an Iranian school yesterday, killing many children.
To all the legacy media and pro regime influencers who peddled your fake news:
RETRACT and DELETE. pic.twitter.com/MNBdIcmvkG
— 𝐍𝐢𝐨𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠 🇮🇷 ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) March 1, 2026
The above should have been a ‘fool me once’ moment for those who follow Berg. However, it looks like there’s no limit to how many times you can fool a guy like Swarbrick.
Following considerable backlash, Swarbrick has now deleted his retweet.
Establishment hacks
This is the last thing Swarbrick posted himself:
https://t.co/OGYJBjfpQ9 pic.twitter.com/VS9iyVwpbx
— Tom Swarbrick (@TomSwarbrick1) February 28, 2026
The image is from when the US announced the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003. This was treated like a the final victory at the time, but of course the disastrous Invasion of Iraq raged on for another eight years, and still impact the country until today. This is fitting, given that the disastrous attack on Iran has gone very poorly for the Yanks since they assassinated the Supreme Leader.
Potentially this was the point Swarbrick was making—that history repeats itself in increasingly farcical ways—but given his other posts, it’s more likely he’s just another media ghoul with zero memory for how badly these things turn out.
Featured image via LBC
There is no single “normal” number of times to poop a week – it can range from three times a day to three times a week, says the NHS.
But a 2025 study, which involved 1,400 adults, found there is a “Goldilocks [or ‘just right’] zone” for poop frequency, which is once to twice a day.
What did the study involve?
The study authors divided participants into four poop frequency groups:
- Constipated (one or two bowel movements per week),
- Low-normal (between three and six bowel movements per week),
- High-normal (between one and three bowel movements per day), and
- Diarrhoea (more than three bowel movements a day).
Then, they looked at health markers in each group, including gut microbiomes and blood samples.
What does my poop frequency say about my health?
The scientists found that people whose gut microbiomes had more fibre-fermenting gut bacteria, which is often associated with good gut health, tended to poop once or twice a day.
But bacteria linked to protein-related gut fermentation were likely to be stronger in those with constipation or diarrhoea.
These, the researchers said, might release “toxins” into the body.
“If stool sticks around too long in the gut, microbes use up all of the available dietary fibre, which they ferment into beneficial short-chain fatty acids. After that, the ecosystem switches to fermentation of proteins, which produces several toxins that can make their way into the bloodstream,” the study’s lead author, Johnson-Martinez, said.
And a build-up of these “toxins,” including indoxyl sulphate or trimethylamine, may be linked to kidney disease and cardiovascular disease.
Meanwhile, those with diarrhoea had more C-reactive proteins, a sign of chronic inflammation, and chemicals that may be linked to liver damage.
“In a generally healthy population, we show that constipation, in particular, is associated with blood levels of microbially derived toxins known to cause organ damage, prior to any disease diagnosis,” study author Dr Sean Gibbons said.
How can I improve my poop schedule?
In this research, people who adhered to a “Goldilocks zone” schedule tended to eat a lot of fibre, exercise regularly, and stay hydrated.
Speaking to BBC Science Focus, Dr Gibbons added: “High-protein diets can also be kind of dangerous because of the protein fermentation by-products I mentioned.
“There’s a lot of evidence, especially in younger people, that they can be problematic for things like type-2 diabetes”.
Politics
Jonathan Guttentag: When soldiers guard synagogues, something has already gone deeply wrong
Rabbi Jonathan Guttentag is a UK representative of the Coalition for Jewish Values and a communal rabbi based in Manchester.
When a European government sends soldiers onto its streets to protect synagogues and Jewish schools, it is tempting to describe the move as a tough law-and-order response.
It is not.
It marks a more serious shift: from policing a society to defending it.
That distinction matters.
Police operate within a functioning civic order. Their presence assumes that public life, however imperfect, is broadly governed by law, consent, and deterrence.
Soldiers are different. Armies are not instruments of civic management; they are instruments of defence. They are deployed when the threat is no longer simply criminal, but organised, ideological, and resistant to the normal authority of the law.
When soldiers stand guard outside synagogues, a line has already been crossed.
I have seen this before.
In France, following the attacks on a kosher supermarket and the murders at a Jewish school in Toulouse, troops were deployed to protect Jewish institutions. I encountered this directly a year later, attending a gathering of the Conference of European Rabbis in Toulouse. The synagogue and community buildings were guarded by young soldiers, barely out of training, cradling automatic weapons.
It was, in one sense, reassuring.
But it also raised a more troubling question: how had things reached the point where even armed police were no longer sufficient, and the state had to reach for the army?
For decades, attending such gatherings across Europe, security had always been present — police outriders on motorcycles, flashing blue lights, traffic briefly halted, the visible choreography of the state in control. But that was policing. This is something else.
For years, rising antisemitism across Europe has been treated as a social problem to be managed rather than a threat to be confronted. The response has been familiar: statements of concern, educational initiatives, intermittent enforcement — accompanied by a marked reluctance to address the sources of hostility directly.
The result is a recognisable pattern: hesitation, escalation, and then emergency measures.
We are now seeing elements of this closer to home.
In recent days, even Hatzola ambulances — volunteer emergency responders whose sole purpose is to save life — have come under attack. When those providing medical assistance become targets, it is no longer credible to describe the problem as marginal.
Last Yom Kippur in Manchester, my colleague Rabbi Daniel Walker was forced to defend his synagogue from a violent attacker. The outer gates had already been rammed and breached before the confrontation reached the entrance itself. This was not a distant or abstract threat. It was immediate and physical.
In the days that followed, King Charles III visited the site and later became patron of the Community Security Trust — a welcome and important signal of national support.
But it also reflects a harder truth: that protection is increasingly required where once it was assumed.
The lesson for policymakers should be clear.
If threats of this kind are treated merely as issues of community relations or low-level disorder, the response will always lag behind reality. By the time soldiers are required, the failure has already occurred.
The task is not only to respond at the point of crisis, but to restore the conditions in which ordinary policing is sufficient.
That means:
- enforcing the law decisively
- confronting sources of incitement without hesitation
- and reasserting that public space in Britain is governed by law, not intimidation
A society in which people can worship freely without armed protection is not a luxury. It is a basic test of civic health.
Once that assumption begins to fail, restoring it is far harder than preserving it.
For the second time in four years, Britain is staring down the barrel of a major energy crisis. Since America and Israel began bombarding Iran, the prices of oil and gas have soared across the world, and Britain is especially exposed. This week, even as talk of a potential ceasefire has calmed the markets somewhat, global oil prices remain 45 per cent higher than before the war began, and 60 per cent up on the start of the year. Whatever happens next between Trump and the ayatollahs, whether the US ‘unleashes hell’ or ceases fire, the UK is in for a very rough ride.
The outlook is beyond bleak. The typical household energy bill in the UK is expected to climb by 20 per cent in July, when a new energy price cap comes into effect. Industry is already feeling the strain, with input prices for British factories surging at the fastest pace since the Black Wednesday market crash in 1992 – thanks to the soaring costs of energy, transport and oil- and gas-derived products. Investment bank Morgan Stanley has warned of a ‘pronounced recession’ later in the year.
Of course, there is no scenario in which modern Britain could have been immune from such seismic events in the Middle East. Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil flows. For every day the strait is closed, more barrels of oil are being taken out of circulation than in the 1973 and 1979 oil crises combined. Added to that has been the Islamic Republic’s attacks on LNG (liquified natural gas) facilities across the Gulf. Iranian strikes on Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas facility have wiped out 17 per cent of Qatari LNG exports. All in all, the Iran War has prompted what the International Energy Agency considers to be the single ‘largest supply disruption’ to the world’s energy supplies in history.
So no, Britain was never going to escape the headwinds of this crisis. But it could have been far better prepared for weathering the storm. It could – and should – have learned at least some lessons from the last energy-price crisis in 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent gas prices soaring. Not least as Britain is blessed with abundant oil and gas reserves of its own, in both the North Sea and as frackable shale gas beneath the ground. Yet unless Keir Starmer and his energy secretary, Ed Miliband, radically change course on decades of perverse policies, the UK is only set to become even more vulnerable to future external shocks beyond our control.
The Labour government insists the crisis underlines the need for Britain to ‘get off’ oil and gas, and switch to ‘clean power’. According to Miliband, fossil fuels cannot be produced domestically at scale. And even if they could, he claims, we would still be prisoners of a volatile global energy market.
The energy secretary is wrong on all fronts. Catastrophically so. As a new report by Offshore Energy UK (OEUK) confirms, North Sea oil and gas drilling has indeed fallen sharply in recent years. But this has been driven by government policy, not the supplies in reserve beneath the sea. Miliband’s ban on new North Sea oil exploration, and his continuation of the Tories’ windfall tax on the sector, are by far the greatest constraint on domestic drilling. As a result, according to OEUK, imports of LNG – which currently account for 14 per cent of the UK gas supply – are set to soar to 46 per cent by 2035. Under Miliband’s North Sea shutdown, Britain will become more dependent on suppliers like Qatar, and thus more vulnerable to external energy shocks.
And what might domestic protection mean for the price of energy? While nobody expects reopening the North Sea to instantly rescue the UK from the current price hikes, more domestic drilling could indeed lower costs in the long run. Miliband’s insistence that prices are set ‘internationally’, and so domestic production would ‘not take a penny off energy bills’, is straightforwardly untrue. If prices really were set globally, the UK would not be paying six times more for gas than energy-rich America.
It is, however, true that Britain buys and sells gas on a European market, but this doesn’t mean exploiting the North Sea would be a fruitless endeavour. For one thing, more domestic production would mean fewer LNG imports – avoiding the costs of liquefaction, shipping and regasification that shipping gas around the world entails. This is also why it is unlikely that all new oil and gas produced in the UK would simply be sold abroad, as foreign markets pay a premium for transport costs. In any case, as energy expert Dieter Helm explains, there is no reason why, with enough ‘imagination’, the UK government could not secure favourable treatment from North Sea firms as a condition for granting new drilling licences.
Even if Miliband were somehow correct, that any new oil and gas would immediately leave the country, keeping the North Sea alive would still be a no-brainer. It would provide billions in tax revenue at a time of fiscal crisis. It would vastly improve the balance of payments, at a time when Britain is importing far more goods and services than it exports. And it would keep alive an industry that supports hundreds of thousands of mostly well-paid, unionised jobs. There is simply no rational, let alone progressive, argument for throttling the North Sea.
For the past decade or so, the big bet made by the establishment has been that renewables can replace energy derived from fossil fuels. Wind and solar, they claim, are not only cheaper, but offer more security of supply, too. Again, these are sheer delusions. The only time British consumers have ever paid less for wind power than for gas was when the gas price went into the stratosphere at the start of the Ukraine war. After 2030, should Miliband hit his target for a ‘clean-powered’, renewables-heavy grid, energy supplier Centrica expects prices to be higher than at the peak of the Ukraine energy crisis. Britain is set to exit what Miliband calls the ‘rollercoaster of fossil fuels’, only to lock in crisis-level energy costs in the longer run.
As well as being exorbitantly expensive, renewables are inherently insecure. Wind and solar are intermittent sources, as they can only provide electricity when the wind blows and the Sun shines. When the weather is unfavourable, gas needs to be purchased (at an inflated price) as a backup, or there is a risk of blackouts. What’s more, renewables can’t even mitigate against geopolitical risks. Several large offshore wind projects are facing delays, as components made in the United Arab Emirates are also stuck behind the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Britain’s energy policies are nothing short of suicidal. Blinded by Net Zero zealotry, Miliband and his predecessors have made our energy supplies more costly, less secure and more reliant on foreign imports. The result is an almost permanent energy crisis that will long outlast the current conflict in the Middle East. If the economic pain of the next few months doesn’t change the establishment’s thinking then perhaps nothing ever will. It will confirm, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that our current trajectory of deindustrialisation and decline will have been actively chosen by our rulers.
Fraser Myers is deputy editor at spiked and host of the spiked podcast. Follow him on X: @FraserMyers.
4 min read
Done well, consultations are vital. Done badly, however, which happens too much in Whitehall, they cease to be tools of democracy and instead become obstacles to it.
In 2018, there was a consultation on whether a handful of walkers could pass through a small ground in Lancashire for two hours every Sunday. In 2023, it was decided there was a need for the same consultation again.
The full machinery of government was marshalled in a similar way as it would for policies worth billions.
If you log on to GOV.UK right now, you will find a never-ending list of other government consultations. Many of these are a great way to gather feedback and the views of the public on important issues affecting them and their communities.
Some of them are more questionable.
Taken in the round, they tell a compelling but concerning story. Of good intentions, probably sound individual decisions, spiralling into something else. Layers of bureaucracy that successive governments have allowed to accumulate, each intended to safeguard fairness, yet have instead created a jungle of delay, confusion, and frustration.
And not just from ministers. The civil service is full of dynamic, committed people driven by a deep sense of public service. But they are being slowly suffocated by the system around them, causing stagnation. The previous government introduced an eyewatering number of new legal duties, regulations, and statutory requirements – ironically under the banner of deregulation.
That is absurd, but what is worse is that this absurdity has real consequences: ordinary people feeling that the state is distant, immovable, or worse, not serving their interests.
I came into law not because I thought its purpose was to preserve the status quo, but because I have seen how it can enable change. I came into government to drive forward that work. And I know the Prime Minister did so, too.
We cannot leave the defence of effective government to those who would dismantle it
That is why Nick Thomas Symonds and I have been tasked with helping create a more modern, agile state, working with the new Cabinet Secretary, Antonia Romeo, whom the Prime Minister has tasked with rewiring the state to turbocharge delivery.
Nick and I are lawyers by training, recognising that governing through the law does not mean blindly following endless procedures. Governing through the law means assessing these duties, asking whether they still serve us, and, where they don’t, changing them.
The reforms we are announcing today (Thursday) are about doing exactly that. About ensuring we properly rationalise how government works, and for whom.
We cannot leave the defence of effective government to those who would dismantle it. Those who have a vested interest in talking down the state’s ability to change people’s lives for the better, who want to tear away safeguards for working people.
Good governance is about delivering for the public because the public elected us on a mandate for change.
So, part of this is ending the culture of automatic consultations. Since the start of this year, 122 consultations have been launched – around two a day. Consultations are vital when they are genuine exercises in engagement: testing assumptions, gathering evidence, shaping policy. At their best, they save the public purse, but at their worst, deployed without thought or proportionality, they cease to be tools of democracy and instead become obstacles to it.
We have repeatedly seen the consequences; process overwhelms purpose, and momentum is lost. It’s like setting out to mow the lawn, only to find yourself hacking through a jungle.
We are using the latest advances in AI to assist with identifying and reviewing legal consultation requirements that clog up the system.
But there are many other areas where we will be taking this approach.
Decision-making will be modernised and reviewed to see where routine decisions can be made without excessively burdensome processes that take weeks. New accountability measures for Permanent Secretaries will be introduced to focus on delivering the PM’s priorities, hold civil servants to account for doing so, and ensure change is lasting.
Ultimately, the machinery of government should help ministers make good, effective decisions. Sometimes that means deliberation; sometimes it means acting quickly, within the law, to deliver what people need.
The state must not be slowed by its own procedures. Its purpose is to make decisions that matter for the public we serve.
If trust depends on delivery, and delivery depends on action, then our priority is clear:
cut through the unnecessary thickets, restore the capacity to act, and ensure the state can uphold principle without suffocating under its own processes.
This isn’t the sum of our ambition — it is barely base camp — but it is the first step in a radical climb to rewire the state.
Lord Hermer is the Attorney General
Politics
Chico Khan-Gandapur: Why policy isn’t enough – a behavioural blueprint for Conservative renewal
Chico Khan-Gandapur is a managing partner at Metrica Consulting.
In the 2019 U.K. general election “Big Dog” Boris Johnson won by a landslide: 365 seats, an 80 seat majority, with 43.6 per cent of the votes cast.
Fast forward to today, and despite Kemi Badenoch’s regular excoriation of Keir Starmer at weekly PMQ’s, a great Conference, and a policy suite that is Conservative through and through, the Party’s vote share is anchored at just 16 -18 per cent (Politico’s Poll of Polls). 13.96 million voted Conservative in 2019, yet current polling would suggest just 5.4 million voters would now, nothing short of a collapse.
I addressed this in an earlier article for ConservativeHome, The Conservative Party Brand Must Shift With Behavioural Science, back in December:
“…The wholesale abandonment and ongoing voter indifference to the Conservative brand is not simply a, ‘we are fed up’ moment, or a ‘protest’ vote; rather, it reflects deeper, more structural issues. Traditional attempts to understand this challenge and turn it around have floundered. The breakthrough lies in analysing this situation through the lens of behavioural science…”
This second essay expands on these themes, and encouragingly finds the Party employing several of the strategies needed to improve its standings, but it still needs to go much further and deeper.
The subject Behavioural Political Science distinguishes between Policy‑Based support, agreement with specific positions, and Affective Partisanship, the sense of emotional loyalty or identification with a specific Party. Extensive research shows these two dimensions of support, while related, are actually distinct psychologically. Individuals may like a party’s ideas but without feeling it represents their group identity, and similarly, may stick with a party they feel close to despite disagreeing with several of its policies.
Neuroscientific studies of political engagement reinforce this distinction, demonstrating that perceptions of leaders and party brands activate emotional and social‑cognitive circuits, not just rational policy evaluation. This evidence supports the view that voters respond to cues about Trust, Competence and Identity at least as much as they do to detailed policy platforms. Indeed, some studies argue Trust, Respect and Like together drive 75 per cent of voter intentions, leaving just 25 per cent for policy evaluation – a huge relative difference.
Analysis of the 2024 election suggests Conservatives lost its 2019 voters over perceptions of incompetence, and a loss of trust in the Party as a consequence. But where these voters subsequently went to was shaped by their values. Many of those defecting to Labour cited a desire for stability, integrity and competent management of public services (which has obviously backfired) while those moving to Reform placed greater weight on immigration, cultural issues and a sense of voice for People Like Us. The latter is classic affective politics: voters searching for a party that feels like it’s on their side.
For the Conservatives to turn these challenges around, Behavioural Analysis suggests three interlocking approaches.
First, they must re‑establish visible competence and reliability. Voters frequently use heuristics (mental short-cuts) and simple stories to cope with political complexity, such as, ‘they’re useless, they never do what they say’. Once these negative labels are attached to a party, they are hard to shake-off and negatively impact subsequent information with voters discounting new promises.
The party therefore needs a period of disciplined, almost boring delivery on a small number of salient promises, chosen to be easily observable and personally relevant. The aim is to replace the prevailing dominant heuristic with a different one: this party now does what it says, consistently and competently. This requires internal restraint – fewer headline‑grabbing but undelivered pledges, and quieter follow‑through, highlighting a distinction and contrast between those in office. The Stronger Economy, Stronger Country promises to align with this approach
Second, the Conservatives must rebuild Identity and Belonging. Behavioural research shows people are strongly motivated by social identity and group attachment. When voters feel that a party comprises people like me, they are more willing to engage, forgive missteps and tolerate policy disagreements. When they feel looked down on, ignored or taken for granted, they become open to alternatives which recognise their status and concerns.
For Conservatives this means addressing messages and local engagement that underpin we are for people like you to distinct groups of electorates: older homeowners anxious about crime and disorder; younger families worrying about housing and childcare; small‑business owners struggling with regulation and costs; aspirational working‑class voters who care about order, fairness and tangible opportunities. Recent messaging from Harrogate, the Party of Common Sense and the Common Ground, acknowledges this requirement.
But it also implies investing in local presence – councillors, associations, community campaigns – as attachment is often and more effectively forged through repeated, face‑to‑face interactions rather than national broadcasts alone. This is an area which Conservatives need to expand significantly in their attempts to reconnect with nearly 8.5mln lost voters.
Third, they must restore Stable Narratives and Messengers. Frequent leadership changes and visible factional conflict have repeatedly broken this vital attachment process by resetting and changing cues about what being a Conservative actually means. Each change of leader and slogan has required voters to ask whether the party has truly changed, or whether it remains the same fractious organisation, but just behind new branding. In this respect, several defections from the Conservatives to Reform will likely prove beneficial, and might even work to pollute the reputation of the destination Party.
Behavioural and neuroscientific work emphasises the importance of the perceptions of the leader. Images serve as powerful proxies for party brands, with voters responding to the characteristics they perceive in a leader – steady or chaotic, sincere or cynical, like them or out of touch – and then generalise that to the party. Conservatives therefore need leaders and local representatives who embody a coherent story about order, opportunity and stewardship over time, rather than a sequence of conflicting personas and narratives. This breadth of leadership, especially locally, is wanting currently.
Taken together, these behavioural insights point to the need for a broader strategic shift. The party should approach politics less as a marketplace for policy products and more as a long‑term relationship in which attachment is built through Reliability, Respect and Recognition.
Intellectual policy work remains necessary, but is not by itself sufficient: it must be accompanied by a deliberate attachment strategy that treats trust, identity and emotional resonance as core design prerequisites rather than as optional extras. Conservatives must demonstrate visible delivery alongside competence in everyday, tangible ways, re‑anchoring the party in the lived identities of key voter groups.
While progress has been made, there is still much more work to be done, especially at the local level. Upcoming local authority elections in May will be the acid test of just how far the Party has progressed.
Ryan Gosling might not be fussed about keeping up with Gen Alpha slang, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us aren’t out here trying to decode what our kids are saying on a daily basis.
One of the terms you might’ve overheard them exclaiming in conversation, or perhaps while gaming, in recent times is gyatt.
What does gyatt (sometimes spelt gyat) mean?
Gyat or gyatt is a phonetic abbreviation for “god” or “goddamn”, which originates from African American Vernacular English (AAVE), dating back as far as the 1700s, according to Parents.
It’s usually used as an exclamation to express excitement or admiration, however it’s increasingly being used by Gen Alpha and Z to refer to someone they find extremely attractive.
Or, more specifically, their posterior.
Nowadays, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary, it’s evolved into slang for “a nice behind” or, per Cambridge Dictionary, “an attractively large bottom”.
In some instances, younger kids might simply refer to their bum as a gyatt, without realising the more sexualised meaning behind it.
It’s clearly pretty popular as some primary schools have even taken to banning its use.
As the word is largely rooted in sexual objectification, it’s worth pulling up your child or teen on their use of it – especially if they’re not using it in a respectful way.
Sexual harassment can include sexual comments, remarks, jokes and online sexual harassment. Government research suggests the issue is widespread in schools in England.
Gabb also noted that if your kids are coming out with gyatt it might flag they’re watching content online intended for older audiences – in which case, a review of their social media use might be helpful.
What else are teens saying?
Glad you asked… Here goes!
Mid
When Gen Alpha uses it, “mid” means mediocre or of disappointing quality. According to Merriam-Webster, “mid” serves to express that something falls short of expectations, or isn’t impressive.
Unc
This is short for “uncle” – and, per Merriam-Webster, it’s “often used humorously to indicate old age” and may imply “someone is old, getting old, or acting older than their age”.
Lowkenuinely
A combination of ‘lowkey’ and ‘genuinely’, which describes expressing something sincere in a casual, laid-back way, according to experts at language platform Preply.
Chopped
In Gen Z and Gen Alpha speak, it means ugly.
Choppelganger
Choppelganger is a portmanteau of ‘chopped’ (aka ugly), and ‘doppelganger’, which is a person who resembles someone else. So basically, it’s calling someone a less-attractive lookalike of someone else.
Chat
According to Gabb’s guide to teen slang, chat is quite simply used “to refer to a group of people, like friends or people in their class”.
Politics
Politics Home | If Labour Doesn’t Revamp The Civil Service, Reform UK Will Dismantle It, Warns Hermer
3 min read
Attorney General Richard Hermer has warned that failure by the Labour government to improve Whitehall delivery will pave the way for Reform UK to “dismantle” the civil service.
Writing for The House on Thursday, Hermer, a close ally of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said: “We cannot leave the defence of effective government to those who would dismantle it.
“Those who have a vested interest in talking down the state’s ability to change people’s lives for the better, who want to tear away safeguards for working people.”
The Attorney General’s warning comes after the Labour government on Thursday announced a series of reforms designed to speed up government decision-making and tackle what it described as a “consultation culture” in Whitehall.
In addition to reducing the number of consultations, the government will use AI to identify red tape, as well as streamline the ‘write-round’ process, which ministers use to reach collective decisions. PoliticsHome revealed in November that write-rounds, which involve written correspondence between ministers, were frustrating government figures, who felt that the procedure was creating unnecessary delays.
Ministers will also implement a new accountability framework for permanent secretaries to ensure departments are focused on delivering the Prime Minister’s priorities.
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has been highly critical of the civil service, arguing that it is too large and not fit for purpose.
The Observer recently reported that the party plans to sack the current cohort of permanent secretaries, who lead departments, and replace them in some cases with outsider political appointees. The newspaper reported a senior Reform figure as pointing to Donald Trump’s current administration as Farage’s inspiration.
While work on the reforms announced today started months ago, government sources told PoliticsHome that Cabinet Secretary Antonia Romeo had injected a sense of urgency. Paymaster General Nick Thomas-Symonds is also heavily involved in the work.
In his piece for The House, Hermer said that 122 consultations had been launched on the government website since January, the equivalent of two a day.
“Consultations are vital when they are genuine exercises in engagement: testing assumptions, gathering evidence, shaping policy. At their best, they save the public purse, but at their worst, deployed without thought or proportionality, they cease to be tools of democracy and instead become obstacles to it,” the Attorney General wrote.
Pointing to a “never-ending list” of consultations currently on GOV.UK, he said that while many were “a great way to gather feedback and the views of the public,” some are “more questionable”.
“Of good intentions, probably sound individual decisions, spiralling into something else.
“Layers of bureaucracy that government after government have allowed to accumulate, each intended to safeguard fairness, yet instead creating a jungle of delay, confusion, and frustration.”
He said that the civil service “is full of dynamic, committed people driven by a deep sense of public service” who are being “slowly suffocated by the system around them”.
“The state must not be slowed by its own procedures. Its purpose is to make decisions that matter for the public we serve,” the cabinet minister wrote.
“If trust depends on delivery, and delivery depends on action, then our priority is clear:
cut through the unnecessary thickets, restore the capacity to act, and ensure the state can uphold principle without suffocating under its own processes.”
Sky News recently reported that trans girls have been told to leave the Guides by 6 September 2026.
BREAKING: Transgender girls have been given until September 6 to leave the Guides.
🔗 Read more https://t.co/LhwTga7pDi
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 24, 2026
Following the Supreme Court’s ruling that biological sex determines gender, individuals and groups have intensified anti-trans rhetoric and increasingly isolated trans women and girls, citing the decision as justification.
This latest move by the Guides will cause significant anxiety and distress for young trans girls. The deadline signifies a reversal of their previous position. Many of us remember their 2018 statement which showed refreshing compassion towards this vulnerable group.
As the Canary has previously reported, in 2018, their guidance explicitly welcomed trans women and girls.
This makes clear how far anti-trans rhetoric has gone in the UK. The far right have deliberately portrayed trans people as a dangerous threat. Their narrative has lost any moral grounding it seeks to depend upon.
Trans girls, after all, are just that: children.
Trans children demonised: guides have lost their backbone
This decision reflects a troubling pattern of institutions cowing to billionaire-backed, far-right groups that are targeting and scapegoating trans people. Even more concerning is the impact on young trans girls—now excluded from the very spaces that welcomed them. This ostracises and isolates them from their peers.
This X account drew attention to the Guide’s statement on trans policy in 2018 under former Chief Exec Julie Bentley:
Contrast this with what the Guides said in 2018, from their now-deleted page:
“It’s been really disappointing to read and hear comments that suggest the inclusion of trans children and young people in Girlguiding somehow puts our other members at risk.”
“It is quite frankly… https://t.co/UospLiDYtz pic.twitter.com/uUdWWzEGcW
— Adam Smith (@adamndsmith) March 24, 2026
Back in 2018, the group rightfully raised the alarm over the way in which trans girls were being demonised in far-right public discourse.
At the time, the Guides expressed disappointment with the suggestion that the inclusion of trans children “puts” others at risk of harm. In their words:
It is quite frankly disturbing that people assume that a trans child is a threat to others or that they would want to harm their Girlguiding friends.
But we do also recognise that there are legitimate concerns and queries around the practicalities of self-identifying girls sharing sleeping and bathroom facilities, and that’s why we offer bespoke guidance for any leader who is looking to run an activity, like a camp, that’s going to involve a trans child.
“They are simply children”
One X account commenting on these past statements, said the group’s change of tack is likely a response to:
the threat of litigation by middle class middle aged bigots who have media sway is too much for charities.
It is also worth noting that their 2018 statement was based around a survey of girls and young women which showed 86% in support of trans-inclusive policies.
In an expression of solidarity, another X user said:
Well done for publishing this. It’s a sad day for the trans community.
All this hate they are getting, now that transphobes have been given ammunition against them.
A lot can change in eight years. In 2023, the guides appointed a new Chief Executive, Felicity Oswald. Since then, new initiatives aimed at growing membership have been introduced, under the motto “Girls Can Do Anything.”
Notwithstanding this new direction, they have failed to protect all children, and abandoned principles of equality.
Discrimination was bound to happen
The Supreme Court’s ruling worked to roll back trans rights by two decades, as we wrote last year:
By prioritising a gender normative definition of sex over legal gender recognition, the court’s decision disregards the lived experiences and identities of trans women. It raises questions about their access to single-sex spaces, participation in public life, and protection against discrimination.
The Supreme Court’s decision reflects a troubling trend within politics and justice to favour a narrow, right-wing view of gender, ignoring the complexities of gender identity and trampling over the rights of trans people.
This approach fails to consider the social and legal realities and plays right into the hands of the anti-trans lobby, the far-right, and bigots.
The Women’s Institute (WI) almost immediately banned trans women from their events following this shortsighted and extremely damaging ruling. Of course, this has caused significant distress for trans communities who are being pushed out of public life.
Abandoning children is a choice
However, the Charity Commission even intervened to say that no charities were under any pressure to rush to change policies after the controversial ruling, suggesting they are:
within their rights to wait for statutory guidance before abandoning their trans-inclusive policies.
The decision from Girlguiding is a result of capitulation to far-right bigots who are attempting to demonise trans people. Choosing to further isolate already marginalised children from their peers is a sickening decision.
The fact that the group in 2018 had no problem including trans children speaks volumes about the UK’s gigantic swerve towards openly transphobic politics in recent years. One of the Girlguiding mottos is:
We help girls know they can do anything
As long as they’re the right kind of girls.
Featured image via the Canary
Politics
Richard Osman Teases House Of Games Will Be Getting A Big Rebrand When Michael Sheen Takes Over
Richard Osman in his iconic House Of Games big red chairRichard Osman has shed some more light on how things are going to work over at House Of Games when he steps down as host.
Earlier this month, the Bafta nominee announced he would be leaving Richard Osman’s House Of Games after nine years and around 800 episodes at the helm.
He insisted at the time that House Of Games would remain on the air with a new presenter, later revealed to be the actor Michael Sheen.
But given that Richard’s face is quite literally plastered all over his celebrity game show – and many of its prizes – some may have had questions about whether this would remain in place after his departure.
In fact, as he told listeners on the latest episode of his podcast The Rest Is Entertainment, the show will be getting a big rebrand after he’s left.
“One of the things they’re currently doing is producing prizes with his face on. So it will be called Michael Sheen’s House of Games,” he explained, joking that he “lobbied” to try and stick around in spirit even if he wasn’t hosting the show anymore.
To most of us, Richard rose to fame as Alexander Armstrong’s right-hand man on the daytime quiz Pointless.
Nowadays, he’s as well known for his literary output as he is for his on-screen work, having penned the best-selling mystery novel The Thursday Murder Club, which was adapted for the big screen by Netflix last year.
Since the first book was published, The Thursday Murder Club has spawned four sequels, the most recent of which, The Impossible Fortune, came out in late 2025.
During his time as the host of House Of Games, Richard has welcomed a slew of celebrity guests and put them through their paces, including his now-wife Ingrid Oliver, who he met when she was a contestant on his show.
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