Life as a civil servant in Whitehall means accepting the politically correct worldview without question and being thankful for it. Features of this include, as you might expect: ‘gender-neutral’ toilets; Pride flag lanyards; being expected to celebrate the Trans Day of Visibility; and pronouns listed in email signatures. As a gay man, it was baffling to me to be lectured constantly about the so-called ‘LGBT community’, a confected identity group into which I had been categorised against my will. But this was just the superficial stuff. Underneath lay the cultural superstructure of Whitehall: the application of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) – or as I think of it, Conformity, Inequality and Exclusion – to all aspects of work. The effect is to ‘inclusively’ ensure that only conformists are hired and promoted, and meanwhile to cancel any heretics who might not adhere to the general groupthink.
‘Bring Your Whole Self to Work’, we were often being told, as part of a general so-called ‘#BeKind’ ethos. Yet for anyone with at all dissident views, the reality was a self-censorship minefield, where bringing your whole self was frankly best avoided. Indeed, one had to be cautious at all times where one stepped.
Plenty of examples spring to mind. I recall one meeting of policy officials where a colleague, who I’ll call ‘John’, commented, mid-flow, “and I know everyone wants to get into curriculum decolonisation policy”. The words just rolled off his tongue, matter-of-factly. I had to bite mine, so as not to exclaim: “Really, you know that everyone does?” It was simply not possible to disagree with him. I knew that to question whether the dogma of “decolonisation” was indeed universally affirmed would have meant a black mark against my name.
One might think I am exaggerating, but I had in fact been previously suspended and investigated by the Civil Service for having expressed non-PC opinions (quel horreur), not even as a civil servant, but several years before I joined. I was the target of a witch hunt, in which an attempt was made to apply departmental policies retroactively against me, though thankfully it didn’t succeed. And I was far from alone in being persecuted for my beliefs. A colleague at the Office for National Statistics was dismissed for refusing to undergo diversity training in the wake of the death of George Floyd and subsequent Black Lives Matter riots in 2020. Just for that his career was ended. The experience left him psychologically broken and dependent on medication. Pour encourager les autres.
‘John’, meanwhile, has an easy time in SW1 because he holds the right woke views. Doors open easily for him. One day he was parliamentary assistant to a Labour MP, the next a senior civil servant supporting a ministerial private office, and now he works in policy for an international corporation. He had even attended one of the right universities – the LSE, founded by the Fabian Society. All it takes to go far in the corridors of power is the right opinions and the right credentials. I envy him no more than I might envy a snake oil salesman.
Ideological conformity is also ensured through the Civil Service Code, under which civil servants must act with “integrity”, “honesty”, “objectivity” and “impartiality”. Noble goals, one might think, but these standards apply to some civil servants rather more than to others. I recall being at a departmental away day at the Oval in 2020 where, in a speech to some 100 staff, the then director, a senior civil servant, openly mocked Conservative Parliamentarians over their Brexit deregulation plans, without fear or consequence. Meanwhile, part of the disciplinary case against me was the mere fact that I had attended a protest – before becoming a civil servant – against the Mayor of London and commented to a reporter on his failure to tackle knife crime. I was told this meant I could have violated the Civil Service Code on impartiality grounds, and even brought the department into disrepute.
To be a civil servant is to be constantly lectured about ‘diversity’, yet diversity applied in the Civil Service really means conformity of belief, and that only those who do conform can feel safe. This ensures that only policy officials with the right ideas for legislation, regulations and guidance are hired and promoted, and that everyone is on board with the same agenda. The result is a closed system and culture where no one can dissent and those civil servants with the right beliefs are in complete control. This is why the Whitehall Blob has so much power: UK legislation is conceived and developed by policy officials, and the vast majority of it takes the form of regulations (especially statutory instruments) which are signed into law by ministers without any parliamentary debate or scrutiny. Provided a department’s officials are all on board with the agenda, it is therefore very easy for them to manipulate ministers and in effect to decide the law.
Here’s how they do it. All policy proposals created by officials have to be submitted to ministers for approval. But civil servants know that ministers are always busy with constituency matters, their media image and countless other commitments. They don’t have time to read detailed policy, so they can be easily choreographed. There are numerous tricks. When a policy proposal is presented for approval to a minister only two options are presented. One option will be doing nothing or will be presented as something unpalatable, and the other option will be the one the civil servants recommend (the one they really want). In theory the minister can take whichever decision he or she wants to, but the minister is directed.
Next, ministers may be told that there is a pressing international treaty that must be followed and which takes precedence over domestic concerns (right-thinking civil servants always prioritise international esteem over the national interest). And often ministers are warned that a statement, termed a ‘commitment’, has been made in Parliament previously, meaning the incumbent minister is duty bound to the same course of action. He is not, of course – he can make up his own mind – but he rarely ends up doing so. This dynamic means that even supposed cabinet ‘collective responsibility’ is an illusion, since the policy detail of other government departments is developed by the civil servants working for them, rather than ministers. ‘Collective Whitehall groupthink’ would be more apt.
On the rare occasions that ministers do push back and exercise their own judgement, they will typically find themselves accused by civil servants of ‘bullying’ and be likewise bullied by a compliant media for making a fuss until they resign.
In short, Yes Minister‘s Sir Humphrey lives on in woke Whitehall today. He may not look the same as Nigel Hawthorne in the 1980s but his Machiavellian methods continue.
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Very well put, thanks.
Good for Mr. Chase to stand tall. Millions support you Sir.
Mental illness cult.
Some Science; x and y chromosomes. DNA. Mitochondria. Physical structures. Testes and Johnson vs a Vagina.
2 genders.
The rest are mental illnesses and confusion. Simples.
Could we have the names of the companies that threatened boycott?
I’d like to boycott them. And spread the word about how they are trying to crush free speech.
If it’s too compromising to single those companies out, is there a place we can see the list of advertisers and sponsors of Propel Opinion?
#MeToo
Incidentally, I also stopped using PayPal for its opposition to free speech.
Additionally, I cost them some money by submitting a Subject Access Request, requiring them to provide me with a hard, on paper, copy of every piece of information they retained on me.
It is not sufficient that these orgnisations get away with just changing their minds back. There must be a penalty for them attempting to subvert our freedoms, or else they will go on trying it.
.
The best succinct summary of reality I’ve read.
A few years ago, we would have read the article and said: ‘Well, obviously!!!’ Now we applaud it, because the world has gone nuts and someone speaking the truth is an exciting, daring thing! How far we’ve fallen in so short a time.
Gender-Borg is rather appropriate…
“Your diversity will be added to the collective as you’re assimilated”
An excellent article, the rabid responses to it are proof, that the truth hurts, and to apologise for telling the truth is wrong.
An idea I had today was to use the term Anti-Nature-Party to refer to the full spectrum of wokery because that’s really what it’s all about: Denying the existence of anything which hasn’t been made or isn’t controlled by man. At best, nature is a mortal danger to us, as in COVID or climate change, the solution to both problems being control of something we cannot control (movement of virions, the weather) but where some people will literally go to arbitrary lengths to maintain their illusion that they are controlling it (Just abolish human life, that’ll show those damn virions!, Back to the roots! In order to finally control the weather, we just need to become hunter-gatherers again!). At worst, it’s outright denied: Humans are not mammals and don’t reproduce sexually, that’s all just an illusion created by the (erstwhile) dominant majority in the West to maintain its (ill-gotten) power!
The ZIP (zero-intelligence party) someone came up with yesterday would also be a fitting name, just a more indirect one.
Yes – it’s another “religion of the abandonment of religion” confusion, perhaps. One abandons the idea that God created us, and the world, and that therefore by and large nature is on our side, and replaces it with an exaggerated Darwinian “red in tooth and claw” idea of nature, yet combined with some vague notion that man is not part of it, so that not even evolutionary adaptation makes us at home.
After all “the wrong body” concept makes no sense either in theological or evolutionary terms, but only in some Ovid Metamorphosis mythos where nothing can be relied on to be what it seems.
And as you say, in the end it’s all about man (singular, ie “me”) at the centre.
After all “the wrong body” concept makes no sense either in theological or evolutionary terms, but only in some Ovid Metamorphosis mythos where nothing can be relied on to be what it seems.
It sort-of makes sense when considering the background: As I already wrote last time, a precondition for the wrong body notion is that the (Christian) body/soul duality is actually real, ie, that the essence of a person is distinct from the body and of an inherently higher value (as exemplified by the fact that it’s considered ok to damage the body, often seriously, if that benefits this essence). This means these people-essences must come from somewhere and something must pair them with bodies. As this requires supernatural powers, this so-far nameless assembly facility can rightfully be called a god. Or rather, a devil, as it apparently misplaces souls solely to torment them. Which circles back to the notion that nature is vaguely personal and out there to get us, and that only human ingenuity can save us from this potent and malevolent force.
“Anti-Nature-Party”
Brilliant.
Excellent summary in 10 points. I’ll save and re-use if I may sometime.
Myth #10 Fact puts it succinctly Imputing hateful motives to those who disagree with you, or pathologising dissent, is the hallmark of an extremist. If you’re happy pretending to be a woman, I’m happy for you. You don’t need to resort to science-denial to justify your self-presentation
Stewart – Propel Opinion seems to be at
http://propelinfonews.com/archive.php
with many advertisers but not clear who may have threatened boycott
Excellent article Mr Chase, one to hammer onto the (metaphorical) church door a la Martin Luther!
Why has such a tiny proportion of the population – whether they’re mentally-ill, sexual fetishists, people exploiting the system for perfectly rational reasons (men who can be best in female sports, men who want to go to female prisons or men who want to benefit from quotas, for example) or piss-takers, like the Canadian bloke who wanted to have his balls waxed – achieved so much power?
OK, they have the support of a significant minority of the general population, but those people are drooling imbeciles.
It’s clearly because they have the support of and are directed by the same people and organisations who have been behind all of the other attacks on European Christian civilisation over the past few decades.
I recently discussed transgender ideology with my registrar.
I posited that it is not possible to be “born in the wrong body” and that the desire to change one’s sex may be due to mental health issues, social pressures, a milieu of “victim rights”, etc.
He aligned transgenderism with homosexuality and could not understand there being any difference.
When our young specialist doctors think like this, I wonder what hope there is for the future of humanity!
Well done Mr Chase for setting out the REAL SCIENCE of biology so comprehensively.
Millions of us agree with you.
Great article, which demonstrates nicely how (the much denied) cancellation is done-pressure from the extremists applied to advertisers.
An excellent article, many thanks. As for all those idiots complaining; take them as badges of honour – they cannot cope with the truth. That’s their problem, not yours.
They have a tendency to make it into a problem of other people. That’s because to them, there is no such thing as reality or at least, while there might be a reality, we cannot ever learn anything certain about it. We have only our own, subjective perception of things which cannot be validated objectively because all we can do is talk to other people to determine how they see things and the only thing we then get is their subjective viewpoint. As if this wasn’t bad enough, we can never be sure that we’re really getting other people’s viewpoints as it’s not certain that other people exist at all. That’s a concept called solipsism: There are no things, only opinions about things and even these opinions might not really exist. Hence, if you tell some guy who claims to be a woman that he isn’t one, your denying him the right to express his perfectly valid opinion about the world and because of this, you’re obviously a bad person denying other people their human rights.
This used to be called lunacy but since about the middle of the last century, it successfully recast itself as philosophy.
It beggars the mind that an article like Paul Chase’s even had to be written. How have we reached the point where stating objective facts is a sackable offence? What this boils down to is a small number of weird activists who have got into key positions in the state and big business and a small, but gobby mob on (anti-)social media.
It’s not an exaggeration to say the gender fraud represents perhaps the tipping point that that could collapse Western society. The search for truth and objective reality – the acceptance that there are objective truths and standards – has been the basis of Western human development for centuries.
To link to another Borg reference, in ‘The Best of Both Worlds’, the crew of the Enterprise realised they could get on board a seemingly insuperable Borg ship and cause damage by hitting a small vulnerable area, equivalent to a mosquito biting someone in a vulnerable area that could cause severe damage. The gender nutters have attacked the West’s fundamental belief in objective truth. Without a belief in a core objective reality, everything we are crumbles: it’s the vulnerable spot the postmodernists have been chipping away at for over a century.
On a low level, we’ve seen things happen in our language for some time that deny reality: on example is changing the term ‘chairman’ (as in the human being who sits in the boardroom chair) into ‘chair’ (a human cannot be a chair: a chair is something you sit in!) Now we’re denying biological facts like what constitutes a man and a woman and we claim ‘micro-aggressions’ – insults that are supposedly hidden and unspoken, because people weren’t actually insulting other people at all.
I’ve said it many times and will say it again: there’s going to have to be some sort of diaspora: it’s simply not possible for people who believe in objective reality to live among people who don’t. Objective reality is where law and order come from, relativism and subjectivism are where chaos and death come from, where the ‘law’ is made up on a whim. There are going to have to be new countries created in the next few years and people are going to have to face moving, possibly a long way from where they live now.