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Why does Khan remain silent? (Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Back in 2013, when Boris Johnson was Mayor of London, I was surprised to get a message from City Hall. One of Johnson’s deputies, Stephen Greenhalgh, wanted to know if I would be willing to join him as Co-Chair of the Mayor’s Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Board — the body that draws up policy to tackle domestic and sexual violence in London. Johnson and Greenhalgh wanted to bring in an independent expert and decided to invite me on the advice of a number of women’s organisations.
I jumped at the chance, even though I am a member of the Labour party, and we worked amicably together for the next three years. Fast forward to 2021: Johnson is prime minister, Lord Greenhalgh (as he now is) is a government minister and I am out. Now I am in a peculiar situation: I have voted Labour all my life, yet was brought into City Hall by a Conservative administration — and sacked by its Labour successor.
The dismissal arrived last Friday afternoon, as I was writing and giving interviews about the dreadful murders in Plymouth less than 24 hours earlier (I have written a book about the relationship between misogyny, domestic abuse and terrorism). The last thing I expected, in the middle of such horror, was to be sacked by email.
After eight years of unpaid work on behalf of women and girls in London, it seems reasonable to expect that Sadiq Khan or Sophie Linden, the deputy mayor who replaced Greenhalgh, would have wanted to tell me themselves. But I have not heard a word from Khan and I only had a call from Linden yesterday after the Times published a story about the incident. Before that, all I had received was a series of diary notifications from her office, cancelling all the meetings I was supposed to have with her over the next twelve months.
The news was delivered in an email from Diana Luchford, a former civil servant at the Home Office, who is now CEO of the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime. I had to read it twice before the meaning sank in: I am out, thus removing independent scrutiny at a moment when the behaviour of the Metropolitan police towards women has been fiercely criticised.
Take the kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer, followed the force’s callous handling of a vigil to commemorate her. Or its failure to investigate when two murdered sisters, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, were reported missing last year. If ever an outside voice were needed to raise women’s anxieties at City Hall, it is surely now.
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SubscribeI have mixed feelings about this article.
On the one hand I agree it’s necessary to address problems affecting women where there is good evidence to do so.
On the other hand, the author is someone who has played identity politics and imagined that the reordering of society would stop at a point of her personal convenience. She is now shocked to discover that that the ball she helped roll down the cliff, is rolling over her also, at which point she now objects.
A showdown between the various identity groups vying for pole position in the victim Venn diagram is, as many of us warned, inevitable.
I hope this personal situation she finds herself in will allow her to reflect on whether there is any lasting merit in dividing humanity into different groups pitted against each in a zero sum game of power.
Excellent comment, right on the money
.
Hayden, you nailed it perfectly.
The inevitability of identity politics eating itself was clear to all who have witnessed its lack of tolerance and high levels of hypocrisy, bigotry and virtue signalling from afar. I sincerely hope it continues at a rapid rate.
I wonder where this lady was when the 3,000 or so white girls were being raped, sodomised, abused and in some cases, murdered in a large number of cities across England by Muslim men? What happened to Miss Everard was appalling by anyones standards yet the way the left mobilised and rallied for a victim of a white policeman in comparison to saying pretty much nothing about the levels of violence aimed at young girls by a statistically high proportion of Muslim men is appalling.
Richard, it is worth raising, as you have, the ongoing issue of grooming gangs.
I don’t know whether she’s guilty personally, but the Guardian (which she writes regularly for) had a policy of hear-no-evil-see-no-evil when it came to Asian grooming gangs.
In 2012, for example, the Guardian ran such stories as “The truth about ‘Asian sex gangs'” in which it asserted that “racial profiling wouldn’t help victims”. The paper, in short, was vastly preoccupied with appearing to be a not-racist mouthpiece and vastly indifferent to the victims of rape.
Even when the evidence of such gangs became overwhelming, they concerned themselves with defending the perpetrators and the belief system that underpinned the crimes by running stories like, “Most child sexual abuse gangs made up of white men”, which attempted to obscure the scale of who was committing the crimes by disregarding the demographic weighting of the perpetrators.
The defence of the indefensible is vast with the Guardian and it is no credit to the author that she writes for it.
Perfect response to this article. Feminists started the delusional denial of biological facts and human nature by claiming that there is no difference between the sexes. So trans activists subsequently turned the amps up to 11. And now, the inevitable clash. And now, feminists turn to the patriarchy for protection.
And what will say to these feminists when they come to the Patriarchy looking for protection? The Patriarchy is forgiving, up to a point, but we must use this opportunity to bring the universe back to a state of balance.
“Ladies, we are willing to assist you. But there is a price to pay. No more voting, You will leave that to us, in future.”
I’m not sure the author has done any such thing. The vast majority of violence is carried out by men, and women are often the victims. This is an obvious truth. Some ‘anti-woke’ thought doesn’t seem to know whether to accept (and in extreme cases even celebrate) this, or to deny it and emphasise that men can be victims of domestic violence as well. They can, but on a far lesser scale.
Women are of course also a real category, while trans is a (deliberately?) woolly term. Most people would think that someone who had actually transitioned can be accepted into their new sex, but not always and especially in refuges, prisons and changing rooms, someone who just ‘identifies’ as so.
I don’t dispute that more violence is carried out by men.
What I dispute is the benefit of categorising people into competing groups where some are angels and some are villains.
Women’s rights are already protected because women are human and legal rights apply to humans.
The debate should, in my view, be about making sure the laws are applied without fear or favour to protect people equally, and not in trying to make one group more or less human than another.
It is the insistence that people are primarily blind instantiatons Of their group, rather than individuals, that is at the heart of the problems the author is experiencing with the trans lobby.
Good point about the (deliberate) ambiguity of the term ‘transwoman’. In fact the overwhelming majority of people who use that term to describe themselves are transvestites with fully functional and functioning male bodies who have no intention or desire to do what is now called transition. The trans activists have also been very successful in conflating ‘gender’ with ‘sex’. And in promoting the fantasy that identifying as a woman is the same as being one.
When you you say “women are often the victims” I’m wondering what percentage of the victims of violence are women – as compared to men.
Approx.: 60:40 women : men.
Well said. They are starting to eat each other.
I am all too familiar with the violence a male body can perpetrate against a female body. I have been liberal/progressive my entire life until the left decided to abandon women in the interest of a small but militantly vocal group that have lost their way. My safety and that of other physical females cannot be shoved aside in an effort to pander to the thought police.
Interesting language, “violence a male body can perpetrate against a female body.”
I haven’t seen any man hit a woman in my entire, rather long life. Ever
Seen plenty help out where their physical strength is useful, though.
The biggest checks on potential male violence are:
A. Self control, based on a sense of chivalry and acknowledgement of superior physical strength
B. Other men, including but not only the police
What your progressives and their supporters like you have done…
A. Chip away at that sense of chivalry by claiming no biological differences, bombarding young males with “wimmin strong” messages in school, movies etc
B. Render the police ineffective with diversity, replacing hefty men with useless quota women, loading them with PC rubbish and paperwork…
Yes, women including my young daughter would ironically be far more unsafe in the next decades.
And while you will keep screeching about “male violence”, “patriarchy” blah blah,
You will not look into the mirror and see the real cause of this problem.
There are not too many women I know who have never felt fear from a male/males. This is certainly not because all men are bad, or that most men protect women, it is because most crimes are committed by men and men are significantly physically stronger than women. This is fact and it is nothing to do with women screaming about patriarchy and the like.
I think the gentleman has a point. My God, I fear that my daughter or wife be a victim of a violent attack from some man. Of course, it’s nearly always men that commit violent acts but it’s mostly against other men. Don’t you imagine that men are fearful of other men?
The trouble with the dialogue about this terrible wickedness of violence against women is that it sometimes literally blames all men (not you Lesley, thank you) but that it ignores the dangers that men face. Aren’t something like three quarters of murder victims men?
I am grateful that there are women and men who work to help victims of violence and I am sure Joan Smith has done valuable work but the tone of Nancy’s comment is unreasonable.
Almost all men have felt a similar fear of physical violence. That’s because it only takes a quite small number of nutj-bs to do that. Sooner or later we all encounter them.
And yes, most of the truly physically dangerous ones are men. Nobody really disagrees with that. It’s when the conclusion is drawn that: all men are dangerous or potentially so; there is something intrinsically dangerous about men as such; men are somehow deliberately socialised to be dangerous; or all men are somehow responsible for the bad actions of other men – then you’ll get objections.
And yes I do think all those attitudes are tied to a particular ideology. One that most women simply don’t buy into.
The thing all girls and women have to navigate is that they just don’t know who is dangerous and who isn’t. Men should realise this. What may seem to be a normal interaction with a stranger can turn ugly and potentially dangerous for a female – predators and creeps don’t wear labels as such. The lifetime of ugly or simply wearing interactions (crude comments from men, mutterings, touching on public transport, sitting or standing waaay to close, staring at your breasts, walking straight at you on the footpath, gutter-crawling, following you, yelling from cars, ‘accidentally’ pressing or brushing against you in lifts, asking personal questions Etc etc etc etc etc) that women are subjected to from puberty or younger creates a permanent ‘chill factor’ because these men have already broken a barrier, and have the pontential to continue.
true !
Not sure it’s true that almost all men have felt a similar fear. In my youth, my own attitude to a physical fight was close to that once expressed by Manning. “The ectasy of battle… ” compared to which, even the “physical ectasy of love” is less poignant. A good many of my peers also loved a good scrap.
Innacurate denials of (mostly) biological differrences between the sexes are normally the province of the Left. But maybe even some normally fine conservatives lean in that direction when it helps to make a case against needed forms of identity policies, such as extra consideration for the safety of women.
Hope this doesnt sound like I’m making any assumptions about anyone here, just trying to make a relevent general point.
Maybe you weren’t one of the many men who accurately understood their genuine physical inferiority in comparison to other aggressive men.
More a case of not much caring, perhaps partly due to not having that much to lose. And as at least for some, even a lost fight can be an exhilerating experience. So much adrenaline you feel almost zero pain at the time. And once adrenalin subsides, bruises arent that much worse than what CS Lewis called the pleasant ache in the leg muscles after a hard days hiking. Sometimes there is even increased respect from the victor.
I’ve felt fear of physical violence a few times too, and doubtless many men who feel that way more often have superior perception, less recklessness, more rationality. My central point was young men who enjoy violence enough to intentionally seek it out, even if they’ve nothing to gain but the pleasure of the experience, are quite common. Ive never known a woman like that. I have heard several woman say they feel apprehensive about violence every single time they go out. I’ve never heard a man say that (admitedly never lived any where that rough). These and other similar sex related differences are why its desireable to have identify politics re women’s safety, IMO.
I think you make an important and useful point but your conclusion that identity politics is desirable makes no sense. Identity politics by definition is divisive and sets one group of people against another, that’s power play and cannot lead to a satisfactory outcome.
Thank you Claire, lesson learned on my part.
From a certain leftist perspective, all politics is identity politics – the art of compromise between different interest groups. Which necessarily involves division & differentiation. Yet at its best can be agreeable all round, and also has a unifying aspect, reminding folk from different groups of what they have in common. I’ve seen evidence that when the subjects raised in the right way, a clear majority of UK conservatives agree with special consideration even for Trans people, far more so differences between women & men.
But as you’ve made clear, “identity politics” is a politically inept phrase for expressing such things, at least in these parts.
No lesson intended Adam, just my view of identity politics.
You have a point about different interest groups compromising with each other, and I think when a society is settled and reasonably confident economically and socially that may well be fine. The trouble comes under stress (pandemic, brexit etc) when people go a bit cra zy and instead of compromise and recognizing our common humanity, it’s all fear, blaming and anger. Then the different interest groups define themselves more and more aggressively and jockey for power and the moral high ground.
That’s how it seems to me anyway.
Add on :
There is also the problem of defining different interest groups in law, so-called ‘protected characteristics’. I think this was a catastrophic mistake and has led to more tensions and hostility not less.
Did Labour do it on purpose to cause division ? or did they do it meaning well but being too s t u p i d to see what the result would be ?
I didn’t sit at any of the meetings leading up to the 2010 equality act so I don’t know. In my expereince virtually everyone who joins the Labour party is well meaning. (Appreciate that certain high profile activists might give the opposite impression) On the stupidity point, it’s not clear to me even now that the act has been a net negative. Given recent election results etc, its entirely possible that none of us in Labour are smart enough for these challenging times.
It is of course very unlikely, that a woman goes through her entire life without meeting at least one man who is violent, abusive, bad tempered. This would also be a tiny fraction of the men you meet, the vast majority of whom would be much stronger than you and would not lay a hand on you, no matter what the provocation.
The point is, such behaviour specifically towards a woman was cut down as it was considered immoral and disgusting by society at large, and also more likely to see intervention by either police or bystanders in most cases – which is why when they do happen, they tend to happen mostly at home or on isolated streets.
And those safety barriers – morality (typicality taught by fathers or male teachers, both increasingly missing), police patrolling the streets, the appreciation for gentlemanly behaviour – has been systematically torn down by those very people who badmouth “men” and “patriarchy”
Allmost all true. (though “no matter what the provocation” is maybe oversating things a bit) And the fact that the vast majority of men wouldn’t normally lay a hand on a woman is result of culture & social norms. Said norms needs continual re-inforcing & re-newal. This is not to say that men are inherently bad – AFAIK the science shows we have an inherent tendency to value fairness, similar to women. But we are far from universally chivalrous if left just to nature.
Do you think men who assault their partners do so in front of another man? It’s called ‘domestic violence’ for a reason.
Or men who prey on girls and women wait until they have a witness to see them?
Men’s violence-and more commonly threats of violence-is so common for women, it’s almost like background noise.
What is the gender split for those who commit domestic violence
And how do domestic violence levels in lesbian couples compare to heterosexual couples
Aren’t you the lucky one!
Like Nancy, I was regularly beaten by the man who supposedly loved me, until the night I got out. It is hard to leave when you can’t walk!! The police were as much use as a wet paper bag…
I know not all men are bad. I now live with one who is not. I have 3 brothers and a dad who are not violent. I have male friends who are not violent. But do not underestimate the man who lives to knock lumps out of a woman. Who thinks violent sex is a sign of love. Who thinks it is okay to mash your face into your dinner because it is not what he wants right now.
Women suffer real violence from men they love just because they are there. The ring put on the finger gives that man a sense of ownership that they intend to use.
So women like Joan Smith are needed. Men cannot speak for women in this situation. Men do not know what it feels like to lose all control of your life and have nowhere to turn to. I have done research into men on men domestic abuse and men do not feel the same as women do.
So when you, as a man, think you can speak for women who have been abuse, maybe take a moment to think, can I really?
true !
It is not the ring that does it, domestic violence is not confined to people who are married, it is the willingness of both partners to maintain the relationship despite it being destructive to both of them, the dark side of love. Thank goodness you were strong enough to finally break away.
Are you seriously suggesting that because you have never seen a man hit a woman it doesn’t really happen all that much? You are aware, I suppose, that the term ‘domestic violence’ relates to what goes on in the home, in private, behind closed doors? Would you expect to witness scenes from inside a stranger’s home before you believed in this phenomenon?
Domestic violence is often carried out in front of friends and family. In the case of female on male domestic violence, virtually none of it is reported.
Nancy – I’m not sure if you realise, but when you use language like that you signal to people in the clique that you are one of them – but to everyone outside it that you’re not worth listening to.
Much better if you just use normal English rather than this bizarre argot.
Women know exactly what she means.
Read Hayden’s comment above. Progressive politics is eating itself and its own original protagonists.
I don’t know how old you are, but if you are a young woman then you can blame the last 2 or 3 generations of feminists for this situation. For the last few decades they have been insisting women were absolutely equal to men, we could do anything they could and who needs them. S e x differences other than our reproductive organs were entirely social constructions.
I don’t recognise the frightening world you refer to from my younger days, when I can assure you I lived pretty dangerously. I could do that because most boys and men were still being brought up to treat women with respect.
How the younger generation row back from what feminism has created I don’t know, but it definitely is not hating and blaming ‘men’. You need to sort this out together, side by side, or you will only make matters worse.
It is not feminism that is at fault. Women are equal to men in the fact that we are all human and as such should have the right to determine our future. That is what my feminism had taught me as it taught my mother before me. It is what my grandmother fought for during the suffrage movement.
The change has come from Thatcher telling people there is no such thing as society. That only me is important. So selfishness and you can have what you want when you want it became the norm. But domestic violence has been about for as long as there have been domestic situations. Society needs to decide that it is wrong and to own it.
For example, in Glasgow when there is an “Old Firm” game on, more women get beaten than at any other time. Do Rangers and Celtic run info grams telling fans they will be banned if they behave in this way or do they behave like ostriches? If there is no ownership of the behaviour, it is given the green light to carry on.
Everyone in society needs to call these men and the few women who abuse out. Maybe then women will no longer need refuges and aid to have decent lives with no violence hiding in their cupboards and behind closed doors.
The concept of equality comes from The Bible, Galatians 3:26 -28, For you are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. …There is neither J e w nor Greek, neither master nor slave, neither male nor female: for you are all one in Jesus Christ.
I agree with you about Thatcher though her politics were what people wanted at the time (not me).
Interesting idea about football fans, is this being seriously touted ? However, the thing with domestic violence, which you may know already is that it happens worldwide and the levels are fairly standard everywhere, which suggests that it is a human weakness we may have to live with, whilst offering as much help and support to the people involved as we can.
Personally I think there needs to be a stronger liaison between police, social services and doctors with more support and less criminalisation.
I realise this might offend you as someone who has suffered grievously, but overall, dispassionately, it might be a better strategy than the blaming all men game being played by some politicians and the media at present, which is obviously wrong.
The people pushing this agenda care nothing for the people of this country. Follow the money and you will find most of this nonsense is sponsored by groups and institutions hostile to Enlightenment values. The transgender agenda is nothing more than a form of psychological warfare. Until it is recognized as such, the West will continue to be crushed under the weight of its own internal inconsistencies.
Apparently transgenderism is supported by fundamentalist Christians and Islamists. This is because it technically eradicates homosexuality, which they oppose…
Sadly it isn’t supported by radical feminists – because it doesn’t technically eradicate men, which they oppose.
Source?
How does it eradicate homosexuality? Surely it simply widens the range of choice.
I hope we have reached the point where the envelope has been pushed as far as it can go. The mere fact that we are having a genuine conversation about whether a man should be allowed to bed down with women, who are in a shelter specifically dedicated for women to recover from the trauma of being abused by a man, is beyond insanity.
Do you realize how utterly offensive it is for me to be told that the basic definitions of man and woman are now interchangeable? That marriage is no longer marriage? That watching our society crumble in real time, due to this insanity, is merely a sign of my own ignorance or close-mindedness? I earnestly pray that the inevitable revival happens quickly.
I wonder if Mr Khan will ask a trans woman for a dance the next time he attends a Ball?
No truth in the claim that he’s secretly an incel mole then?
Joan, will you continue to vote Labour?
If she does then she is voting for the mantra that ‘trans women are women, trans men are men’. It’s deeply entrenched in the party’s upper echelons now. I presume that if they ever formed a government it would soon be enshrined in law.
Curious that Joan Smith chooses to highlight the small overrepresentation of Black women amongst victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence, but fails to mention the much greater overrepresentation of black men amongst perpetrators. “Black female victims are over-represented, 18% compared to 16% of the London population” “Black perpetrators are over-represented, 25% compared to 16% of the population.” Both quotes from the report produced by the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime.
Why is it that people like you, who wantonly walk down the road to Hell, always seem so indignantly surprised when they arrive at their destination?
That Khan could get this do wrong at this time is frightening.it just proves his natural male entitlement and lack of female empathy.
The reason people with male genitalia who wish to self ID as women are put in female spaces is because females are smaller weaker do not rape snd cannot impregnate males. It’s that simple.
The most vulnerable and often damaged females in our society are placed in female only spaces for their safety. Allowing self ID males access to these spaces allows a legal loophole for abuse and these women should not be under any threat of that. That is only civilised. That is all Joan was asking for, not a high bar.
Have you noticed that trans men are not allowed into hallowed male only spaces reserved for their elite status as males? And yet are not called transphobic and yet they only have their spaces protected by law because of entitlement, not for their safety.
Khan and the many many others who fall into this so called progressive rhetoric fearing to be called right wing or transphobic are doing so whilst there are incel murders of women fuelled by male sense of sexual entitlement and at this moment Taliban controlled Afghanistan is taking girls for their soldiers to ‘marry ‘ them. A euphemism for kidnap and rape. And sharia law allows many so called wives.
Men always have liked to control women. Women have had to fight long and hard for some protections against the odds. Of course the majority of men mean no harm to women their sisters, wives or daughters but they must see too that women must be protected from the rogue element that always exists. We don’t have laws against murder because most people murder it’s to safeguard us from those who do. We don’t think self ID transwomen are a threat to women, but they could be and that is the point. It is too dangerous and deeply misogynistic not to appreciate that.
>Have you noticed that trans men are not allowed into hallowed male only spaces reserved for their elite status as males?
I’ll ‘ave you know that I bumped into many lovely trans people down’t pit.
She won’t get it 🙂
calm down dear, calm down
>We don’t have laws against murder because most people murder it’s to safeguard us from those who do.
Did I miss something? Are trans people allowed to murder people with impunity? A closer parallel would be if we practiced gender or racial or class segregation to prevent murder. Not (to follow your logic) because they are a threat – but because they could be!
I have to confess I almost thought your comment was a parody – apologies if it is.
A long winded post that fails to notice that it was under “male dominated” society that these female only spaces were created, and it’s in a feminist society that these are being torn down. The basis for what Sadiq is doing (apart from him being a moron) is not some imaginary “patriarchy” it’s third wave feminism.
The Western army soldiers who died by the hundreds protecting Afghans for two decades were part of one of those almost exclusively male only spaces btw.
And the men raping thousands of young girls in UK – not Afghanistan, UK – were not “Incels”…
The British army is not a male only space. Neither, for that matter, was the Afghan army.
He actually said ‘almost exclusively male only spaces’
I’d say that’s probably an accurate description of the British Army even today.
” … the Mayor’s focus on issues such as knife crime …” Surely a joke?
I am doubtless overlapping with other comments, but the correct division in matters of violence is not ‘men versus women’, but violent people versus their victims (and those who fear they may be their victims).
Making the narrative ‘men versus women’ ignores two important points: (1) most men are not violent, and (2) men are victims of violence.
Blaming men in general isn’t helpful in proper understanding. And it would not be possible in rational argument or polite conversation to scattergun blame over any other group (‘all in group X are dishonest’, ‘all in group Y are scroungers’, and so on).
“(…)[T]he number of rapes reported in London reached a ten-year high. The figures are shocking(…)”
Gosh, I wonder why the population of London has become so hostile to women…
For some inexplicable reason appointees to positions of political power and influence always labour under the delusion that they are indispensable.
If you want to be indispensable in politics – go and get yourself elected.
There are lots of other (potentially quite understandable) reasons that the author may have been removed for – none of which seem to have been explored as potential alternatives.
I was generally ignorant about the transexual and gender identity problem, but the recently published book “Trans” by Helen Joyce gives a lot of information on the subject. It also gives statisitics on the effects of allowing transwomen to share women only spaces, which Joan Smith is concerned about.