Chase on the Case

  MORE GENDER WOO-HOO On the 17 March 2023, hospitality blogsite Propelinfo.com published an article titled: ‘Busting transgender myths’ by James Manning and ‘trans woman’ Gaynor (formerly Geoffrey) Mary Warren-Wright. This article follows a format of ‘myths and answers’, a format that is similar to that used in an article I wrote on transgender myths for Propel, titled ‘Enough is enough’ that was published in January, and which caused an outpouring of faux outrage from the Trans Lobby. Below are extracts from Manning and Warren-Wright’s article, and my responses to them are given in italics: “MYTH:  Being transgender is a new phenomenon. Transgender and non-binary people have been around for centuries in culture and history. However, the terms “transgender” and “non-binary” are relatively new terms for them.” Response: This is a classic example of the historical revisionism used by the Trans Lobby. There have indeed been people who are gender non-conforming “around ...

On January 6th this year I wrote an opinion piece for hospitality sector website  Propelhospitality.com . This was titled ‘Enough is Enough’ and was a critique of gender ideology and the implications for hospitality premises of gender self-ID. In that piece – ‘ How I Got Cancelled by the Gender Borg For Daring to Criticise its Ideology ’ – you can read a full account of what then happened to me as a consequence. The furore created by daring to suggest that sex is binary and immutable caused my publisher’s commercial sponsors to threaten to withdraw their funding. As a result, the publisher parted company with me and publicly apologised for publishing my article. Over the following week I was denounced as transphobic by two pub companies and by the leaders of all three of the hospitality sector’s trade bodies. And it got worse. On January 13th Propelhospitality.com published no less than three articles taking aim at my opinion piece and denouncing me. I had been cancelled! But s...

This cartoon sums up the problem with changing gender dysphoria from a clinical issue into a social justice issue - the genuine, heart-breaking concerns of unhappy people get hijacked by those with a much wider political agenda.

  Inflation stalks the land like an economic plague that is eroding the value of earnings and savings and raising the cost of doing business. When people from our sector ask me “Well, what’s the answer?” I always reply, “That depends on what you think the question is.” Before we can cure the malady of inflation, we need to understand its causes and it is my contention that the Bank of England does not understand the root cause of inflation, which is their own mismanagement of monetary demand. Instead, they blame cost-push price rises from abroad which provide handy excuses for their own failures and those of their political masters.   The cost of dealing with Covid, which included but was by no means limited to the cost of lockdowns, couldn’t be financed from Treasury tax receipts so the Bank of England financed the government’s spending by quantitative easing (QE). QE is a form of money printing that involves the BoE creating money digitally out of nothing and using it to...

  I wrote the article below in March 2021 and everything I predicted in relation to inflation in 2022-23 has come true. Do have a read! This is not an easy time to be in government. “Damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t” is the ineluctable dilemma for the Chancellor trying to navigate the public finances as we emerge from the pandemic and survey the economic fallout. This article is not an attempt to analyse the measures the Chancellor has adopted – although I obviously welcome the help he has provided to the hospitality industry and its related sectors. Rather, I want to offer a brief thought-piece on where this leads us. Firstly, let’s look at debt and deficit. The TV and newspaper pundits have been busy telling us that the debt the government has incurred to support people and businesses during the pandemic will all have to be paid back, that higher tax will be needed to “pay back the borrowing sooner or later”. This is economic nonsense and a missed opportunity by the M...

Historically and currently, pubs, clubs and bars have been places that have welcomed a diverse range of people. In doing so, they have made adjustments to cope with a variety of different peoples’ needs. If we consider that the hospitality industry is more than just the licensed retail sector and includes hotels with spas, gyms and swimming pools, theme parks and leisure centres, then the vast scale of adjustments becomes apparent. Many of these adjustments are mandated by law, for example food safety and health and safety law; alcohol and entertainment licensing laws, are just three examples. With the advent of new law in Scotland that supports self-ID for trans people, and the political furore created as a result of the UK government’s blocking of Royal Assent for this Bill, the issue of how hospitality venues should deal with trans people has become more prominent. Firstly, let’s look at the size of this minority. The national census produced information on the number of people in...

A simple guide to terminology to aid people engaging in the debate about sex and gender Sex Sex in humans (and all other mammals) is determined at conception, and observed at birth by medical professionals, and often before birth at the 20-week scan. The term ‘sex’ refers to a person’s biological sex – female or male. A female is a person with a XX chromosome, female genitalia, and who, upon maturity, can usually produce large gametes – eggs. A male is a person with an XY chromosome, male genitalia, and who, upon maturity can usually produce small gametes – sperm. Sex is not a spectrum. Like all mammals, reproduction is predicated on a binary model where males impregnate females. Humans cannot change sex. In very rare cases (< 0.02%) there may be some doubt as to which sex a new-born baby is. In these cases, further investigation may be required to see if the child has a DSD (difference, or disorder, of sex development). This investigation will also establish the child’s sex, since...