DAILY MAIL COMMENT: It's a woman's right to be called 'mother'

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: It’s a woman’s right to be called ‘mother’

For most women, having a baby is the most momentous, emotional and often daunting experience of their lives.

They are rightly proud of being mothers and should be able to rely on the NHS to recognise and respect that status.

Yet now, it seems, using the word ‘mother’ and even ‘woman’ within maternity units could discriminate against trans patients.

Under a new ‘rainbow badge’ scheme such ‘gendered’ language is taboo. Expectant and new mothers should henceforth be referred to merely as ‘clients’.

This absurd and offensive policy shift is a result of militant trans rights organisations being invited to oversee diversity policy in NHS hospitals.

(Stock Photo) For most women, having a baby is the most momentous, emotional and often daunting experience of their lives

Instead of consulting all sides and then formulating its own guidelines, as any sensible institution would, NHS England has asked groups including the LGBT Foundation and Stonewall to grade hospital trusts on their inclusivity.

Trusts that please assessors are awarded a gold, silver, or bronze ‘rainbow badge’. Those that don’t are criticised for supposed failings and exhorted to do better.

But who are these inquisitors? They are activists, with an axe to grind and no greater moral standing than any other interest group. Letting them dictate policy is simply wrong.

Everyone but the most deluded ideologue knows that only women have babies. For our health service to collude in obscuring that biological fact is shameful.

It would be crass to equate these obvious management failings with those which allowed Lucy Letby to kill so many babies before she was caught, but there is a common thread.

When senior managers abrogate responsibility, whether it be for investigating allegations of wrongdoing or making key policy decisions, they lose control.

In any organisation that would be dangerous. In a health service it is the road to perdition.

Don’t trust Sir U-turn

It was David Cameron and George Osborne who first claimed to be ‘heirs to Blair’, a reference to their plan to win elections by occupying the centre ground of British politics.

Today there are new pretenders to that dubious crown. In a soft-focus interview yesterday, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves picked up the Blairite baton.

There would be no wealth or mansion tax if Labour won the next election, no new levies on earnings from stocks and shares and no rise in the top rate of income tax.

Economic competence and prudence would be her watchwords. It was straight out of the New Labour playbook, prior to the party’s 1997 landslide victory.

However, this is not 1997 and Sir Keir Starmer is not Tony Blair. For all his shortcomings, Mr Blair offered a persuasive, consistent and optimistic message.

Sadly, if the Tories don’t get their act together soon, Keir Starmer will win the General Election at a canter

Sir Keir, by contrast, has performed so many U-turns that it’s hard to know what he believes in, if anything.

It’s only four years since he enthusiastically backed Jeremy Corbyn’s class war agenda. Is his Damascene conversion to ‘Third Way’ politics really credible?

Sadly, if the Tories don’t get their act together soon, he will win the General Election at a canter. Nadine Dorries’ resignation letter on Saturday was bitter, but there was truth in her accusation that the Government is drifting.

Though Sir Keir is 20 points ahead, he is far from being home and dry. With a rapid return to low-tax, small state Conservative principles, there’s still time to get the Tory ship back on course. But not a lot.

The College of Policing has decreed that in future every crime should be investigated if there is ‘a reasonable lead’ to solving it. Should forces really need to be told to do this? Isn’t that their job?

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