Amazing how something that is supposed to be decided by the politicians has apparently been arbitrarily decided upon by civil servants, bypassing the sec of state. Funny that, and sadly NOT an isolated incident over the last decade.

Can you explain why you believe the publication we're discussing was created by Civil Servants on a frolic?

Speak English and I might be able to asnwer your 'question'. But of course, as typical of the Left's tactics, you answer a question with one of your own, because you can't answer mine without making your side look bad. Defend your side's actions for once rather than use the 'attack is the best defence' route.

You were asked to explain why you thought the publication referenced in Sammy's OP was down to Civil Servants acting on their own and outside of their remit.

The only word there that might trouble an observer by being used in a technical sense was frolic for which I apologise.

@Engineer Andy,

Someone has now posted a link to a media consolidation site which, via LBC, explains what has happened here:

www.lbc.co.uk/news/nhs-doctor-patient-gender-neutr.../?

Somebody relatively senior in the NHS, whose status may or may not be that of a Civil Servant has, as part of his job role, produced some guidance on gender, names etc. Given the reported cost it could have been authorised by somebody who as not even a Senior Civil Servant. However, Dr Brady (assuming he is a CS would be classified as Senior.

Ten years ago when I was in the Civil Service such guidance would have been entirely uncontroversial. In fact I'd go as far as to say organisations would be obliged to ensure their staff had guidance on this stuff.

The fact that Steve Barclay went Full Daily Mail over it says more about the quality and professional integrity of the present cabinet than about what was actually written.

This is hypocritical of you, given you always said 'ministers decide' and civil servants do their bidding. Funny how that never is the case when they do this sort of highly controvercial act.

You can't have it both ways. This is a policy decision, and obviously not one that any minister made. Period. Your reasoning about 'how this was always done and no-one minded in my day' is, in my view, stretching the truth at best.

Before the wokeness and full capture of the Civil Service by the Left (i.e. before the 1990s, but especially before 1997), ministers did indeed leave some 'decisions' on day-to-day activities to civil servants, precisely because they could be trusted to make reasonable decisions that weren't ideological in nature as these obviously are.

The problem is that most so-called 'Tory' ministers and backbenchers are so weak, despite their big HoC majority at the moment, that they will only moan (to virtue-signal and no more) and do nothing to stop this sort of this happening and to reverse it.

Some are also effectively Blairites with a blue rosette anyway (and support such measures except come election time, and most voters don't bother looking into what their MPs get up to - they just vote blue, right, yellow, etc), which is why so many of us on the political Right are politically homeless and also why many on the Left, including some here, call us 'Far Right', despite our views changing little compared to their moving further leftwards, as have much of parliament's.

This was born out by studies done over the decades of political opinions across the spectrum, both here and in the US. My views have changed little over the years - it's only because of events where things have got so bad has prompted me and others to speak up more often and more verciferously because we can see the direction of travel and how little the normies (whoi make up most voters) are doing.

People - whether here or elsewhere will often not speak up or challenge such 'policies' or actions this and other thread talks about precisely because they fear ostracisation and even 'cancellation', whether that be their livelhood or standing in the community. That Big Tech, the MSM, and so-called mainstream politicians of all stripes support this rather says even more about how low society has fallen over the last 25 years, and especially the past 5.

Opposition parties are either as bad or worse - Stamre having changed his tune to suit which way the winds are blowing (without really believing in what he says), rather like a certain T Blair did. A man of real integrity would never have served in Corbyn's shadow cabinet and then proverbially stabbed him in the front (never mind the back) given the man's views have been well known and unchanging since he entered parliemnt in the early 1980s.

The coverage by the media in this case is virttue-signalling / pandering to each paper's base, but in reality those like the Mail and others (I see much the same in the DT as in left of centre ones under the surface) most couldn't care less or are actually behind the plans, often 100% against the views of their own readership. This is also why so many of us, especially on the political Right, have stopped subscribing to such papers and get their news from other sources as well as second-hand via consolodation sites as you referred to.

I spend more time than ever sorting the wheat (truth, complete andfactual reporting) from the chaff (lies, partial reporting and comment written as fact), mainly because independent (conservative or impartial) media outlets are small and don't yet have the resources to provide a comprehensive news coverage.

This is hypocritical of you, given you always said 'ministers decide' and civil servants do their bidding. Funny how that never is the case when they do this sort of highly controvercial act.

I don't think this sort of thing is controversial. It's guidance for staff to ensure they understand how to deal with people in thier jobs.

It's only not controvercial to you and people on your side of politics. It's also the thin end of the wedge in such matters.

You can't have it both ways. This is a policy decision, and obviously not one that any minister made. Period. Your reasoning about 'how this was always done and no-one minded in my day' is, in my view, stretching the truth at best.

As has already been pointed out both by me and others this isn't new and, in reality is business as usual not new policy. I can assure you that as long ago as 2012, and probably long before, there was similar guidance in place for court staff about, for example, naming conventions in different cultures.

Many of such 'cultures' have 'emerged' out of nowhere over the last 5 years, all seemingly eminating from people with leftist ideas of 'society'. They aren't foing it any good. Whether similar things were done in the past just shows that civil servants were bypassing ministers (and just doing what the NuLabour ones wanted beforehand, just without promting). It is NOT for them to make up rules as they go along, as you've said many times. You cannot simultaneously blame ministers for decisions, often when they have no idea that the civil servants are just doing their own thing.

Either ministers have full manegerial control, and as such civil servant must do what they are told, and ministers carry the can if that policy turns out to be bad, or civil servants get some latitude to, as you say, interpret rules and edicts from up high, but are then responsible for problems they cause and can be (at any level) sacked by a minister for either incompetence or doing anything that is political in their job against the wishes of their political masters.

You want the civil service to have its cake and eat it in my view - something I think you've espoused for a very long time. With great power comes great responsibility.

Before the wokeness and full capture of the Civil Service by the Left (i.e. before the 1990s, but especially before 1997), ministers did indeed leave some 'decisions' on day-to-day activities to civil servants, precisely because they could be trusted to make reasonable decisions that weren't ideological in nature as these obviously are.

The Civil Service, like any other institution, evolves over time. The idea that it was ideologically captured by the left around the mid point of my career is Nonsense on Stilts.

So it was earlier or later then? Either way, I think it DID happen (see below). I reserve judgement as to why you don't believe it has occurred. I somehow doubt it that there's a part of the civil service that hasn't been affected.

Numerous surveys show the political bias heavily towards the Left in the civil service (especially those parts with militant unions), aside from (in the past) the Police and Armed Forces.

That has recently changed as shown by their woke behaviour, e.g. siding with the 'Just Stop Oil' protesters and not the road users, similarly with BLM 'protesters' and not with anti-lockdown protesters - in both cases, the former groups were causing far and away more trouble but were given an easy ride by both police commanders and on the ground officers.

I've worked alongside many civil servants in my old job, and a few brave enough to say so have confirmed my suspicions. It's why most of them wanted out, because the working environment was so politicised and they felt threatende because their views were either conservative or just-A-political. Another significant group just turn a blind eye because they'd rather put up with it all than get the sack or be blackballed for promotion, etc.

Many said things changed significantly (it wasn't that good in the 70s, 80s and early 90s) after Blair took over, but the Tory governments afterwards never did anything meaningful to row back the changes. Much of the problems stem from highly political and incompetent middle and upper middle managers, who have gone from being a smallish percentage to a much larger one since 1997.

I've seen it in action for myself many times interracting with them on numerous projects over my years as an engineer, and why I got so fed up and essentially refused to work on Public Sector projects over the last 5 years of my career. I can fully understand some people's frustrations and for keeping quiet, becuase their careers / livelihoods are at risk, but eventually everyone has their limit to what they can take.

It's only not controvercial to you and people on your side of politics. It's also the thin end of the wedge in such matters.

Can you explain to us why people on your side of the fence think making sure your staff know how to treat people correctly in relation to their names and gender is controversial?

There are only two genders - whatever some may think. Just because some mentally-ill person want you to call them a balloon, a frog or whatever does not make that right. It just makes them ill and need of actual help.

99% of these 'prnouns' have been literally made up in the last few years by such people, often changing day by day depending on their mood. Does that sound like the actions of a sane person you'd want to work with, who is obsessed with what you call them at any one time rather than the quality of the work they do or how you generally treat eachother. So many also appear to very narcissistic.

Many of such 'cultures' have 'emerged' out of nowhere over the last 5 years, all seemingly eminating from people with leftist ideas of 'society'.

I've lost my way with your argument here. The guidance I mentioned in the MoJ was about how people in the UK from different cultural/ethnic backgrounds, eg those from China, our former colonies on the Indian and African etc continents etc, use 'family', ' given' and other names. It's actually quite interesting.

Translating the equivalent of Mr, Mrs etc, the equivalent of Russian ov / ova surnames and the convention of some Far Eastern family names being given first before their given (equivalent of Christian) names is one thing, saying Xi or suchlike for the certain 'members of the alphabet community' and/or an insistence on staff having(or needing to) badge with 'preferred pronouns' with 'diversity training' (indocrination into woke agendas like CRT) is quite another.

If a foreign way of using names (i.e. long established culture, not 'the [current thing] in wokeness this week in what 'gender' to be and how to be addressed as such) does NOT and never will require 'training' or 'guideance.

Reasonable people just politley point out that their naming convention (for example) means that their given name is [whatever] if someone they speak to gets it wrong. A reasonable person won't take offence at that.

A reasonable employer will take that into account and just say when such a person is a new stater that they are from X country and their equivalent of a Christian name is their 'last' name. All that requires is either a quick chat with the troops or at most an email.

Whether a person (new starter or not) has different sexual preferences to most people should a) be no concern of anyone and b) should not feature in any way in a workplace - on both sides.

One of my own extended family is one such person, and they've never made anything of it in their job or interpersonal relationships with other members of teh family or their friends. They don't ask to be treated any differently to anyone else, called anything different. They just ARE.

I'm not going to disect the above. Readers can make their own judgement.

Indeed they will.

It is easy to become confused by numbers. £165k out of an NHS budget of £180bn is less than 1 millionth of annual spend.

It can help to express a sum proportionate to a typical income of, say, £30k pa - a more "human" level rather than a row of 0000s.

There are 3m pence in £30k average income. I millionth would be 3 pence. Utterly trivial.

It may be a waste of money, it may not. It is worth spending the money to get an answer as the way in which people communicate is a significant influence on feelings.

Worth noting that some older members of staff and certainly elderly patients may be far more comfortable with formality than first names. The trans debate is a whole different level of issue.

Have GPs got the time to even read the pamphlet giving all the other paperwork they have to contend with. I hazard a guess that anyone in the job more than a few years would file it straight in the recycling bin. If a GP or any other reasonable citizen does not know how to address or deal with people what hope is there

Tavistock have had their licence extended to August because the centres being set up to replace it are not ready to open.