Paul Embery is one of the most interesting, insightful and original voices to have emerged in British journalism for some time — Douglas Murray

THERE WAS NO shortage of young British men willing to enlist in the armed forces at the outbreak of two world wars last century. When the call came in 1914, groups of pals up and down the country practically skipped to their local recruiting offices. And when, a couple of decades later, Hitler had his jackboot on Europe’s neck, the next generation signed up in huge number and with similar enthusiasm.

Not that there’s anything especially British about the desire to fight for one’s country. History shows us that all over the world, young men, driven by an innate patriotism, have time and again thrown themselves forward in a great national effort to defend all they hold dear.

It would be nice to think that, were Britain faced with invasion by some foreign foe, our young generation would again rally to the cause. But surveying the country today, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the type of national solidarity that inspired so many to step up in the past is quickly evaporating.

Troublingly, some of our public leaders appear utterly oblivious to this fact. Almost daily we witness establishment voices – including politicians and military chiefs – beating the war drums in their deranged attempt to provoke some sort of conflict with Russia. Do none of them realise that we are no longer the nation we were even 20 years ago, let alone last century?

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You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

HERE we go again. Another week, another ‘major recruitment campaign’ designed to attract ‘under-represented groups’ into one of our public service organisations.

This time it’s the Metropolitan police, whose commissioner, Mark Rowley, has announced that his service will be launching a drive to increase the number of ‘people of colour’ in its ranks.

Call me cynical, but I suspect that Commissioner Rowley’s crusade will not be a runaway success. Most attempts at this type of social engineering in the workplace – including those launched over many years in my own industry, the fire service – tend to hit the buffers.

That’s because such initiatives generally start from the belief that any disparities in the demographics of the existing workforce must be the consequence of systemic or societal discrimination. Everything else is discounted.

It goes without saying that skin colour or ethnicity should not be a reason for someone to be blocked from pursuing their chosen career. But there are all sorts of reasons – cultural, practical and more – why particular groups might be drawn to, or away from, certain jobs or industries.

Should it trouble us that midwives, nursery nurses and primary schoolteachers are overwhelmingly women? Or that most refuse collectors, immigration enforcement officers and train drivers are men? That black workers are over-represented in health and social care? Asians in dentistry? White folk in the civil service?

Could we say hand on heart that we receive an inferior service because of these disparities? Should those responsible for running these industries and services be forced to launch recruitment drives to even things up?

After all, if it’s right for police, fire service and armed forces’ bosses to be chivvied – as they constantly are – into making their workforces more ‘representative of the communities they serve’, why not apply the principle to literally every role in every public sector organisation? Why shouldn’t we expect our local council to ensure that on half of all occasions our wheelie bins are emptied by a woman? Or the NHS to insist dental practices guarantee that eight times out of ten a white Briton will see to our root canal work?

We all know why not, of course. It’s because that wouldn’t be real life. There simply aren’t enough women willing to be refuse collectors or white Britons dentists to justify setting a target which would see these roles populated in a way that strictly reflects the demographic make-up of the country.

There will always be individual exceptions – and good luck to those who buck the trend. But, as much as organisations have a moral as well as a legal duty to ensure that their recruitment processes are open to anyone capable of doing the relevant job, we should not pretend that there aren’t legitimate explanations for why most industries and services are not demographic microcosms of the country at large.

Human beings are equal, but different. We are products of our environment as well as our genes. For all manner of reasons, certain groups will gravitate towards particular jobs and away from others. More often than not this is the consequence of such factors as culture, upbringing, relationships, class, education and social mores. It isn’t always because of plain old prejudice, and we get ourselves into all sorts of tangles when we assume otherwise.

Tangles such as the RAF admitting that its diversity targets led to it discriminating against white males; Cheshire police being found by an employment tribunal to have unlawfully denied employment to an applicant because he was a white heterosexual male; and our spy agencies facing fierce criticism for restricting their summer internships to candidates from ethnic minority backgrounds.

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Which brings me back to Commissioner Rowley and the Met. The commissioner argued, when announcing his recent recruitment campaign, that his intentions were practical, not ideological. ‘Effective policing depends on inclusivity,’ he asserted. ‘We cannot provide an equally good response to all victims if our understanding of some Londoners is weaker than others.’

It’s a seductive argument, but I don’t buy it. Leaving aside that the number of ethnic minority officers in London is not desperately low to begin with (currently around one in five), why do public service leaders seem to target only the most fashionable causes with these types of initiative – not only ethnic minorities, but campaigns such as Pride, which has become a particular favourite? As an old Catholic friend said to me, the day he sees a uniformed police officer bearing a candle on a Eucharistic procession, he will know that service chiefs are genuinely interested in reaching out to all sections of the community.

Rowley goes on to argue that Londoners from minority backgrounds would be more willing to assist the police in the fight against crime - including the use of such powers as stop and search - if the Met looked more like them. Is he suggesting here that, despite concerted efforts over many years to bring them on board, certain communities will only support the police if they see more of their own tribe in the ranks. That those communities are otherwise effectively unpoliceable?

Again, I’m not convinced that we should indulge the argument. After all, there are very few Jewish officers in the Metropolitan police. Yet I’d be willing to bet that Jews are mostly perfectly supportive of the police and, when it comes to crime figures, among the most law-abiding groups.

And for all his claims that his initiative was not driven by ideology, it was interesting that Rowley chose to announce it with a column in the pages of the Guardian – the house magazine of the liberal left.

All things considered, then, it is rather hard to avoid the conclusion that Rowley sees the whole exercise as an opportunity to burnish his own, and the Met’s, progressive credentials. He claims to have no interest in the politics of the ‘culture wars’, without realising that he is acting every bit the culture warrior.

Rowley opines that the Met ‘cannot police London effectively without the trust and confidence of the communities we serve’. I tell you what would restore trust, Commissioner Rowley. Effective, intelligence-led policing. Officers on the beat on our streets rather than behind desks or in cars. Taking seriously the kind of wrongdoing that causes real misery to individuals, communities and businesses: burglaries, graffiti, anti-social behaviour, shoplifting, fare evasion, illegal drug use, car theft, knife crime, assault and the like. Genuine zero tolerance policing – the type that worked in New York. And abandoning the institutional drift which has seen the average police officer become a social worker cum social activist.

An institution doesn’t win public trust just by looking a bit different. What matters is how good it is at doing the job it is tasked with. Take the House of Commons. It is more diverse than ever. But there was never a time when the public had such little faith in it.

Returning the police to their historical mission of effectively preventing crime and disorder would increase their standing in the eyes of the public more than any attempt at social engineering ever will. Commissioner Rowley needs to grasp that fact.

A reminder that you can also follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

An edited version of the above piece first appeared on the GB News website.

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

WE WERE A small but hardy bunch of souls. Denounced and shunned by many of our political colleagues for ‘lining up with the enemy’, we stuck out our chests and stood our ground. By campaigning to keep alive the flames of national sovereignty and democracy, we knew that, far from betraying our party’s cause, we were reflecting its best traditions.

I am speaking of the campaign group ‘Labour Leave’. During the EU referendum campaign and long years of the ‘Brexit wars’ that followed, the group sought to organise all those across the labour movement who believed that Britain would be ‘better off out’.

As a pro-Brexit senior trade unionist, I was invited to be an occasional public face of the group’s campaign. In our ranks were a handful of current and former Labour MPs and a passionate band of grassroots councillors, activists and supporters.

Labour Leave recognised that it couldn’t match the clout or resources of the Remain campaign inside the Labour party, but it punched well above its weight. Moreover, it knew that it was standing on the shoulders of some of Labour’s past giants – figures such as Tony Benn, Michael Foot, Peter Shore and Barbara Castle, all committed Eurosceptics who rightly saw the EU and its forerunner institutions as explicitly anti-socialist and anti-democratic - and therefore inimical to the historical mission of their party.

Theirs was a position shared in the 1975 Common Market referendum by most other Labour MPs and trade unions. Euroscepticism was, after all - back then, at least - an entirely mainstream position across the labour movement. But that is a history that many seem to want to erase. Since the late 1980s, much of the movement has become infatuated with the EU, choosing to ignore its neoliberal, technocratic ethos and looking upon it as some sort of beacon for social democracy and workers’ rights.

What rot. The bloc has always been a rapacious capitalist club. That was true in 1975, true in 2016 and true today. When it comes to such matters as public ownership, productive state investment, controls on capital, national economic planning and procurement, regulation of the labour supply and democratic accountability, the EU consistently stands in opposition to the historical demands of the labour movement.

So I didn’t hesitate, when the EU referendum was announced, to adopt the traditional position of the movement and line up with Labour Leave. The plebiscite turned out to be one of the biggest democratic exercises in British history. We were told that our decision would be respected and implemented. Yet, in the aftermath of the vote, the establishment did its utmost to prevent the outcome taking proper effect, causing huge political turmoil inside the country and incurring the wrath of the millions who voted Leave. Nobody should wish to reignite those tensions.

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So when Andy Burnham announced recently that he wanted Britain to get back into bed with Brussels, I knew instinctively that this was a potentially disastrous move – for both the country and Labour.

Had Burnham forgotten that two-thirds of Labour constituencies voted Leave in 2016? That the mandate for Brexit was delivered largely by working-class voters, many of whom were traditional and lifelong Labour supporters? That the party’s catastrophic policy in favour of a second referendum alienated millions of these voters and led to its annihilation at the 2019 general election?

Burnham is playing with fire. He risks reoffending millions in Labour’s old heartlands who were slowly being persuaded to look again at the party.

Against the backdrop of Burnham’s move, I wasn’t in the least surprised when, last week, I and a few old Labour Leave comrades were contacted by one of the original organisers of the group, a fantastic and redoubtable campaigner. He wanted the group to reform. Instead of using our post-Brexit economic freedoms and sovereignty to do some of the radical things any Labour government should wish to do, the prime minister was trying to unpick the referendum vote. He couldn’t be permitted to get away with it. It was vital we launched a fresh campaign of resistance across the labour movement.

Every recipient responded positively to this invitation. We knew this was a battle that, for the sake of our party and country, we couldn’t run from. We didn’t come this far only for the clock to be turned back a decade.

So, folks, I can faithfully report that we are getting the band back together. Labour Leave will be up and running again in the near future – though obviously with a new name. ‘Labour for Sovereignty’ has a nice ring to it, I think.

We will face down Andy Burnham and all others inside and outside Labour who want to trade our national independence for the rule of unelected EU commissioners and technocrats. We will argue that the prime minister’s talk of devolving power and reversing five decades of neoliberalism will ring utterly hollow if he drives us back into the arms of the bloc. We will show that there is something quite perverse about Burnham bemoaning the remoteness of the out-of-touch Westminster elites only to then suck up to the even-more-out-of-touch Brussels elites.

As this new battle gets under way, I will take with me the words of the England football manager Alf Ramsey, spoken to his dejected team after they had been forced into extra-time following a last-minute equaliser by their opponents, West Germany, in the 1966 World Cup final.

‘You’ve beaten them once,’ Ramsey famously told his players. ‘Now go out and beat them again.’

A reminder that you can also follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

An edited version of the above piece first appeared behind the paywall on the GB News website.

Paul Embery is one of the most interesting, insightful and original voices to have emerged in British journalism for some time — Douglas Murray

UNTIL now, I had been reluctant to believe that Britain had a two-tier justice system. Such arguments, I noticed, were often made by individuals whose politics were, shall we say, a bit questionable, and who, for all their claims about ‘biased judges’, might not be altogether even-handed if they ever found themselves sitting in judgment on their political opponents.

By and large, most judges in this country do a good job and act with integrity; I’m certain of that. But every now and then a sentence will be handed down which is so striking in its harshness and inconsistency that it is hard to believe it wasn’t motivated by something other than an honourable desire to deliver justice.

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You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

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THIS afternoon, I joined GB News to discuss the riots spreading across France and the possibility that we will experience similar outbreaks of violence here in Britain.

As a firefighter of 29 years’ standing, I was particularly sickened by the appalling attacks on les pompiers. Footage of one such attack - which resulted in a fire appliance being completely destroyed - was replayed during my interview.

I profoundly hope that the perpetrators face justice.

My appearance can be viewed below.

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A reminder that you can also follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

I FEEL more strongly than ever that George Orwell’s 1984 should be a compulsory feature of the national curriculum. What better way to warn our young people of the threat and consequences of institutional censorship and authoritarianism? And what better time to do it than now, with cancel culture burgeoning and free speech increasingly imperilled?

The tale of Winston Smith’s struggle against dystopian tyranny – symbolised by the cult of Big Brother and the sinister Thought Police – would serve as a healthy corrective for any student inclined to believe that the current state of things were normal.

While some liberal-minded people would argue that, when it comes to freedom and liberty, we’ve never had it so good, it sure doesn’t feel that way. The growing prevalence of echo chambers, safe spaces, trigger warnings, no-platforming, ‘behavioural contracts’ for entertainers, workplace speech codes, and an expanding web of restrictive laws attest to the current suffocating atmosphere.

The recent revelation that over 62,000 people in Britain have been arrested for ‘speech offences’ over the past five years should disabuse anyone of the notion that the threat to freedom of expression is being overhyped.

On some topics, the liberal elites act as though there were only one legitimate position. And they are only too happy to enforce that orthodoxy ruthlessly. Try being someone with a public profile and deviating from it, and you’ll soon learn the cost. Sometimes, as Ed Sheeran has discovered, just remaining quiet is enough to attract the mob to your door. Silence is violence, these days. And dare we forget it.

It isn’t uncommon for some among our elites – leaders of our creative and cultural industries, for example – to blatantly rewrite or falsify history in their desire to embed their ideology.

Or to apply the standards of today to yesteryear and then be outraged when spotting a historical violation – as though they are too ignorant to understand that social and cultural norms change over time.

Or to erase – or, as Orwell put it, ‘vapourise’ – all trace of an individual and his work, sometimes on the mere grounds that he has been accused by nameless individuals of ‘inappropriate conduct’. David Walliams might be able to tell us a thing or two about that.

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You probably won't agree with all of Mr Embery's policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

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YESTERDAY (Friday) I joined Alex Phillips on her show on Talk to discuss the likelihood that Andy Burnham will call a snap general election, and the prospects for the main parties if such a contest were to take place. My interview can be viewed below.

In the next few days, I shall be writing about the controversial jailing of Del Somerville for his involvement in a protest against the small boats (as blatant an example of two-tier justice as I have ever seen) and the decision by the BBC to ‘memory hole’ nearly a dozen ‘offensive’ sketches from the Bafta-winning comedy show That Mitchell and Webb Look. So please keep en eye out for those pieces.

Remember, you can receive access to every bit of content I produce, including everything behind the paywall, by signing up as a paid subscriber (all for less than the cost of a coffee each month).

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A reminder that you can also follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

Below is a column by me that was published last week on the GB News website. I reproduce it here for my Substack subscribers.

THE whole political donations row is turning very toxic. In one corner, Reform UK, soon to be the beneficiary of an eye-watering £72m bounty, pledged by the crypto kings Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne.

In the other, the Labour government, which argues that such lavish financial gifts debauch our democratic system and show that Farage and co are stooges of the super-rich.

In a move that seriously raises the temperature, the government is introducing legislation which may retrospectively make the donations illegal – though the optics of clawing back the money after it had been deposited quite lawfully in Reform’s coffers would be pretty dreadful.

In return, Reform has declared that, should it ever form a government, it will ban Labour from accepting funds - as it does currently to the tune of millions of pounds a year - from its ‘paymasters’ in the trade unions.

But even though the gloves are well and truly off and the stage appears set for an almighty punch up, it would surely be wise for both parties to drop their hands and turn their back on this particular fight.

Not merely because each potentially stands to lose a great deal from such a tit-for-tat squabble, but also because there are bigger issues at stake here – namely the right, in a free society, of political parties to seek funds from legitimate sources, and the prerogative of citizens and organisations to pledge their own money to parties whose objectives they share.

If Reform wishes to accept vast sums from crypto kings who have paid all their taxes and are giving their dosh freely, let it do so. Of course, there are considerable upsides for a party being showered with such generous offerings. But there are downsides, too. The danger for Reform is that it ends up being seen as a party exclusively for the ruling class and billionaires, and thus finds itself unable to develop the type of broad-based appeal – including support from hard-pressed working-class constituencies – that is essential for any party intent on winning power in this country. That is the dilemma the party would be required to navigate.

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Equally, if Labour wishes to accept funding from its allies in the unions, it should be at liberty to do so. There is nothing immoral about such an arrangement. After all, the Labour party was, as the saying goes, ‘born out of the bowels’ of the trade union movement and was created with the express purpose of giving representation in parliament to working men and women.

And let us be clear about one thing: trade union money is the cleanest in politics. That isn’t trite rhetoric. I say it as someone who once served on the national executive committee of a trade union and has been an activist in the movement for three decades.

The donations granted to the Labour party from trade unions are drawn from the small subscriptions of thousands of members, all of whom have chosen to contribute to their union’s political fund. These funds are tightly regulated by law, with every union obliged to file a public report each year setting out how the monies have been spent.

Decisions on where donations are directed are made by the union’s elected representatives. Moreover, the law permits any member to inspect the accounting records of his or her union, ensuring that no transaction can be hidden.

And whereas there is often no way of knowing what favours business tycoons seek privately from party leaders in return for their donations, the demands of unions are tabled only after internal discussion and debate, and usually through formal policy being adopted democratically – and quite publicly – at the union’s annual conference. It is the most honest method of political lobbying.

So the next time you hear talk of trade union ‘barons’ funnelling money to the Labour party in a shady or undemocratic manner, just remember that unions are subject to the kind of transparency and accountability that simply doesn’t apply to big business.

For all its faults, and while there is certainly room for greater openness, the current system of political parties being funded by voluntary donations is, in the end, the most preferable arrangement. We should be slow to dismantle it.

The last thing this country needs right now is a move towards state funding of political parties. At a time when the establishment parties are held in such low regard by the voters, and faith in the entire political system is wearing so thin, such a step would be controversial in the extreme.

If a party is not able to attract sufficient support that people are willing to give it money to help advance shared beliefs and objectives, then frankly it shouldn’t be in the business of politics, and it certainly has no right to expect public money to help it stay alive. But if senseless and unnecessary rows over donations keep breaking out, that is where we may end up.

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) decided against demanding a legal cap on donations to political parties at its annual get-together in Brighton this week. Delegates plainly understood that such a demand might backfire on their movement and inadvertently weaken its links with Labour and its influence over party policy.

It was a wise call. And one that politicians across the divide, for all their desires to place a financial stranglehold on their opponents, would do well to follow.

A reminder that you can also follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

SOMETIMES it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Britain’s political elites are engaged in some sort of private game to see just how far they can test the patience of the native population before it snaps.

A people who were, and still are, remarkably tolerant in all sorts of ways, including towards those from minority backgrounds and cultures, seem daily to have their good faith exploited.

Only someone who had been living under a rock for the past couple of decades could have failed to notice the gulf that has emerged between our political institutions and everyday folk living outside of our fashionable cities and university towns.

That gulf – which is widening still – explains why a palpable sense of polarisation exists across many parts of the country today.

The latest attempt to stir the pot comes courtesy of Cardiff council, which recently decided to fly the flag of Pakistan from the city’s castle – one of the Welsh nation’s most historic and iconic sites. The flag was apparently hoisted in celebration of Pakistan’s independence day and stayed there over two days (a similar thing happened in 2024 - see image).

Needless to say, a row swiftly broke out, with Reform voices locally and nationally attacking the decision and in return facing accusations from their political opponents – who seemed to close ranks around the issue very tightly – that they were seeking to incite hatred and division.

Recent history tells us that anyone who expresses even mild disapproval about this type of virtuous ingratiation of foreign nationalities and cultures by our public bodies is likely to face taunts of being some kind of embittered xenophobe or reactionary. And, usually, the condemnation will be accompanied by a lecture trumpeting the merits of living in a diverse and multicultural society.

But those who harbour misgivings surely have a point. Because such acts do rank as a kind of provocation. It’s one thing seeking to foster good relations with other nations and cultures – such an approach is eminently sensible – but it’s another thing entirely indulging those nations and cultures to such a degree that many indigenous citizens begin to feel their own country is losing its historical identity and turning into something resembling a supersized version of the Olympic village. And that is where many Britons feel their country is now.

That Pakistan is a member of the Commonwealth did not appear to be the prompt for Cardiff Council’s decision, for no councillor seems to have cited that justification in defence of it. Moreover, the colours of non-Commonwealth nations, such as Poland, have also been displayed over the castle in recent times.

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‘Oh, it’s only a flag, and it’s just for two days,’ the citizens-of-nowhere will argue. Except that it isn’t only a flag, and it isn’t just two days. What we have seen over the past couple of decades is a subtle but concerted effort on the part of Britain’s elite class to embed the ideology of cosmopolitan universalism across all areas of our public life.

These people are globalists in every sense. They see our country as a shop, not a home.

They believe in permissive migration policies, free trade libertarianism and technocratic supranationalism – all things to which large chunks of the population are hostile.

They dislike the concept of the nation state – except, of course, in the case of ‘oppressed’ nations – and believe Britain must forever go on atoning for its past ‘sins’.

They sneer at the majority culture of these islands – insinuating repeatedly that it is valueless because nothing is truly British – while promoting with great enthusiasm minority cultures and chivvying the rest of us to do the same. Asymmetric multiculturalism, as it is known.

They wanted to shape the entire nation in their image and, having such influence, grew accustomed to everything going their way. But eventually it became obvious that their philosophy was causing significant damage to the social fabric and, against the backdrop of major demographic change, had created a sense among sizeable sections of the majority culture that they were losing their status in society.

When the economy is performing well, ruling elites may face less resistance in their attempts to impose large-scale cultural transformation. But when it isn’t, those who are feeling the pinch are more likely to hunker down and seek solace in the familiar – in the bonds of community, relationships, place, custom and tradition. That’s a truth that the political class in our country has, to the great cost of all of us, consistently failed to understand.

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Take my old home borough of Barking and Dagenham in east London. The place has, since the turn of the century, been wracked by a sense of discord and dislocation caused by the impact of mass immigration. Among the thousands of new arrivals into the borough were large numbers of Albanians, several of whom were involved with organised criminal networks. The gangsters took over a local housing estate and caused widespread misery among local residents. Their villainous activities reached the pages of national newspapers.

So what did the local council see fit to do? Why, it held a high-profile celebratory event to mark Albania’s independence day and hoisted that country’s national flag above the town hall.

How were the many local citizens who had suffered at the hands of the gangsters supposed to react to this spectacle? Were they meant to cheer it on as a testament to the borough’s wonderful diversity and inclusiveness? To set aside the harmful impact of Albanian immigration on their own lives and their community’s wellbeing?

The council’s actions were nothing less than a form of trolling. They showed no understanding of the unease that might be felt by the borough’s long-term residents at the seismic – and often detrimental – changes occurring in their neighbourhoods.

I’m happy to be convinced otherwise, but I cannot imagine that it is commonplace for the English or British flags to be flown on Albania’s public buildings or historic sites, nor the Welsh flag on Pakistan’s. And I’m not sure that, outside of visits by state dignitaries and other special bilateral occasions, such a practice is especially routine between other countries around the world. It seems that Britain’s political class has a particular predilection for this type of cultural virtue-signalling.

I am also compelled to ask, in respect of the Cardiff affair, why it is that the flag of a foreign nation flying over one of Britain’s ancient fortresses is not deemed threatening or intimidatory, but the display of our own national flags on lamp posts is.

History shows us that the most stable and successful countries tend to be those which, while willing to give space for minorities to follow their own traditions, are ultimately entirely confident about promoting their own overarching national culture above all others. Those that follow such an approach – Japan, for example – are often among the most civilised and free of nations. Whereas those who go down the pick ‘n’ mix, something-and-nothing, ‘all cultures are equal’ route invariably end up with lower levels of social trust and solidarity. And, as a consequence, their governments are required to resort to ever more authoritarian and tone-deaf measures to hold it all together.

It isn’t too late for Britain’s ruling elites to realise they have taken a seriously wrong turn on these issues. But I fear that very soon it will be.

A reminder that you also can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

An edited version of the above piece first appeared on the GB News website.

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

THE left really ought to love the traditional family unit. After all, it represents what one might call ‘socialism in action’.

It is within the tabernacle of the family that humans first learn the virtues of solidarity, mutual obligation, loyalty, respect, trust, compassion and sacrifice – qualities that many on the left would claim define their politics.

It is there, too, that the common good prevails over naked self-interest. Ancient trade union slogans such as ‘An injury to one is an injury to all’ and ‘United we stand, divided we fall’ could easily have been composed with the family in mind, for they go to the heart of the collective spirit and what it means to be part of something greater than oneself.

No family unit could thrive if ‘dog eat dog’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ were instead the guiding principles.

The left once understood all this. There was never a conflict between socialism and the family. The early Labour tradition was, in fact, rooted in respect for the family structure.

But then along came the 1960s and the battalions of university-educated cultural revolutionaries with their hatred of existing social norms and anything that smacked of tradition or order.

Suddenly, the nuclear family became a ‘right-wing’ concept. It was here that men were tyrants, and women were oppressed, and children were readied to become the next generation of wage slaves serving the capitalist beast. It was also here that conservative-minded people did tedious and petit bourgeois suburban things like washing their cars and tending their gardens.

These attitudes began to take hold across the left. And as those young graduate rebels of the 1960s came of age, their ideas started to dominate within the upper echelons of our institutions and across the liberal media.

They still hold sway today. And even though our society has, in the past half century, experienced the devastating social effects that go with industrial-scale family breakdown, few who pushed the anti-family agenda appear willing to rethink their position.

In fact, the entire subject of family is largely taboo on the left. As far as anyone is willing to enter into a debate about it, it is usually to trot out cliches about how the nuclear family is ‘obsolete’, and modern families come in ‘all shapes and sizes’, and it is ‘bigoted’ to show preference for a particular model, and single-parent families should not be ‘stigmatised’.

Every now and then, a hardy soul will break ranks. David Lammy, for example, before he went a bit dotty over Brexit, campaigned passionately and articulately in favour of fathers playing a more central role in their children’s lives, lamenting the often-devastating impact on families (and especially on young black boys) when male role models were absent from the family home.

The rest of the left cut Lammy some slack on that occasion – principally, I suspect, because of his own backstory and the unique insight it gave him. But usually the left’s foot soldiers will try to stop any debate on the topic in its tracks by painting their opponents’ views as beyond the parameters of civilised debate.

Thus, when Reform launched its recent policy prioritising married couples with children in the allocation of social housing, many on the left were aghast. Not just because they disagreed with the finer details of the policy – I don’t agree with every aspect of it myself – but in many cases because Reform had dared to devise a policy around the concept of the traditional family at all.

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Paul Embery is one of the most interesting, insightful and original voices to have emerged in British journalism for some time — Douglas Murray

AFTER the past few weeks, observers could be forgiven for assuming Britain had adopted a system of government by TikTok. For it seemed that every public utterance by our new prime minister – from announcements on policy to his favourite Greggs snack – was communicated by short-form video.

That was until this week. Because, with the parliamentary summer recess now over, normal business has resumed, and Andy Burnham finally found himself in the bear pit of the House of Commons and exposed to the scrutiny of his fellow MPs.

A major statement from the dispatch box on Tuesday was followed by his first prime minister’s questions the following day.

Burnham didn’t exactly set the world alight with his performances, and his delivery was at times Starmer-esque in its clunkiness. But he gave little hint of feeling out of place or overawed. Though that should hardly surprise us. After all, for all his folksy northern charm and anti-SW1 rhetoric, Burnham is every inch the classic Westminster politician, having worked in the orbit of parliament and policymaking since he was 24. And, as a former cabinet minister, statements and questions in the House are meat and drink to him.

Much of what Burnham said in parliament – with the exception of the standard Brexit-bashing – was music to the ears of an old-school socialist like me. He was certainly correct to identify several decades of neoliberalism as a major cause of Britain’s decline. It was this ideology, characterised by a belief in the infallibility of the market and hostility to state intervention, which ultimately led to power and wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands in our country, as well as widespread deindustrialisation, the gutting of local government, a chronic shortage of affordable housing and, as national parliaments became increasingly subservient to global corporations, the slow erosion of our democracy.

Burnham was right, too, to recognise that the sell-off of public utilities – such as rail, water and energy – has proved disastrous. Surely only the most rabid free market ideologue could fail to see it.

But while he may have accurately diagnosed many of the problems, the PM offered precious little in the way of solutions. There were the usual references to his achievements in Manchester, talk of decentralising power from Whitehall, getting young people into work, buses (of course), and liberal deployment of his favourite buzzwords, ‘hope’ and ‘positivity’.

But with the exception of a pledge to follow the standard EU-Nato line on Ukraine, the big geopolitical and macroeconomic narrative was largely missing – meaning that on some of the most vital issues confronting our country, scarcely anyone knows where Burnham stands. Indeed, he may not even know it himself.

And that gaping void will need to be filled swiftly. For no prime minister can, particularly during such tumultuous times, run a country without an overarching strategic plan.

Burnham, it seems, remains locked in the mindset of a city mayor. Many of his policy announcements and media appearances so far have focused on issues – such as cracking down on fake discounts and building homes near railway stations – which, while not unimportant, are highly parochial and usually the sort of stuff that gets left to junior ministers.

He needs to remember that he is now prime minister and first lord of the Treasury, and that means confronting head-on the major touchstone issues that have the most profound effect on voters’ lives and will determine exactly what sort of country we will be a decade from now.

His appearances in the Commons this week represented the perfect opportunity to set out his stall. But after sitting through around four hours of it, I cannot say I am any of the wiser as to what his plan for the future might be. Does he even have one? Where is the crucial big-picture thinking?

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You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

SO it’s official. The least-friendly place in the whole of England is the London borough of Barking and Dagenham. This district, located in the borderlands of the metropolis and Essex, came bottom of the pile in a major new study looking into social division and disconnection across 296 local authority areas.

The study was published by the Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion – which is headed up by former MPs Sajid Javid and Jon Cruddas – and drew upon government data evaluating residents’ perceptions of loneliness, trust, belonging and pride in the place they call home.

On most measures, Barking and Dagenham scored lower than the national average. Startlingly, only one in five respondents in the borough felt that many of their neighbours could be trusted.

I find it difficult to express how dejected this sorry picture makes me feel. I grew up in Barking and Dagenham and lived there for 35 years. It was never a fashionable or affluent place. And it certainly wasn’t without its share of social problems. But the streets were, back then, filled with social solidarity and neighbourliness.

Traditional working-class in every sense, the borough was centred around a sprawling council estate – once the largest municipal housing project in the world – which, when it was constructed a century ago, attracted thousands of families escaping the slum clearances in the East End. Family members quickly found work in new and thriving local industries, such as the iconic Ford plant down at Dagenham Dock.

As a boy, I knew virtually everyone who lived on my stretch of the street. Residents shared common identities, backgrounds and interests. The area was largely a monoculture – but no less fulfilling for that.

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In fact, if a study on community cohesion had been carried out back then, I would wager that Barking and Dagenham would have found itself near the top of the list rather than at the bottom.

But in the first decade of this century, the borough underwent seismic social convulsions. This was the period when the new global market was beginning to take hold and working-class communities across Britain suddenly found themselves subjected to rapid and far-reaching economic and cultural change, such as in the way of grinding deindustrialisation and demographic upheaval.

Barking and Dagenham felt the pain more acutely than most areas. Between 2001–11, the foreign-born population rose by 205 per cent – the biggest percentage increase across London for that period. In those years, the borough also recorded the highest London-wide percentage rise, at 169 per cent, in the foreign-born share of all residents.

In 2001, 81% of all residents in the borough identified as ‘White British’. By 2011, they had become a minority at 49% – the largest decrease for any local authority in England and Wales. In 2021, the figure stood at 31%.

As this phenomenon was taking hold, the area’s well-established blue-collar industries were withering away, denying a new generation of workers secure and rewarding employment and forcing them into insecure jobs in the gig economy and suchlike.

Against this tumultuous background, the community, perhaps unsurprisingly, began to fracture. The new arrivals were, for the most part, decent, law-abiding folk who were simply trying to make better lives for themselves, but the huge influx of people from a myriad of different cultures had the inevitable effect of weakening cohesion and common bonds. Neighbours interacted less and less, local institutions were hollowed out, and many felt the place was no longer their home.

Many local citizens had voted Labour all their lives and saw it as their party. But they also knew that it was the Labour government which, during these years, was driving through these unwelcome changes. So, in what they saw as a desperate last stand, thousands of residents voted for the far-right British National Party in the 2006 council elections, giving that party its best-ever result in a local government poll.

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But the writing was already on the wall for Barking and Dagenham. A mass exodus took place in the borough in the decade to 2011, as around 40,000 residents upped sticks and departed. It was less ‘white flight’ than it was a flight to familiarity. The place in which they and their families had once been deeply rooted had changed fundamentally. For many, it was now less a home and more an international airport terminal.

So, sad though I was to read that Barking and Dagenham was now the least-friendly place in England, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised. The findings of the study represent, for the borough, the inevitable endpoint of a profound economic and cultural shift that brought little benefit to local citizens but was nonetheless foisted on them by their tin-eared political masters.

There is always a temptation to speak of the past, and especially of one’s younger years, as ‘the good old days’ and to see the present as something morally and spiritually inferior. But the people of Barking and Dagenham who found themselves in the eye of this social storm would be perfectly justified in viewing things this way.

What happened in the borough was a lesson in how wide social fissures are liable to break out when intense change is visited on a community and local residents are ignored. Globalisation, multiculturalism, permissive migration policies: all those things that the arrogant progressive elites told working-class people would be good for them, heralding a new age of economic and cultural enrichment, turned out instead to have set in train a deepening fragmentation and atomisation in our society.

Of course, no place can stay the same for ever. Change happens. But how that change is managed – in particular the pace and scale at which it is allowed to occur – can be the determining factor in whether a community remains cohesive or breaks apart.

In Barking and Dagenham, the change was overwhelming. And local people paid – and continue to pay – the heaviest price.

A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

An edited version of the above piece first appeared on the GB News website.

Paul Embery is one of the most interesting, insightful and original voices to have emerged in British journalism for some time — Douglas Murray

ONE of my favourite memories from my years as a trade union activist is the time I stood alongside thousands of my fellow Fire Brigades Union members at a rally, called ahead of a national strike ballot, inside London’s Trafalgar Square.

The atmosphere was electric as, under the watchful eye of Lord Nelson, heavyweight speakers made one tubthumping speech after another.

The square has, of course, long been known for this sort of thing. For almost two centuries, it has served as a crucible of our democratic and civic traditions, playing host to political demonstrations and cultural festivals, and symbolising our historical commitment as a nation to freedom, liberty, open debate and pluralism.

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You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

JASON Arday’s death is tragic. Nobody with any semblance of compassion could think otherwise.

But I do wish that we could be spared the complaints from various sanctimonious commentators that Arday was merely an ‘obscure’ academic who became the victim of a racist witch-hunt.

The probing and questioning and exposure of Arday were entirely legitimate. There is compelling evidence that he was guilty of plagiarism and had made a series of fantastical claims about his life and career. Even if he were a little-known academic at some low-ranking university, those facts alone would merit coverage and commentary.

But Arday somehow, and in spite of what some assert was the mediocre standard of his scholarly work, ended up being appointed as a professor at one of the world’s most august seats of learning – the University of Cambridge – where his students, who had doubtless worked extremely hard to get there, were paying large fees for the privilege of being taught by him. In that context, it would be perverse for the media to have not afforded the story any significance.

And far from being obscure, Arday had happily engaged with the media – often speaking about his fabricated backstory – over many years. He appeared on several TV shows – including as a panellist on the BBC’s Question Time – and guest edited Radio 4’s flagship Today programme. He even carried the Olympic torch.

Moreover, he had secured a major publishing deal for his autobiography, which was set to be released in Britain and the US just as the recent scandal broke. By no measure was this man ‘obscure’; he plainly had no wish to be obscure.

When a fellow academic – Dr David Harris, professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University – began to question his credentials, Arday accused him of harassment and set the police on him. When Jack Grove from Times Higher Education magazine started investigating, he was subjected to a police inquiry and received a threatening letter from the leading libel solicitors Carter Ruck. Groves’s story was duly spiked.

All of which goes to show that Arday was evidently not averse to hounding others when he felt like it.

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But let us be blunt: this scandal is not just about Arday’s fabulism. It is also about the increasingly controversial doctrine of ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI); the obsession of our political, corporate and educational institutions with pushing that doctrine; and how it might have led to someone with Arday’s subpar credentials being appointed in the first place.

Even for those of us on the political left, it should be clear that DEI has become a racket. What may have begun as a well-meaning crusade to overcome mindless prejudice and discrimination has patently mutated into a malignant social tumour, infecting every area of our society and dividing citizen from citizen.

For the leaders of our institutions, who appear heedless to both the damage it wreaks and the opposition it attracts among large parts of the populace, DEI serves as a new national religion, with adherence to its precepts regarded as a test of one’s virtue. Fail to preach the gospel, and be condemned as a reactionary and bigot.

These fundamentalists (for that is what they are) are supported in their mission by legislation, in the form of the Equality Act 2010, which (at Part 11) expressly permits differential treatment of citizens according to their ‘protected characteristics’, as well as sprawling and increasingly politicised HR departments which enforce, often ruthlessly and with no space for dissent, the creed of their masters.

Ever anxious to demonstrate their progressive credentials, the better to enhance their own reputations and careers, and to earn social kudos among their peers, institutional leaders make use of every lever available to embed this creed – and to let everyone know they have embedded it.

That all of this has resulted in the diminution of meritocracy and the elevation of some individuals to positions for which they are simply not suitable is, I would venture, undeniable. And that the perceived unfairness of it all has sown the seeds of wider social conflict and fragmentation across our society is similarly indisputable.

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The Arday case carries sad echoes of an affair involving a former work colleague of mine. Wayne Brown, who was black, served as a London firefighter. He rose through the ranks and was eventually installed as the chief officer of West Midlands fire service – the second largest brigade in England.

Brown’s appointment – he was the first black chief officer in British fire service history – was seen by his new employer as a coup. But it was quickly accompanied by chatter suggesting parts of his backstory had been fabricated and that he had been promoted above his ability. Questions were raised over what, if any, due diligence had taken place.

After credible evidence emerged that he had embellished his CV – falsely claiming to have secured a degree – Brown was (after a fashion) placed under formal investigation. Within days, he had taken his own life.

Brown, like Arday, should not have been given the job in the first place, for he did not hold the required qualifications. And it wouldn’t have taken much effort for his employer to have discovered that for itself. But for reasons we can probably guess, the employer appeared keen to nail down the appointment.

In the end, DEI, especially when applied so zealously, creates its own victims. And these victims are often the same individuals who supporters of the dogma claim be to assisting. It takes those with middling ability and presents them as paragons of excellence - and then, when things unravel, it demonises anyone who dares to level criticism or point out the obvious.

Thus, in the wake of the fall-out that followed Arday’s exposure, the DEI crusaders smeared as racist or hateful anyone who so much as questioned the veracity of the late professor’s version of events or suggested that his appointment had more to do with political expediency than it did academic and professional integrity. If the truth is likely to get in the way of their ideology, then the truth can take a hike, and anyone who speaks it must be besmirched and bullied into silence.

Such a mindset might also explain why, after it was presented with what appeared to be incontrovertible evidence that Arday had plagiarised someone else’s work while enrolled there, Liverpool’s John Moores University made a finding to the contrary. Would an academic institution – which might ordinarily be expected to pride itself on defending truth – really go to the extreme of denying the obvious in an effort to avoid exposing a high-profile poster boy for diversity? So it seemed.

One of the other disturbing aspects of the Arday affair is the manner in which some politically-motivated journalists have inveighed against anyone – including their professional colleagues – who has defended the investigations and coverage in the name of legitimate journalistic inquiry. To witness those who should be the first to defend the principle of a free press make arguments that run contrary to it is rather chilling.

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And for all the claims that it was right-wing media outlets and commentators who were driving the coverage, it should be noted that some of the most incisive and informed reporting on the scandal appeared in the pages of the left-wing Guardian.

Some have suggested that Arday would not have faced such fierce scrutiny if he had been white. I’m not sure that’s true at all. In fact, it could easily be argued that if he were white but had precisely the same ability and credentials, he would not have been appointed in the first place.

At any rate, where evidence has emerged that high-profile white people have engaged in fabrication and falsehood, they have often been subjected to robust interrogation. Witness, for example, the fall from grace of journalist Johann Hari, forced out of his job at the Independent and stripped of the Orwell prize on account of his plagiarism. Or the exposure – including by means of a major newspaper investigation and television documentary – of Raynor Winn, who appears to have made up key chunks of her best-selling memoir, The Salt Path. The reputations of both were – quite reasonably – dragged through the mud.

If the coverage of the Arday case was more intense, then it is probably attributable to the fact that people felt the story was not anchored only in his personal dishonesty but spoke to the wider public debate around DEI - and represented perhaps the most striking example we have yet seen of that dogma’s pernicious effects. The coverage was no less valid for that. In fact, it was a perfectly legitimate angle for journalists and commentators to explore.

It is very possible – and, if true, would be deeply regrettable – that Arday did not have sufficient support measures in place when he was finally exposed. But that’s on others. The investigation and coverage were demonstrably in the public interest and, in probing and scrutinising in the way it did, the media was simply doing its job.

There is, of course, always a balance to be struck in these things. In the coverage and commentary accompanying such scandals, we must not lose our humanity or the recognition that real people and their families lay at the heart of it. But neither should we retreat in the face of smears and moral blackmail. Jason Arday was a person who attracted widespread public attention and wielded not-insubstantial political, social and cultural influence. If he wasn’t what he claimed to be, he deserved to be exposed. And so do those who, in the face of all common sense, and for the purposes of their own militant ideology, elevated him to a role for which he was neither qualified nor suitable.

Arday’s death may well have occurred by his own hand. But the inescapable truth is that it took place at the altar of identity politics.

A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

IN an unprecedented move, four trade unions have decided to boycott this year’s Labour party women’s conference, scheduled to take place in September. Their reason? The party has ruled that men may not take part in the proceedings.

That really is the long and short of it.

True enough, some men had expressed a desire to attend on the grounds that they identified as women. But the supreme court dealt with such scenarios when it ruled last year – entirely sensibly – that individuals are defined by their biological sex for the purposes of equality law.

That means that if an organisation holds a single-sex conference then – shock, horror! - it should not allow some delegate spaces to be filled by members of the opposite sex.

The Labour party is, at long last, beginning to adopt some common sense positions on the issue of transgenderism. It is just a shame that it took several years and a judgment from the highest court in the land for it to reach this point.

For a long time, the party was in the grip of the radical trans movement and preached its gospel with an evangelical fervour. Keir Starmer memorably argued that it was ‘not right’ to say only women had a cervix, and former frontbencher Dawn Butler went on national television and claimed that babies were not born with a biological sex.

Labour MPs got themselves into all sorts of tangles when asked to define the word ‘woman’, and some even supported demands for men to be granted access to women’s single-sex spaces and sporting competitions.

In 2019, I represented my union at a Labour regional conference. A speaker came to the rostrum and demanded that the chair of the conference refrain from using he/she pronouns when addressing delegates. The speaker promptly received an enthusiastic round of applause. It was a sign of how far down the rabbit hole the party had travelled, and I pondered how such antics might be perceived by ordinary people whose votes we were chasing.

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Those inside the party’s ranks – such as the MP Rosie Duffield and a small band of grassroots members and trade union activists – who were brave enough to push back against this unscientific and dangerous dogma were attacked and ostracised. But they stood firm, made their case calmly and thoughtfully, and eventually forced a shift in the public debate.

As the tide began to turn, individuals who had previously kept their heads down for the sake of a quiet life were suddenly willing to speak up. Some even scored victories in employment tribunals and the courts after being subjected to discrimination for their views. Gender ideology, with all its harmful consequences, was being exposed for what it was, and those who peddled it – across our political, educational and corporate institutions – were on the defensive. Logic and reason were, at long last, breaking out.

The debate is now going only one way. Though the battle is far from over, women are, slowly but surely, reasserting their hard-won sex-based rights and defanging the trans militants. I am convinced that in a few years’ time we will look back on the past decade as an aberration – a period when the progressive elites took leave of their senses and tried to impose on society an ideological snake oil which had little support among the masses and subordinated objective truth to subjective feelings.

That’s why the boycott of the women’s conference by four unions – Unison, Usdaw, Aslef and the Musicians’ Union – couldn’t be more ill-judged or ill-timed. These unions are angry that an event organised exclusively for the female class will not be open to members of the male class. Well, as a longtime trade unionist, my advice to them is: suck it up, comrades. This isn’t 2016 anymore; it’s 2026, and the debate has moved on.

Moreover, who are these unions actually speaking for? While their leaderships and activist bases may be in thrall to transmania, their rank and file members will often have little sympathy for the cause. Many of these members will be women. How can it be right that these women are denied the opportunity to influence a conference held by the party running the country, and at which matters affecting them in their daily lives will be debated, just because their union’s senior representatives are peeved that their personal fringe ideology isn’t being accommodated?

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Unison in particular should reflect on its decision not to attend. The union was rightly castigated over its lack of support for the Darlington nurses, who, after being forced to share a changing room with a trans-identifying male colleague, secured an employment tribunal victory against their employer.

But I’m sure none of the four unions will abandon the boycott. That’s because many of their leading officials are now fully signed-up members of the progressive lanyard class, obsessed with promoting ‘diversity, equality and inclusion’ at every turn and regardless of any impact on their memberships or the divisions that their chosen doctrine has created within wider society.

It is because of the embrace of such fringe and unrepresentative dogma that unions are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the workplace. And that in itself is a tragedy, for as the economy continues to flatline and employment remains, for millions, insecure and unrewarding, they are needed as much as ever.

By their petulant actions, these four unions are doing their female members, and workers in general, a grave disservice.

A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

An edited version of the above piece first appeared on the GB News website.

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

ANDY Burnham’s premiership is already on borrowed time. That isn’t his fault, of course – not yet, at any rate – but such is the febrile nature of our politics, and so deeply unpopular is the Labour party throughout much of the country, that Burnham will almost certainly be denied the luxury of an extended honeymoon period with the electorate and will, if he isn’t to go the same way as his predecessor, be required to produce near-instant results.

Because that’s where we are at now. British voters are no longer willing to demonstrate patience with their political leaders. After two decades of economic stagnation, plunging living standards and calamitous state failure in a number of policy areas, they have no tolerance for mediocrity and drift. And why should they?

Many years ago, I spoke on a platform with Bob Crow, the late, great leader of the RMT union. Exasperated with repeated pleadings by Tony Blair, then the prime minister, for trade unionists to show patience while Labour slowly tried to fix the country, Crow thundered, ‘The problem is, sooner or later we’re all going to be dead.’

His point stands today. Great chunks of our lives are passing by while politicians attempt – largely unsuccessfully – to improve our country. And as the decline gathers pace, so the status quo becomes more discredited, public anger intensifies, and populist forces on both right and left sweep up support. That’s why Burnham does not have the luxury of time.

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As a Labour party member for over three decades, I want to see a social democratic government that delivers economic justice and gives us a country that is well-governed, safe, ordered, and cohesive. I imagine that Burnham wants those things, too. But whether or not he is imbued with the boldness and courage necessary to achieve them is the great unanswered question.

He invests much in good communications, and his social media output is slick and irreverent. ‘I’m an ordinary northern bloke,’ is the message he wants to convey. But a flashy comms strategy matters far less today than it did 20 years ago. And that’s because our problems as a country are more acute than they were then – and everyone knows it.

What matters now is delivery, pure and simple. It’s all very well pledging to ‘reindustrialise Britain’, but what will Burnham do to make our economy more productive and competitive? Will he abandon the net zero madness that is throttling our productive industries? Will he stand up to vested interests in the City and ensure that the demands of the real economy – and especially our long-suffering manufacturing sector – no longer play second fiddle to those of finance capital? Will he relax ex-chancellor Rachel Reeves’s ‘ironclad’ fiscal rules, which prevented the Starmer government from doing what was necessary to stimulate real economic growth?

If Burnham doesn’t do these things – and swiftly – the economy will remain in the doldrums and, notwithstanding the inevitable ‘new PM’ bounce, so will Labour’s poll ratings.

And salvation for the government and country won’t come only with an economic turnaround. If the small boats keep coming across the Channel, public disquiet at the constant penetration of our national borders by large groups of undocumented young foreign men will only deepen. Shabana Mahmood’s reform of asylum and immigration laws are a step in the right direction, but only genuinely radical measures – such as a Rwanda-style offshore processing system – are likely to provide a lasting solution. Burnham should consider such measures – even if it incurs the wrath of his party.

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Britons want to see speedy and tangible improvements in a host of other areas. Even those of us who support the concept of a generous welfare system know that the current model is broken, with the benefits bill having exploded in recent years and a dependency culture beginning to take hold in many families and communities. No serious prime minister should ignore such an obvious ticking timebomb.

People cannot get in to see their GP and linger for months on hospital waiting lists; violent offenders are released from prison prematurely because capacity has dried up; work is often insecure and wages low; hundreds of thousands of youngsters cannot find employment at all; and the chronic housing shortage now constitutes a national emergency. Meanwhile, state-sponsored multiculturalism, far from leading us to the sunlit uplands of cohesion and harmony, has caused a level of fragmentation and social disintegration never before seen in our country.

In other words, the ‘fundamentals’ are profoundly unsound, and only an intensive dose of shock therapy will remedy things. Andy Burnham must start to think the unthinkable and be willing to take his party into areas where for too long it has been afraid to set foot. Cheaper bus fares and ending rough sleeping are all very well, but it will take something far more radical than ‘Manchesterism’ and a few cliches about ‘hope’ and ‘positivity’ to turn Britain around.

Most crucially, there is little point in Burnham harping on about the damage caused by ‘40 years of neoliberalism’ (it’s actually 50) if he isn’t then prepared to break free of the economic straitjacket into which previous Labour leaders have locked themselves. Similarly, his talk of bringing the country together and building a ‘new national sense of unity’ and ‘common purpose’ will prove idle if he isn’t willing to challenge the hyper-progressive ideology that has captured our public institutions and caused so much division.

Burnham says he will ‘bring forward a 10-year plan, laying out a path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be’. In reality, he won’t have the luxury of a decade. He needs to understand that, after so much failure, millions of restless voters want results in much shorter order.

Their demands are justified. After all, sooner or later we’re all going to be dead.

A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

An edited version of the above piece first appeared on the GB News website.

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

SOMETIMES the liberties and freedoms we enjoy as citizens are won and maintained through the efforts of people we will never meet and whose names we don’t even know.

When it comes to the ongoing struggle to defend women’s rights, for example, the name Lynne Pinches might not be uppermost in everyone’s mind.

Neither, I imagine, would most people think of the field in which she operates – she is a professional pool player – as an obvious combat zone in that particular battle.

But every woman owes a debt of gratitude to Lynne. For her sheer courage and determination in the face of injustice and hostility are rooted in the finest traditions of popular struggle and have helped to strike a blow for the rights of her sisters-in-arms everywhere.

Lynne, 53 and from Norwich, is a veteran competitor in her chosen sport. She created waves in 2023 when, having reached the final of a prestigious national tournament, she refused to participate against her opponent, a trans-identifying male. As the match was about to get under way, Lynne shook her opponent’s hand politely, packed away her cue and departed the arena.

It was a small but deeply principled act of resistance against the cult of gender ideology and all its gross injustices.

Lynne argued, as many female pool players do, that biological men enjoyed physical advantages in cue sports. (For example, men are able to make more powerful breaks through greater upper body strength, and they enjoy height and reach advantages at the table.)

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Lynne lambasted the sport’s governing body for refusing to defend the integrity of the female category. ‘I don’t care about the money or the title or the trophy,’ she said after forfeiting the match. ‘I care about fairness.’

The following year, and in protest at the situation, she turned down what would then have been her first professional playing contract.

After that, Lynne’s card was well and truly marked by the sport’s authorities, as well as by radical trans activists. She was subjected to a stream of abuse on social media and in person. On one occasion she was screamed at by the partner of a trans-identifying male competitor, and on another she had a bottle thrown at her.

Such was the level of intimidation that Lynne was advised by police to wear a bodycam at future pool events. She did so in April 2025 when attending a match organised by the sport’s main promoter, Ultimate Pool. But the bodycam was spotted by a trans activist who promptly informed security.

Even though she offered to remove the camera, Lynne was booted out of the venue. Worse, she was banned her from all the promoter’s future events, not only as a competitor but also as a mere spectator. This seemed especially cruel given that both Lynne’s sons played in tournaments and she watched them regularly.

Just days later, the supreme court ruled that women and men were defined by biological sex for the purposes of equality law. This forced pool’s governing body to change the rules so that trans-identifying males were prevented from competing in the female category. Lynne’s principled stance had been vindicated.

But even this didn’t persuade Ultimate Pool to lift the ban on Lynne. She remains blocked from attending all its events. So, in a further act of defiance, she is now suing the promoter for discrimination and victimisation, and has launched a crowdfunder to that effect.

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Lynne says she is taking the action ‘so that no-one else is put through this in the future, because if they can do it to me after a lifetime of playing, they can absolutely do it to anyone’.

For its part, the promoter strenuously denies that the ban had any connection with Lynne’s gender-critical stance and has vowed to fight the claim. Plainly the courts will have the final say on that.

In my view, Lynne is a heroine – one of a growing number of women who have put their head above the parapet because they are sick and tired of seeing extremist ideologues and realty deniers try to erode the very concept of womanhood and smash up their hard-won sex-based rights.

Events have shown that the supreme court judgment, welcome though it was, does not represent the final word in the battle to defend the freedoms and liberties of women and girls from attacks by the trans cultists. Across Britain, bodies and institutions captured by gender ideology are still trying to sidestep the judgment and appease the fanatics. So the fight goes on.

Lynne Pinches has played the game of pool for 35 years. It is truly a disgrace that women like her, who simply wish to compete on fair terms in the sport they love and have dedicated their lives to, are called upon to take part in these exhausting political and cultural battles.

But they do so because they want to do what is right and to express their solidarity with women and girls everywhere. For that, they deserve the solidarity of the rest of us.

A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

An edited version of the above piece first appeared on the GB News website.

Image: ‘X’

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

I KNOW VERY little about artificial intelligence (AI). I can scarcely tell my Copilot from my ChatGPT, or whatever they’re called, because I never use these tools. Or I haven’t done so yet, at least.

People might find that a little difficult to believe in this day and age – especially coming from someone who writes for an (albeit small) public audience – but the truth is that I have never been quick to embrace new technology (I’d be too embarrassed to tell you which model of iPhone I’m currently using).

I did once download an AI-generated image to illustrate an opinion piece I had written, but that’s about the extent of my engagement with this new capability.

When I research stuff, I tend to stick to more tried and trusted methods, such as websites, books and magazines. I dip into Wikipedia occasionally (I have spent countless pleasurable hours just hitting the ‘Random’ button again and again) but never take it as the final word on anything.

I have a constant nagging fear that something I publish will contain an error so egregious that my credibility as a writer (such as it is) will forever be destroyed.

When I wrote my book Despised (still available from all good bookshops, by the way), I spent countless torturous hours, day after day, fact-checking my own text. (I’m pleased to say that, though plenty of opponents attacked the arguments I made in the book’s pages, nobody has ever identified a factual inaccuracy.)

All of which provides a bit of context for what follows.

I used to work with a guy. Like me, he was a senior trade union official. Let’s call him Martin.

Martin has run his own account on ‘X’ (formerly Twitter), a platform on which I am also active, for many years. We never interact these days.

When we worked together, Martin wasn’t exactly the greatest wordsmith. He had strong political opinions – most trade union officials do – but was, frankly, terrible at expressing anything in written prose. His emails and letters were generally a mess, and we rarely permitted him to draft communications intended for circulation among the membership (or, if we did, we would invariably need to spend a good deal of time redrafting them).

I don’t say any of this to be unkind; it’s just the way it was.

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At any rate, I recently spotted one of Martin’s posts on ‘X’. It was a reply to a politician. The post was comprehensive, grammatically sound, and the height of eloquence and fluency.

‘That can’t be him,’ I thought. But it clearly was.

So I had a nose through his other recent posts. They were pretty much all the same: expressive, articulate, and free from grammatical errors – the very opposite of the stuff he used to churn out for the union.

Now, even someone such as I, with a limited understanding of AI, could see what was going on: Martin was obviously using an AI tool to create the posts.

But what I also noticed was that, since he had been using AI – his old, clunky, pre-AI posts remain visible, so the precise point at which the change occurred is obvious – Martin’s interactions had spiralled. His posts used to attract a smattering of reposts and ‘likes’; now they were pulling in hundreds – sometimes thousands.

The whole experience got me thinking. What are the ethics here? Is it not wrong for someone to pass off commentary made in the public arena as their own, when in fact it is no such thing? Isn’t there even more of an obligation to be up front about this when the commentary begins to attract significant engagement? Aren’t readers entitled to know they are being served AI slop rather than a genuine piece of written prose? Would it be right to expose those who mislead in this way? Should I use my own reach on ‘X’ to draw attention to Martin’s deceit?

Or should we look at AI as a helpful tool for those who might otherwise struggle to articulate their thoughts and opinions in discussion – a sort of helping hand to provide them with a level playing field in the theatre of public debate?

Not having been born with the gift of wordsmithery, is Martin a bad person for enlisting some assistance in getting his opinions – which I know he holds dearly – across to a public audience? Perhaps not. (Though he was certainly dishonest when, after being challenged by an interlocutor who accused him of the very thing he had clearly done, namely asking AI to write his posts, he firmly denied it. He has also now started publishing full-length articles on ‘X’ under his own name – though again obviously drafted by AI. In my opinion, that, too, crosses a line.)

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But perhaps, in general terms, we should look upon the utilisation of AI writing tools by ineloquent individuals as a sort of ‘reasonable adjustment’ – an aid designed to ensure they aren’t placed at an undue disadvantage as they go about their lives. And don’t celebrities employ ghostwriters to pen their autobiographies, almost always without credit? Isn’t that practice deemed permissible by almost everyone?

Joe Weisenthal, a Bloomberg journalist, recently wrote:

Maybe he’s right. But if writers do succumb to such temptation, I feel they have a moral obligation to at least be open with their audience about it. Else they could hardly complain if, in the event their methods are uncovered, their readers end up feeling hoodwinked.

I don’t want to come across as sanctimonious, but I can’t ever imagine a time when I would be persuaded to allow an AI tool to write something on my behalf. The whole exercise would seem profoundly alien to me – no different from asking an artist friend to paint a beautiful watercolour and then mark my signature in the corner (I can’t paint for toffee, incidentally).

None of this is to dismiss the phenomenon of AI or deny its capacity to do good. Though I may be slow to embrace new technology, I am certainly no Luddite. AI is plainly here to stay and will, just as the internet did before it, doubtless enhance our lives in all sorts of ways. (I suspect, mind, that the forewarnings of its likely negative effects – laying waste to large swathes of white-collar industries, for example – may also, in the long run, prove to be accurate.)

But anyone who releases words into the public domain – especially those, such as Martin, who attract large numbers of readers – surely has a duty to be upfront about the origin of those words, including where they have chosen to rely on AI.

Whatever you think of the quality of my prose, dear reader, you may be assured that it is crafted by my own hand. I don’t know if that is anything worth boasting about. But the day it changes is the day I give up writing.

A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery

You probably won’t agree with all of Mr Embery’s policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

IF I WERE Nigel Farage, I wouldn’t have resigned my seat and forced a by-election. I can see why, having concluded that the allegations of impropriety being levelled against him were part of a Whitehall stitch up, he felt the need to do so. After all, for any politician under fire, no verdict is ultimately more convincing or legitimising than one cast by the electorate at the ballot box.

But there was always a risk that things might not pan out as intended, and the Reform leader has undoubtedly been thrown off balance by events since he made his big announcement.

I do not know if Farage is guilty of breaking parliamentary rules in relation to large donations intended, he says, for his private security arrangements. But I do know from personal experience, having co-hosted a show with him on GB News and been in his company in public spaces, that Farage’s security concerns are very real, and that he is forced to take the kind of precautions that would seem alien to most other MPs.

I also know that he is the latest in a growing list of populist politicians and parties across Europe who have found themselves on the end of serious allegations lobbed by opponents from within the establishment – often accompanied by the flimsiest evidence – which then seem to tie them up in lengthy legal or procedural wranglings and sometimes impede their route to power. Strange, that.

But back to Clacton.

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You probably won't agree with all of Mr Embery's policy prescriptions, but he will force you to think outside your usual political grooves — Wall Street Journal

BELOW IS THE full video of a discussion on migration, borders and belonging in which I took part at the Spiked Summit in central London on 27 June.

I was joined on the panel by the writer and journalist Dr Rakib Ehsan and the well-known educator - known as ‘Britain’s strictest headmistress’ - Katharine Birbalsingh.

My own speech begins on 13 minutes. There was a lively Q&A during the second half of the event.

Enjoy!

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A reminder that you can follow me on ‘X’: @PaulEmbery