The Big Sleep Part 2
Update 308 Ireland Special
Welcome to Part 2, dear readers.
I’m afraid that the 1978 version of The Big Sleep just doesn’t do it for me despite the presence of Robert Mitchum. Setting it in England also did not work in my humble opinion! So back to the original and the bookstore scene. Marlowe up to his old tricks as usual! “ Hello!”
Bogart as Marlowe, of course, and Sonia Darrin as Agnes Lowzier.
Ireland Special
Lots of important news from Ireland in this edition:
The Countess launches the Vote No Referendum campaign;
The likelihood that the Hate Speech Bill will be targeted at the media ( especially Gript, of course);
Free speech in Northern Ireland (and elsewhere in Ireland).
Vote No Referendum
THE COUNTESS IS LAUNCHING ITS VOTE NO REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN ( 22 January)
The wording of Article 41.2 of our 1937 Constitution may be old-fashioned but it is, at least, an honest and welcome acknowledgement of the often thankless but profoundly important work women do in the home, in the running of households, and in the rearing of children, which is the foundation of society.
The statistics make for startling reading. Irish women do double the hours of caring as men do, and more than double the number of hours of housework. On average, an Irish woman will complete 38.2 hours of unpaid work in the home every week, which is like having a full-time job on top of your actual paid full-time job, as most women work full time. By contrast, Danish women spend 16 fewer hours a week on housework and caring.
Across the EU only women in Malta and Romania undertake as much unpaid labour in the home. There was a slight improvement in male take-up of unpaid work in the home in and around 2007, but this appears to have been a glitch accounted for by the financial crash and the stark imbalance between the sexes resumed once the economy improved.
Across the EU we are bottom of the league for equality in the home, with Romania and Malta faring about the same. This is the harsh truth and, perhaps too, an uncomfortable truth for our politicians, whose chief concern would appear to be selling Ireland as the most progressive little country TM on the world stage.
Yes, the language seems outdated but, in fact, if you revert to the Irish wording from which the article was translated, it refers to teaghlach, which means household or family, not home. Clearly, by ‘her life in the family’ presents a different picture than place in the home and recognises the unique role women and mothers have in bearing and nurturing children and that this is in fact vital to the good of all society.
Any argument that Article 41.2 somehow forces women to stay at home is clearly nonsense and has no basis in law or fact, and this was dismissed by then Justice Susan Denham in the Sinnott Case.
Of those who stay at home to look after their children in their early years, a staggering 94.3% are mothers. No one can argue with the importance of the mother-baby bond and the need not to rupture this bond. In clinical terms, we refer to this as one biological unit, the “mother-baby dyad”. However, if you are in receipt of Jobseekers Allowance you must prove to the State that you are actively looking for work only eight weeks postpartum, lest your benefit be taken away. Herein lies a glimpse of the soul of the current government and its actual views on motherhood and the role of mothers.
First, this is both incoherent and lazy, like so much policy nowadays, whereby the tricky work of tackling structural inequality is ignored in favour of moving around the deckchairs and most importantly of all, virtue signalling.
Second, in reality, Article 41.2 is a bulwark against the kind of neoliberal values that characterise this coalition, whereby all that matters is GDP and the meta economy. Mothering and the running of households is done by women, and this is explicitly and remarkably recognised for its benefit to all of society under Article 41.2. But, according to neoliberal economics, these things hold no value and therefore must be erased. In this worldview, mothering is disposable, replaceable and worthless, because it doesn’t contribute to GDP. It is downgraded to parent or carer 1 or 2. In so doing, the unique contribution of women to society is erased.
They would have got away with it too, had not the amendments – hidden in the depths of the Worklife Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill – been spotted by us, inspiring our successful These Words Belong To Us campaign, which forced a climbdown. We are fighting an ongoing battle with this government to protect our rights and our words. We view this referendum as a narcissistic assault on the foundational legal text of this State and a grave insult to womankind in Ireland.
We cannot let this vacuous yet authoritarian strain of governance which has infected the Anglosphere remove the words “woman” and “home” from Article 41.2 or the explicit recognition of the contribution of women. It is an outrageous act of vandalism to our founding document to tamper with it in this fashion: How dare they? As if the government needed to prove their woke credentials anymore.
The people will have their say on March 8th and they will view this ballot as a means to dissent. So many policies have been forced onto the people in the last decade. Now the same zealots are coming for the one clause in our founding legal text that refers to woman or home. The public will use their vote to let the government know loud and clear how they feel about the wider issue of hard-left policy being forced onto the citizens without a mandate.
Furthermore, the timing of this referendum is curious. It is interesting to me that just as a case is about to come to court in a leapfrog appeal from the High Court to the Supreme Court, the Government might appear to be in a race against the clock to excise the very article that the applicant, a woman who cares for her adult Down Syndrome son, might successfully rely upon.
#VoteNoRef24
Irish Hate Speech Bill
Ben Scallan in Gript ( IRISH SENATOR’S COMMENTS IMPLY “HATE SPEECH” BILL WILL TARGET PRESS 22 January) reports:
An Irish Senator seems to have slipped up and given the game away, as he indirectly indicated that his government’s so-called “hate speech” bill will be used to target journalists that politicians find troublesome.
The revelation came last week, as Senator Malcolm Byrne spoke in front of a parliamentary committee meeting on the state of Irish media.
“My next question is for the Press Council, whose credibility is important,” he said, referring to the official body which oversees press standards in Ireland.
He went on to heavily imply that Gript Media should not be a member of the Press Council, because of the Council’s rule against “stirring up hatred” against minorities and protected classes:
Dusty - Just to pause there, it is pretty amazing that a Senator should pick out a specific media outlet in this way! Very McCarthy! Very Cultural Revolution!
Of course the Senator provides zero examples of Gript violating this particular rule, because no such examples exist. But I suppose when one lacks any semblance of a real argument, sloppily lobbing baseless accusations from the peanut gallery is the next best thing.
Regardless, all of that’s neither here nor there.
As obviously authoritarian as it is to see a government politician trying to have inconvenient journalists’ press accreditation revoked, it becomes even more concerning when one considers the wider context of the government’s proposed hate speech legislation.
It’s well known by now that Byrne and his government are currently trying to sign a controversial so-called “hate speech” bill into law. If passed, this law would criminalise speech that “stirs up hatred” against protected groups, according to Justice Minister Helen McEntee.
Therefore, if Byrne thinks a media outlet shouldn’t be on the Press Council because they allegedly “stir up hatred,” and he’s also part of a government that wants to make “stirring up hatred” a criminal offence, then it logically follows that he would like to see journalists and media outlets prosecuted under his hate speech bill. That’s just an airtight and straightforward syllogism.
Therefore, it seems very reasonable and natural to conclude that at least some of the government politicians behind this law would like to see it used to crack down on irksome members of the press.
This would seem true to form for Byrne, who previously complained to the Standards In Public Office commission over the funding of The Ditch website.
Think whatever you will about the Left-leaning outlet The Ditch, but they are undeniably a thorn in the government’s side, with their reporting resulting in two junior Ministers resigning from office in the wake of various scandals.
It seems, therefore, that despite all the bluster about “far-right” this and “extreme-right” that, such rhetoric is merely a pretence. Whether an outlet leans to the Right or Left is apparently irrelevant: the common denominator is that if politicians like Byrne find that outlet to be inconvenient, they will take steps to try and disrupt, discredit and demonise it.
If only Irish politicians were as passionate about press freedom at home as they are abroad, we’d all be much better off for it. But then again, I suppose journalists in China don’t challenge Irish lawmakers, so defending freedom overseas doesn’t cost our political class anything [ Dusty - my emphasis].
It’s becoming increasingly clear that there’s an authoritarian streak a mile wide in this country’s leadership, and that streak deserves to be called out.
Free Speech in Northern Ireland
Thanks to a wonderful reader for this piece by The Academy of Ideas:
Ella Whelan shares her thoughts ahead of our event in Belfast on Friday 26 January (23 January)
This Friday, the Free Speech Union and Belfast Speakeasy, in association with the Battle of Ideas festival, will be holding a discussion on the state of free speech in Northern Ireland.
Belfast is an interesting place to hold a discussion about freedom of speech - and about where threats to open debate come from. On 19 October 1988, the then Tory home secretary, Douglas Hurd, announced a broadcasting ban on ‘organisations in Northern Ireland believed to support terrorism’. While the ban covered some loyalist groups, the main target was Sinn Féin - with the BBC and other organisations forced to use actors to voice individuals like Gerry Adams.
As Irish journalist Ed Moloney explains, while the ban was already informally in effect (the BBC and ITV hadn’t interviewed the IRA since 1974), it ‘extended censorship to a whole new category, to groups that were not only perfectly legal but had elected representatives in their ranks’. In the midst of an ugly and drawn-out war, the ban was a weapon to weaken republican sentiment by censorship. As Moloney puts it, ‘the law had been explicitly employed to control what the public was able to listen to or view’. Tory Prime Minister John Major eventually lifted the ban six years later in 1994, only after the Provisional IRA had declared a ceasefire.
Fast forward to 2024, and the state of free speech in Northern Ireland seems no less unstable. Ironically, it is now Sinn Féin who are accused of using legislation to silence public discussion about the Troubles. The most recent defamation case was brought by Sinn Féin’s spokesperson for policing and justice, Gerry Kelly, against journalist Malachi O’Doherty, for naming Kelly as the gunman in an escape from the Maze prison in 1983. Kelly has always denied the accusation, despite writing several books about the event. The court threw the case out, describing Kelly’s libel accusation as an ‘utterly unjust’ attempt to silence a critic. Sinn Féin have been accused by some press freedom groups of using strategic lawsuits against public participation (known as SLAPPs) as a form of legal intimidation to prevent political criticism.
Today, clampdowns on free speech have become so commonplace as to almost seem mundane. Censorship of the press is used not as a means of state warfare, but to protect sexual-assault victims. As Andrew Tettenborn pointed out in the Spectator late last year, the Northern Ireland Justice (Sexual Offences and Trafficking Victims) Act extends anonymity for victims of sexual offences beyond their death, and now applies to ‘reports about anyone investigated by, or even reported to, the Northern Irish police (PSNI) for a sexual offence’. In essence, a journalist or editor might find themselves in hot water for commenting on any aspect of a sexual-offence case, whether accusations were truthful or vexatious, decades after both claimant and defendant are dead.
Outside of Stormont, university activists and middle-aged feminists are now more likely to be silenced than former paramilitaries. The fact that a rally called ‘Let Women Speak’, organised by women concerned about infringements on their rights by gender ideology, caused such widespread outrage shows how far the dial has shifted. Calling a man a man and a woman a woman can get you into serious trouble.
In the Republic, teacher Enoch Burke ended up in Mountjoy Prison after he protested his Church of Ireland school’s decision to sack him for refusing to use the preferred pronouns of a student. While discussion about gender, sexuality and women’s rights was more likely to be silenced by priests and preachers 50 years ago, it is now young activists and right-on politicians calling the shots as to what is acceptable and what is ‘hateful’. Indeed, Ireland’s plans for new hate-crime legislation could pose one of the most serious threats to open debate in modern Europe, with ‘hate’ being so loosely defined as to encompass almost any form of contentious or thorny political discourse.
The broadcasting ban of the 1980s was met with significant concern and criticism - the National Union of Journalists called for a day of protest and lobby politicians to retract the policy. Today, you’re more likely to find articles in the Irish Times calling for greater clampdowns (they call it protections) on free speech, in the name of ‘vulnerable’ or ‘marginalised’ communities. But there has long been a culture of censorship in Northern Ireland - from the biggest questions of politics and state (criticise the Good Friday Agreement and risk being accused of inflaming tensions) to the current policing of the minutiae of personal relationships (from misgendering to social-media conduct).
What Ireland needs is more speech, not less. But we must realise that attacks on free speech no longer simply come from oppressive states or hostile courts, but from a culture of conformism in which hitting the ban button is seen as the easiest way to deal with difficult or conflicting viewpoints. How can we mount a new defence for freedom in the twenty-first century? Join me and the rest of the panel this Friday at the Titanic Hotel in Belfast to discuss. Can’t be there? Make sure to subscribe to this Substack for recordings and videos of all of our events.
The full piece is here:
David Bailey’s son
Well done to Sascha Bailey for speaking out.
Georgina Cutler in GB News ( David Bailey's son speaks out on pressure to change gender: 'There's a huge problem with over-diagnosis of gender dysphoria' 23 January) reports:
The son of renowned photographer David Bailey, has shared his concerns for other young people after coming close to transitioning into a woman.
Sascha Bailey says he began to feel so low that internet chatrooms convinced him there was a way to cure his despair - becoming a transgender woman.
He planned to transform into a "real-life Barbie", with curves and long blonde hair.
Sascha said thoughts of becoming a woman started as he dealt with a volatile and difficult marriage, which caused him to become so depressed that he was barely able to get out of bed.
David and Sascha Bailey© GB News
"Transitioning was a way of killing myself without dying, because I was so unhappy with my life," he told the Daily Mail.
"I thought that if I could do this one thing it could change everything, I could reinvent myself as an entirely new person."
After deciding that transitioning was the right thing to do, he went to see a private doctor who confirmed he was transgender and wrote him a prescription for female hormones.
But with the help of his family and new partner, photographer Lucy Brown, Sascha was guided away from what he believes was a potentially disastrous decision.
The full article is here:
The UK Labour Party
More lunacy dressed up as progressiveness from Sir Keir. Thanks to Konstantin Kisin for this excellent piece from his substack.
No, Sir Keir, It's Not "Just" a Culture War ( 23 January)
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has accused the Conservative Government of being “tangled up in culture wars”. Speaking at the Civil Society Summit yesterday, Starmer explained that the reason the Tories are struggling is their “divisive” agenda and anti-woke “McCarthyism”.
This view is extremely convenient for the centre-left which Starmer represents in that it allows them to turn a blind eye to the extremists on their own side – the ones waging the war on our culture. This means Starmer can blame the division and toxicity they are creating on his political opponents instead. While entirely dishonest, it’s a clever political strategy.
The problem for Starmer is that not all of us have the memory of a goldfish. Some of us remember him saying this:
In fairness to him, after a thorough investigation and extensive consultation, the man who will likely be Britain’s next Prime Minister ultimately concluded that a woman is, in fact, an adult human female. This is something he could have ascertained by consulting a GCSE biology textbook. Although given some of the highly questionable concepts now being taught at British schools, this may be unmerited optimism on my part.
In any case, no one in their right mind had any doubt that Starmer knew what a woman was all along. What the incident showed is that he was pandering to the extremist culture warriors on his own side. And not for the first time:
However, there is little to be gained by pointing out Starmer’s flip-flopping, cowardice and hypocrisy. It’s too easy and, besides, I regard his premiership as an unfortunate inevitability. Like a winter flu, his arrival is close to certain and will need to be endured with a stiff upper lip and several whisky-heavy hot toddies.
What is interesting about this story is what people like Starmer give away every time they use the term “culture war” with open derision. If you watch carefully, you can see the body language and tone designed to convey a simple message: “This stuff is an irrelevant distraction from the serious business of government”.
The full piece is here:
What A Surprise!
What a surprise! A trans activist who is an extremely dodgy fetishist. Thanks as ever to Feminist Legal Clinic and Reduxx.
NZ: Prominent Trans Activist And ‘Gender Equity’ Advisor Sharing Fetish Content On Social Media ( 24 January)
Reduxx has learned that one of New Zealand’s most prominent trans activists has been sharing disturbing fetish content on social media. Lexie Matheson, who claims to be a “lesbian,” has had a significant influence on national and local policies surrounding gender self-identification and currently competes in women’s sports competitions.
Matheson was involved in drafting Sport New Zealand’s “transgender inclusion guiding principles,” which were released in late 2022 and prioritize self-declared “gender identity” over biological sex.
He has also been recognized on a national level, and was an honoree in the 2016 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, where he was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for his LGBTQ advocacy. Matheson is also a founding member of Auckland Pride Festival, Inc.
In a Pinterest folder titled ‘My Obsessive Stuff,’ Matheson has shared multiple images of “loli” illustrations, which are Japanese animations intended to depict young girls.
In addition to loli images, Matheson has curated a collection of lesbian pulp erotica book covers, some of which feature an element of sadomasochistic bondage, such as in one “retro-style” illustration showing one schoolgirl straddling another and tying her victim’s hands behind her back using a ribbon.
In close proximity to the pornographic content are photos of actual children, including one of an unidentified girl aged approximately six years old posing in a ballerina outfit.
Before getting involved in trans activism, Matheson had worked with children within the education system, both in primary and secondary school.
Matheson, formerly known as Lex, began to declare a transgender status in 1998 at the age of 53, after many years of cross-dressing privately and developing an alter ego he called “Sally.”
Mermaids
Apparently Mermaids are harassing head teachers with bogus legal threats concerning the draft government guidance. Dennis Kavanagh ( of Gay Men’s Network and, of course, Queens’ Speech) has produced an excellent template letter for schools to use which you will find on his substack. Great stuff, Dennis!
A template response letter for Schools being harassed by Mermaids
Mermaids are ignoring their own safeguarding investigation to hassle put upon head teachers with bogus legal threats ( 25 January).
Dear Parent,
Introduction
Thank you for your letter of [date], the contents of which we note. We naturally take very seriously any matters of discrimination contrary to the Equality Act or safeguarding issues, both of which are raised in your letter. You will appreciate schools generally are in the difficult position of having to balance the rights of all pupils in the context of an often challenging debate around trans identifying pupils. Our priority is to safeguard our pupils and protect them from discrimination, but to resist attempts by third sector organisations to target schools by way of political campaigns.
We note that the structure, phrasing and legal approach of your letter suggest that it is a modified campaign letter originating from the “Mermaids” (Charity number: 1160575) which makes such templates available at the web address https://bit.ly/47Tq05X. This entity is currently subject to a regulatory alert by the Charity Commission following serious allegations connected to safeguarding duties. We note it advertises the template letter as having been drafted by a firm of solicitors, which we find surprising given we consider that the points of law raised in the letter are partisan, misleading and an overstatement of the political position advanced by Mermaids.
Serious instances of misstatements of the law in your template letter
We are surprised any firm of solicitors might draft a letter which describes relying on government guidance as an instance of a school having “prematurely relied on the draft, non-statutory Department for Education guidance” or the (unjustified) opinion to the effect that “It is difficult to see how the school can therefore currently rely on it in any capacity”. The vast majority of the relevant draft guidance is based on existing statutory obligations applicable to schools and does not more than replicate and explain existing legal duties. It is therefore unusual for a firm of solicitors to encourage wholesale disregard of the guidance instead of isolating a particular passage to which objection is taken and setting out the legal basis for such an objection.
In context, we conclude the term “non statutory” is deployed in this template letter to undermine the draft guidance. This is disreputable and misleading because almost all government departmental guidance is issued in a non statutory form, indeed it would be unusual for guidance to take the form of a statute.
We note page one of the template letter references pronoun use and we therefore suspect the true intent of these campaigning letters is to mislead schools into believing that social transition is a legal obligation given the general encouragement to disregard departmental guidance. To the extent that this template letter is designed to give the impression that schools have a legal duty to facilitate social transition, we can only respond that this is flatly not the case. The draft guidance reflects the conclusions of Dr. Hilary Cass’ interim review that such measures constitute non neutral interventions and schools are under a duty to consider the rights of all pupils in this context.
Statements apt to mislead regarding the 2010 Equality Act
The template letter contains material regarding the Equality Act 2010 which we consider features glaring omissions relevant to schools and thus capable of misleading a reader. The protected characteristic of gender reassignment is a protection at law against various detriments on that basis, it is not a legal entitlement to be treated as the opposite sex. Following the case of Green v Secretary of State for Justice sex in law is biological sex other than where a person obtains a gender recognition certificate, such certificates are unavailable to those under 18.
The mention of the Equality Act provisions in this template letter should be read in the context of (i.) an example demand that the school comply with pronoun usage on page 1 and (ii.) a further example demand that a pupil participate in mixed sex sporting activities. We consider the mention of the Equality Act in these terms and in this context to be potentially misleading. The mixed sex sports example is particularly concerning given the clear requirement for single sex provision in Schools Premises Regulations at part 4 (2) onwards.
We note that safeguarding and data protection are mentioned briefly without any indication of how that might be relevant to the substance of the template letter.
Onerous and litigious demands contained in the heading “Action the school is expected to take”
We note the template letter says that it aims to “assist the school in ensuring it acts in accordance with their legal obligations”, yet nowhere in the letter are any specific legal obligations cited. We consider this unjustified, it is not open to a reputable firm of solicitors to imply that a school is failing in a legal duty without adequately identifying the legal basis for such a serious suggestion. It is further invidious for the school to speculate what possible complaint might lie behind such a suggestion, beyond the obvious campaigning objectives of this template letter.
We suspect the requests contained at point one and two on the fourth page of the draft letter are entirely designed to generate material from which a speculative legal action might be mounted or further campaigning correspondence advanced. These are not reasonable requests. If the school is said to be acting in a manner inconsistent with the law it is incumbent on legal representatives to identify such a basis rather than generally imply this might be the case.
Conclusion
Schools are under enormous pressure generally and face a challenging moment in respect of the debate around gender, they rightly look to the Department for Education for guidance on such matters. This guidance is developed alongside government lawyers and is developed such that it is consistent with statutory duties, many of which it repeats. The school will therefore follow the draft guidance until such point as campaigning template letters such as this identify a proper basis for suggesting the school is acting in a manner inconsistent with the law. Given our other duties and our available resources, we regret that Mermaids regards schools as a suitable target for campaigns such as this and encourage them to simply engage with the open consultation and ongoing Charity Commission safeguarding investigation.
Yours Faithfully,
The school
Moira Deeming
As regular readers will know, Australian MP Moira Deeming is taking a defamation claim against Liberal Party leader, John Pesutto.
I reported on this here:
https://dustymasterson.substack.com/p/zero-dark-thirty
Reem Alsalem has come out in support of Moira 😎
Thanks again to Feminist Legal Clinic.
UN envoy takes up Moira Deeming’s cause in letter citing protest protection (25 January)
John Pesutto and Moira Deeming
Deeming’s claim has been bolstered by the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, Reem Alsalem, who cited the MP’s treatment in a letter to the Australian government about the prevention of violence against women in politics, including online violence and defamation.
Deeming, who in March last year took part in an anti-trans rights rally that was gatecrashed by neo-Nazis [ Dusty - somewhat unfortunate way to describe the rally] , was removed from the Victorian parliamentary party in May and has launched defamation proceedings against Pesutto.
Alsalem wrote in the November letter: “Please explain what measures the government of Australia will take to allow women to express themselves without intimidation or fear on issues of sex, gender and gender identity as well as exercise their freedom of assembly and association.”
On Monday, Australia’s deputy head of mission to the United Nations in Geneva, Emily Roper, was forced to respond in a letter to Alsalem, assuring her that the rights of women in politics to protest were protected.
Deeming and Pesutto will have their first case management hearing in the Federal Court next Friday, in what could be a protracted and damaging case.
Source: 12ft https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/un-envoy-takes-up-moira-deeming-s-cause-in-letter-citing-protest-protection-20240125-p5f03f.html
Endpiece
Back to Ireland. For a nation that had such promise at the time of their independence, for the Irish nation to have come to this! But it is not really the people, it is those in power who must be held to account. In these worrying days, I think Radie Peat’s version of Dark horse on the wind performed at Kilmainham Gaol is most appropriate.
Oh those who died for liberty
Have heard the eagle scream
All the ones who died for liberty
Have died but for a dream
Oh rise, rise, rise, Dark horse on the wind
For in no nation on the earth
More broken hearts you'll find.
Dear readers
Mr Menno is doing a live stream at 21.00 GMT today. Hope to see some of you there 😎
Dusty
Dear readers
If you haven’t listened to Menno yet, it is a scream🤣
The Big Sleep two parter is not doing as well as I would have hoped so, if you are able to push them around a bit I’d appreciate it 😎
Next update this evening
Any guesses as to which Marlowe film we have arrived at 😎
Dusty