Corrupting our language, where care and concern for children is called ‘hate’, and mutilating and poisoning them is ‘love’

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 17th December 2024)

It was George Bernard Shaw who said: “The British and the Americans are two great peoples divided by a common tongue.” That might not be quite true, but we have had different dialects, but these, too, are merging with the Americanisation of the English language. This is nothing new. Speaking on the wireless in 1935, Alistair Cooke declared that “Every Englishman (sic) listening to me now unconsciously uses 30 or 40 Americanisms a day”.

Dr Hilary Cass with her report on NHS services for children and young people who are questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria

When I first came to the U.K., even though I was a first generation South African from an English-speaking family, I used words and phrases that were not understood in Brighton. ‘Red robots’ and ‘circles’ in the road meant nothing to Brightonians who said ‘traffic lights’ and ‘roundabouts’. Before then, my father and his brother who were born and brought up in Stoke-on-Trent, could communicate with each other in the North Staffs dialect that the rest of us struggled to comprehend. A more famous saying, now available as an inscription on mugs, asks: “Cost tha kick a bo agen a wo an yed it til thee bost eet?” It means: “Can you kick a ball against a wall and head it until it bursts?” My aunt Dorothy, who lived in the Potteries, would call me “duck” – a common term of affection towards both men and women as in “Tow rate owd duck?” meaning “Are you all right dear?”

Our language and local dialects are being lost thanks to our arrogant cousins from across the Atlantic. We no longer have tomato sauce but ketchup. Chips are now fries (though not in South Africa where crisps are called chips). Mac and cheese, keeping you across all the news, and cookies are just a few other examples. Why can’t we say macaroni cheese, keeping you up-to-date, and biscuits? Computers have given new meanings to common words like apple, windows, mouse and cookies.

‘Sussex as she wus spoke’ is a delightful guide to the Sussex dialect by Tony Wales. I learned some gems from this book: ‘all mops and brooms’ (to be in a muddle), a ‘bum-freezer’ (short coat), and ‘so drunk he couldn’t see through a ladder’ (very drunk). Many of the words and sayings are, to me, ‘wimwams for goose’s bridles’ (something not understood). This column gets its shares of ‘balsam’ (uncomplimentary remarks) but I hope I will be spared on this occasion.

In George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four, ‘Newspeak’ limited a person’s ability to articulate and communicate abstract concepts, such as personal identity, self-expression, and free will, which were described as ‘thoughtcrimes’, acts of personal independence that contradicted the ideological orthodoxy.  Orwell explained that Newspeak is a language characterised by a continually diminishing vocabulary where complete thoughts are reduced to simple terms such as Minitrue (Ministry of Truth), and Miniplenty (Ministry of Plenty). 

Political discourse today has adopted a similar approach. The most obvious recent example has been the ability to close down debate on women’s sex-based rights by accusing someone of being a TERF (a trans-exclusionary radical feminist) or being ‘transphobic’ when questioning the ideological orthodoxy of trans-rights. 

After the publication last week of the thoughtful and authoritative Cass Report on NHS services for children and young people who are questioning their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria, it has been interesting to see which politicians have backtracked on their previously-held views. These same people never lifted a finger to defend the likes of Professor Kathleen Stock (hounded out of Sussex University for her gender critical views) or the Labour MP Rosie Duffield (ostracised and abandoned by her party’s leadership). These latter-day converts are yet to apologise to Kathleen or Rosie, or the countless other women and some men (like Father Ted creator, Graham Linehan) who have spoken out so bravely. Yet some of those who said nothing are now calling for a ‘kinder’ dialogue when through their previous silence they were complicit in a hateful ideology.

This ideology has, for almost a decade, captured politics and, most alarmingly, the NHS. Children have been put on toxic medication that can lead to an increase in cancers and infertility, and young people have been mutilated by the removal of perfectly healthy organs.  And here again language has been corrupted. As my friend, Helen Saxby, explained, “it’s urging caution and research in the treatment of children that has been smeared as ‘hate’, and playing fast and loose with children’s health that has been rebranded as ‘love’.” It is people like Helen who will be judged as being on the right side of history, and that history has begun to be written through the Cass Report.

Ruth Larkin, the best mayor that Brighton never had

(This item first appeared in my ‘Brighton and Beyond’ column in the Brighton Argus on 28th September 2022)

There are few people you meet in your life who you can say that she or he was a good person. Ruth Larkin was one such woman. She was a dedicated public servant for many years, yet there isn’t anything to commemorate her, no blue plaque, her name is not on the front of a bus (in spite of an ineffectual attempt I made a few years ago) and, although she was a councillor for 21 years, her name is missing from the list in the Town Hall of former Mayors.

Ruth Larkin with the then Mayor, Jeane Lepper, at a thank you event when she stood down as a trustee of BHT Sussex

I had the good fortune of knowing Ruth Larkin in two capacities, as a fellow councillor on the Planning Committee of the old Brighton Borough Council, and in her role as a Trustee and member of the Board of Brighton Housing Trust, now BHT Sussex.

She served for around 25 years as one of our Trustees, paying particular attention to the comfort of our residents. She and her then Conservatives colleague, Bob Cristofili, ensured that support for BHT had cross-party support at a time when it could easily have been seen as a partisan cause. For a while we had three Labour councillors on our staff, the Director, Jenny Backwell, Gary Griffiths (a County Councillor), and me.

Professionally, Ruth was a hospital laboratory technician at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. She was first elected to Brighton Borough Council for Rottingdean in April 1969 and served for over 20 years.  After stepping down from the council in May 1990, she continued to serve the community as a volunteer helping elderly, infirm and isolated residents.

She was a tireless campaigner for the elderly while a councillor, and she then took up their cause on the Older People’s Council until 2007.

Ruth chaired the Planning Committee for many years with diligence, skill and integrity. She was always thoroughly prepared, consistent and fair.  Because of her commitment and dedication to her constituents in Rottingdean, the Committee made, perhaps, more than its fair share of site visits to that lovely part of our city (although we didn’t have city-status at that time). 

A lifelong cyclist, Ruth would arrive at site visits on her bicycle, humming hymns, content with her lot.  She could have been the template for what former Conservative prime minister, John Major, said, quoting the socialist George Orwell: “Old maids bicycling to holy communion through the morning mist”. 

Ruth would not have been enamoured, even insulted, to be referred to as an ‘old maid’. What is more, she lived overlooking the playing fields of Brighton College, and would have had to have negotiated the traffic and fumes of Eastern Road to get to her church. Ruth was a church warden at St Anne’s in Kemp Town, her faith running through every vein of her being.

I once referred to Ruth as a Tory, not in a pejorative manner whatsoever, but she let me know in no uncertain terms that she was a Conservative and never a Tory which, she told me, was a nickname given to those who opposed the exclusion of James, Duke of York (a Roman Catholic) from the succession to the Crown. As a South African with a very limited knowledge of British history, I can’t say I understood this deeply held view, but deeply held it was, like many of her beliefs.

She was a councillor for most of the time that Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and, even though they represented the same political party, their politics and values could not have been further apart. Ruth cared deeply for ordinary people, and particularly for those who were excluded, marginalised and poor. I used to wonder why she was a Tory, sorry, a Conservative. But then I look at some of the recent leaders of the Labour Party and wonder why they aren’t Conservatives! 

She was never conventional, some might say her fashion sense was eccentric, and it was this, perhaps, that resulted in her being overlooked by her party colleagues and never put forward to become Mayor of Brighton, an honour she richly deserved. Perhaps Ruth Larkin should be remembered as the best Mayor that Brighton never had.

Her Argus obituary said that the Council had arranged a welfare funeral for her after no members of her family could be traced. Although I attended her funeral at Woodvale Crematorium with a few of her former party colleagues, I don’t know whether she has a grave and, if so, whether it has a headstone. If anyone knows her last resting place, please let me know as I would like to place some flowers on her grave. 

My abiding memory of Ruth is that she was a very kind person, and that she was very much one of a kind.

The Ministry of Justice, or MiniJustice for short, is on the verge of wrecking the Court Duty scheme that prevents homelessness

In George Orwell’s 1984, there were government departments that had names with a meaning the polar opposite to what the department did.  According to Wikipedia, “the Ministry of Truth is the propaganda ministry. As with the other ministries in the novel, the name Ministry of Truth is a misnomer because in reality it serves the opposite: it is responsible for any necessary falsification of historical events.”

So too with the Ministry of Justice.  One would have thought the purpose of such a ministry would be to uphold and promote justice, but it appears to do the polar opposite, rationing access to justice, ensuring that accessing justice is difficult for all but the most well off.

But the Ministry of Justice isn’t from 1984, it is Britain in 2017.

The new Lord Chancellor, David Lidington, has been in post since the 11 June 2017.  Since that date, for example, the BHT advice centre in Hastings has stopped 11 households from losing their home because they got assistance under the Court Duty Scheme.  (Three years ago I wrote a live blog about the Brighton Court Duty scheme undertaken by our Brighton advice centre.  I also published an account in October 2014 of the experience of someone whose home we saved through Court Duty).

The MoJ, or should we call it MiniJustice, is consulting on the future of Court Duty services. Court duty for possession cases is the last gasp chance at access to justice.  It is the last line of defence, and for many it is their last hope in saving their homes.  BHT, for example, has an advisor or solicitor in the Court building in case someone turns up without legal representation.

Almost everyone who responded to the Court Duty consultation said that bringing in price to the tendering will be a race to the bottom, but the MOJ thinks it will bring in greater competition…..

What price does anyone put on this? Right now MiniJustice says £71 plus VAT. That’s the fee organisations like BHT get at Court Duty for saving someone’s home.  Imagine the costs to the state, local and national, for each household that becomes homeless.  £71 + VAT must be the Bargain of the Century for government.

Solicitors are already pulling out from operating Court Duty contracts.  Just last month Tunbridge Wells became another Court without a Desk Duty scheme.

According to Bob Neill MP, chairman of the Justice Select Committee in the Commons and a Conservative MP, that, while he understands the budget pressures the government is under, he believes “we have now removed more than the system can take and should rectify the anomalies as soon as possible”.

MiniJustice had planned to cut the legal aid expenditure by £350m, but the spending has reduced from around £2.2bn to £1.6bn, almost twice the plan. The cuts have had a devastating impact on the number of firms and local advice centres from which the public can obtain help. The latest statistics reveal a 32% reduction in the number of providers since the LASPO cuts were made.

Most importantly, there are now nearly a million fewer civil legal aid cases than there were seven years ago.  Further cuts and changes to the Court Duty scheme will exacerbate this and we will see yet more homelessness.