QUENTIN LETTS: 'All rise, if able'... yet another confected attack on our language by the grievance seekers who gave us 'chest feeders' and 'birth people'
For centuries those crisp two words, rasped by a court usher, were deemed sufficient for the commencement of judicial proceedings and a show of respect for the so-called majesty of the law.
Until now. Instruction has gone out from faceless central officialdom that 'all rise!' is no longer adequate. Allegedly it could offend those who are unable to stand. And so the cry is to be altered in the courts of England and Wales. 'All rise!' will become 'all rise, if able'. Insufferable wetness? Or a harmless tweak in an obscure area of state activity?
We are only talking about two extra words. A mere six letters. If their addition is going to make disabled or elderly people feel more welcome in courts, is that not a good thing? Or is 'inclusivity' once again frying our Middle England brains, mocking us for being so tolerant of an official class that imposes change merely to score career points and demonstrate, grindingly, who is in charge?
When the change was reported last week, political trout rose to the fly. Jack Rankin, a Conservative MP, called the move 'unnecessary virtue-signalling' and suggested that the time and effort involved in the change could have been used better in reducing the post-Covid backlog of trials. Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform UK, averred that another tradition was being 'trashed to the god of wokery'.
His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, which is run by a bearded career civil servant called Nick Goodwin, claimed that the change would 'ensure that everyone can access and take part in court proceedings, helping to create a more inclusive and accessible justice system for all'. Blimey. Two words can do that?
The politics of language is not always rooted in reality. Bureaucratic souls sometimes get it into their heads that new terminology will bring cultural changes. Look at the NHS, which in a job advertisement last year referred to pregnant women as 'birthing people '. This was allegedly done to be kind to transgender people.
Well, being kind is a commendable aim. Few will argue otherwise. Yet the public thought 'birthing people' was a ridiculous phrase.
Ensuing protests – scornful laughter and angry denunciations of the 'gender police' – outweighed any happy vibes that may have been generated among trans people. As with the term 'chest-feeder', women felt the NHS was behaving politically and trying to erase their gender.
Given the torrent of opprobrium, it might have been better to leave things as they were.
Likewise Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, announced a £6.3 million renaming of the city's Overground railway. The new names included the Windrush line (after West Indian Windrush immigrants), the Weaver line (celebrating London's 'diverse migrant communities' who worked in textiles), the Mildmay line (Mildmay hospital was important at the height of the HIV/Aids crisis) and the Lioness line (after England's female footballers). What a busy box-ticker Mr Khan was. The only surprise was that there was no 'Sadiq line'. Give him time, folks.
The Mayor was actually being just as outrageous as his old enemy Donald Trump, who has renamed the Gulf of Mexico, which he now calls 'the Gulf of America '. Yet Mr Khan chose his names artfully. Anyone expressing irritation at his tinkering was going to look a curmudgeon.
Who, after all, could gainsay showing some generosity to Aids victims or hard-working West Indians or immigrant weavers, or even the England women's football XI, who seem a perfectly decent lot?
As with 'all rise, if able', anyone grumbling would look the most frightful kvetch, to use a fine Yiddish expression. Mayor Khan was setting his opponents a trap: if they attacked him, they would look like crosspatches. Voters generally do not like misanthropes.
The nakedness of that calculation, however, sticks in the throat. It is as sly as the deployment by some Right-wingers of exaggerated patriotism. I am a royalist and a patriot and a supporter of Remembrance Sunday, but I am seldom persuaded when the Right tries to stir trouble about Lefties not showing sufficient respect to the Union flag or Royal Family or Poppy Day. It just feels like grievance inflation – an attempt to wrap themselves in nationalism.
Equally, 'all rise, if able', along with Sadiq Khan's look-at-me renaming of the London Overground, tastes overdone, like burnt toast. They are crying wolf.
The Law Society Gazette, hardly a reactionary publication, said it was 'not sure if the words 'all rise' had ever actually prevented access to court proceedings'.
We may be talking, in other words, about confected offence. Was any trans person seriously upset by the terms 'breast-feeding' or 'pregnant women'? Even if some said they were, did their distress withstand serious scrutiny?
Is it not fair, before imposing uncongenial new words on society, to ensure that complainants are sane, sensible and honest?
Was any female cricketer ever so distressed by BBC Radio Test Match Special commentators using the term 'batsman' that they gave up playing the game? Yet 'batsman' has been dropped in favour of the ugly term 'batter', which sounds like something from a fish and chip shop.
You can sense the programme's producer radiating political pleasure every time the new, gender-blind word is employed. No doubt it has done his BBC career some good but it makes plenty of the rest of us quietly seethe and turn off his damn programme.
In a move by inclusivity staff, the 2,000 House of Commons employees have been told not to use terms such as 'ladies and gentlemen', 'manpower' and 'guys'. These, too, are apparently offensive. Said who? Were they being serious or were they being paid to claim so by some pressure group?
English is not the only language affected. The Latin used at Oxford University's degree ceremonies will now be stripped of masculine nouns such as 'magistri' and 'domini' in order to 'represent better those graduates who identify as non-binary'.
How many people actually understood the Latin and paid attention to it and then felt a stabbing pain of societal rejection? Or is this a case of one or two activists thinking 'we can make a name for ourselves by kicking up a fuss', and knowing that feeble governance bodies will cave in pronto?
Is it a case of the grievance industry justifying its existence? And a case of them, and the institutional decision-makers they pressure, wishing to assert their right to impose change? 'Look at us,' they are saying. 'We are the boss class. We have the power to pronounce, the clout to make Middle England quietly fume. And you lot can't complain because if you do, you'll look mean and you'll probably be cancelled on social media. Ha ha ha!' What a petty game.
Yet it is not without its dangers. With the introduction of 'all rise, if able', some of us might say we are now so revolted by the politicisation of our courts that it has had a grievous physical effect.
A Brexit-hating, Rwanda plan-blocking, Lady Hale-worshipping, two-tier-Keir justice system seems, alas, to have destroyed our mental control of leg and thigh muscles. When the judges come swanning into court, you can forget any sign of respect.
If that's how you want to play it, we're going to stay put on our stubborn backsides. And look, the illness has even now made our arms convulse and we now cannot stop flicking two fingers at the beak.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
5 minutes ago
- The Independent
Starmer hails ‘breakthrough' on security guarantees after crunch White House Ukraine talks
Sir Keir Starmer has hailed a "breakthrough" in efforts to end Vladimir Putin 's invasion of Ukraine as Donald Trump said he would broker a meeting between the Ukrainian and Russian presidents. The PM joined Voldymyr Zelensky, French president Emmanuel Macron and Nato secretary general Mark Rutte for crunch talks in the White House on Monday. And, following the meeting, Sir Keir said the UK and US would begin work on the specifics of security guarantees with the US as soon as Tuesday. "The two outcomes were a real significant breakthrough when it comes to security guarantees, because we're now going to be working with the US on those security guarantees," he told the BBC. "We've tasked our teams, some of them are even arriving tomorrow, to start the detailed work on that." Mr Trump said he had spoken directly with Vladimir Putin to begin planning a meeting between the Russian leader and Mr Zelensky, which will then be followed by a three-way meeting involving himself. The US president said Moscow will "accept" multinational efforts to guarantee Ukraine's security. Mr Zelensky, meanwhile, said he was "ready" for bilateral and trilateral meetings. But he told reporters following the White House meeting that if Russia does "not demonstrate a will to meet, then we will ask the United States to act accordingly". Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said the US and Europe would "do more" on tariffs and sanctions against Russia if the country "is not playing ball" on direct talks with Ukraine, in comments to Fox News. Sir Keir described the talks as "good and constructive" and said there was a "real sense of unity" between the European leaders, Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky. He said Mr Trump's plans to arrange the bilateral and trilateral meetings showed a recognition that Ukraine must be involved in talks. "That is a recognition of the principle that on some of these issues, whether it's territory or the exchange of prisoners, or the very serious issue of the return of children, that is something where Ukraine must be at the table." Mr Trump called the talks "very good". "During the meeting we discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, which guarantees would be provided by the various European countries, with a co-ordination with the United States of America," he posted on his Truth Social platform. "Everyone is happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine. "At the conclusion of the meetings, I called president Putin and began arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between president Putin and president Zelensky. "After the meeting takes place, we will have a trilat which would be the two presidents plus myself." The US president met with Mr Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday, where he declared there was "no deal until there's a deal" to end more than three years of fighting in eastern Europe. "The Alaska summit reinforced my belief that while difficult, peace is within reach and I believe, in a very significant step, president Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine," he said on Monday. "And this is one of the key points that we need to consider." He later said: "We also need to discuss the possible exchanges of territory taken into consideration the current line of contact." Future three-way talks "have a good chance" of stopping the conflict, the US president said. But he appeared to share conflicting views on whether a ceasefire was necessary to stop the war. "I don't think you need a ceasefire," he originally said, before later explaining that, "all of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace". Mr Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, had suggested over the weekend that measures similar to Nato's article five mutual defence provision - that an attack on one member is an attack on the entire bloc - could be offered by the US without Kyiv joining the alliance. Sir Keir welcomed plans for "Article Five-style guarantees" during Monday's talks and said that they would fit with the work of his "coalition of the willing" group of countries. He said to Mr Trump: "With you coming alongside, the US alongside, what we've already developed, I think we could take a really important step forward today - a historic step, actually, could come out of this meeting in terms of security for Ukraine and security in Europe." Sir Keir also described potential future trilateral talks as a "sensible next step". The prime minister had disrupted his holiday plans over the weekend to join calls, including with Mr Trump and Mr Zelensky, before he headed to Washington. Mr Zelensky, whom Mr Trump greeted at the door of the West Wing with a handshake earlier in the evening, wore a black shirt with buttons and a black blazer to the meeting at the White House. His attire had appeared to become a point of irritation for Mr Trump during a previous meeting in February. Early in the meeting, the Ukrainian described the talks as "really good", saying they had been "the best" so far. Mr Zelensky said: "We are very happy with the president that all the leaders are here and security in Ukraine depends on the United States and on you and on those leaders who are with us in our hearts."
The Sun
6 minutes ago
- The Sun
Plans to lift two-child benefit cap will land UK's biggest jobless families with £20K a year costing taxpayer £3.5B
PLANS to lift the two-child benefit cap could give Britain's largest families around £20,000 a year. Around 70,000 families would receive more than £18,000 a year in child benefits if ministers move to lift the controversial limit. 3 3 Some of the largest families in the UK would find themselves more than £20,000 better off compared to the current system, however this could come at a hefty cost to the taxpayer. The two-child benefit cap - introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 - means parents cannot claim Universal Credit payments (worth about £300 a month) for more than two of their kids. However, ministers have floated the idea of scrapping the cap - which would cost £3.5 billion. Pressure has been growing on Keir Starmer to change the policy, with his backbenchers believing the cap is deeply unfair to children growing up in poverty. However, the Conservatives argue it would be unfair to hand packages to families on benefits that are worth more than the minimum wage when other taxpayers cannot afford to have more children. Former prime minister Gordon Brown has pleaded the government to increase gambling levies in order to fund the scrapping of the cap. If lifted, around half a million children could be taken out of poverty. Nigel Farage has said Reform UK would also lift the cap to encourage families to have more children, leaving the Tories somewhat isolated in their position. At present, the two-child benefit cap prevents families from claiming the £292.81-a-month child element of Universal Credit for third or subsequent children born after April 6, 2017. Around 71,000 families with five or more children on Universal Credit would stand to gain significantly from the abolished cap, official figures show. Changes to UC & PIP payments in full as Labour reveals bruising welfare bill concessions in bid to quell rebellion Each one of these would become eligible for at least £18,122.88 every year. This includes 14,899 families with six children, 4,812 with seven children, 1,822 with eight children and 668 with nine children, according to data released in answer to a parliamentary question. On top of these, there are 424 families with ten or more children who, without the cap, could gain child Universal Credit payments worth more than £35,000 a year, in addition to other benefits. Exactly how much each family stands to gain depends on when their children were born. Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Helen Whately said: "Without a cap, Labour will end up giving households thousands of pounds in extra benefits — a top-up worth more than a year's full-time pay on the minimum wage. "Not only is this unaffordable, it's also unfair. If you're in work you don't get extra pay for another child, so it doesn't make sense for parents on benefits to get more." She added: "Working people shouldn't see their taxes go up to fund uncapped payouts to others who've opted out of work but opted in to multiple children." The prime minister has faced backlash from his backbench in recent months, including pressure which led to a u-turn on planned tightening for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) claims. Whately said: "Starmer's Britain is living beyond its means. He needs to stand firm against the pressure from his backbenchers and make the firm but fair choices to get welfare costs under control." TWO-CHILD BENEFIT CAP IS 'BIGGEST DRIVER OF RISING CHILD POVERTY' However, Chief Executive of the Child Poverty Action Group Alison Garnham said that "evidence shows the two-child limit does not affect parents' decision about family size". She highlighted that just two per cent of families on benefits had five or more children, arguing it was "poor policy" to focus on extreme cases. Garnham added: "Clearly for these households, money does not drive decisions about family size since the vast majority are only receiving UC support for two children" Around 4.5 million children currently live in relative poverty, with Garnham saying the two-child limit was the "biggest driver of rising child poverty". 100,000 more children entered relative poverty last year, and Garnham argues that "scrapping it is the most cost-effective way to reverse the increase". She said: "Giving all children the best start in life will be impossible unless the government abolishes the policy in its autumn child poverty strategy." A government spokesman said: "Every child — no matter their background — deserves the best start in life. "That's why our child poverty taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty, and in the meantime we are investing £500 million in children's development and ensuring the poorest children don't go hungry in the holidays through a new £1 billion crisis support package."
The Independent
35 minutes ago
- The Independent
Government must stop children using VPNs to dodge age checks on porn sites, commissioner demands
England's children's commissioner has demanded that the government stop children from using virtual private networks (VPNs) to get around age verification on porn sites. Calling for change, Dame Rachel de Souza warned it is "absolutely a loophole that needs closing" as she released a new report, which found the proportion of children saying they have seen pornography online has risen in the past two years, with most likely to have stumbled upon it accidentally. VPNs are tools that connect internet users to websites via remote servers, enabling them to hide their real IP address and location, which includes allowing them to look as if they are online but in another country. This means the Online Safety Act, which now forces platforms to check users' ages if attempting to access some adult content, can be dodged. After sites such as PornHub, Reddit and X introduced age verifcation requirements last month, VPNs became the most downloaded apps, according to the BBC. A government spokesperson told the broadcaster that there are no plans to ban VPNs as they are legal tools for adults. Dame Rachel told Newsnight: "Of course, we need age verification on VPNs – it's absolutely a loophole that needs closing and that's one of my major recommendations." She called on ministers to look at requiring VPNs 'to implement highly effective age assurances to stop underage users from accessing pornography'. More than half (58 per cent) of respondents to the commissioner's survey said that, as children, they had seen pornography involving strangulation, while 44 per cent reported seeing a depiction of rape – specifically someone who was asleep. Made up of responses from 1,020 people aged between 16 and 21 years old, the report also found that while children were on average aged 13 when they first saw pornography, more than a quarter (27 per cent) said they were 11, and some reported being aged 'six or younger'. The research suggested four in 10 respondents felt girls can be 'persuaded' to have sex even if they say no at first, and that young people who had watched pornography were more likely to think this way. The report, a follow-on from research by the Children's Commissioner's office in 2023, found a higher proportion (70 per cent) of people saying they had seen online pornography before turning 18, up from 64 per cent of respondents two years ago. Boys (73 per cent) were more likely than girls (65 per cent) to report seeing online pornography. A majority (59 per cent) of children and young people said they had seen pornography online by accident – a rise from 38 per cent in 2023. Dame Rachel said her research is evidence that harmful content is being presented to children through dangerous algorithms, rather than them seeking it out. She described the content young people are seeing as 'violent, extreme and degrading' and often illegal, and said her office's findings must be seen as a 'snapshot of what rock bottom looks like'. Dame Rachel said: 'This report must act as a line in the sand. The findings set out the extent to which the technology industry will need to change for their platforms to ever keep children safe. 'Take, for example, the vast number of children seeing pornography by accident. This tells us how much of the problem is about the design of platforms, algorithms and recommendation systems that put harmful content in front of children who never sought it out.' The research was done in May, ahead of new online safety measures coming into effect last month, including age checks to prevent children accessing pornography and other harmful content. A Department of Science, Innovation and Technology spokesperson told the BBC that "children have been left to grow up in a lawless online world for too long" and "the Online Safety Act is changing that'. However, responding to Dame Rachel's remarks on VPNs, they added that there are no plans to ban them, "but if platforms deliberately push workarounds like VPNs to children, they face tough enforcement and heavy fines'.
