
Trans children more likely to be white and privileged, says head
Katharine Birbalsingh, head of the Michaela Community School in Wembley, northwest London, said her school was unlikely to have any trans pupils because of its mainly ethnic-minority intake.
Birbalsingh, who previously worked as the government's social mobility tsar, told The London Standard: 'If one actually did a survey on this sort of thing nationally, I think you would find that white privileged kids would be more likely to be doing that. No question.'
• Birbalsingh: Gentle middle-class parenting can be harmful
She added: 'Our society is such that victimhood is admired. And if you feel that you're white and privileged, then you don't have much of a victimhood narrative to
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Times
12 minutes ago
- Times
Lisa Nandy in new cronyism row after charity choice for project
A charity with close links to the Labour Party received taxpayers' money to carry out a culture department research project, only a few months after a former trustee became the culture secretary's special adviser, The Times can reveal. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, announced a 'listening exercise' to form a new national youth strategy shortly after scrapping the National Citizen Service, a coalition-era project for 16 to 17-year-olds. A £282,395 contract was awarded to the market research company Savanta in February to conduct further research into what young people wanted from the strategy. Savanta in turn sub-contracted the small London-based charity My Life My Say to run a series of workshops asking young people what they wanted from the new strategy. Nandy's special adviser, Harjeet Sahota, served as a trustee at the My Life My Say for three years, until she resigned on August 28 after joining Nandy as a political adviser in the culture department under the new Labour government. My Life My Say was founded in 2013 by Mete Coban, the deputy mayor of London for the environment and energy. Sahota served as a trustee at the same time that she was head of external relations for Sir Keir Starmer, then leader of the opposition. Before that she worked for Sir Sadiq Khan's re-election campaign in 2020. Sources said information about the appointment of My Life My Say — which would usually be shared within the department — was not disclosed in the case of the 'listening exercise'. They also flagged concerns about the involvement of the charity UK Youth in the delivery of the new strategy. In January 2025 a director of the charity was seconded into Nandy's department to lead development of the new youth strategy. In March, UK Youth was announced as a partner alongside My Life My Say in the consultation exercise. It is not known how much was received by either My Life My Say or UK Youth through Savanta for the delivery of the contract. UK Youth is a much larger charity and received about £16 million in income during the last financial year, compared with less than £400,000 for My Life My Say. A government official said Sahota logged her past involvement with My Life My Say and recused herself from the procurement process. New procurement legislation, which came into effect in February, forces ministers and their advisers to declare potential conflicts of interest when their department awards contracts. Procurement experts have also called for more transparency so that the government publishes the details of companies and organisations that have been subcontracted to work on government projects. Ben Paxton, a senior researcher at the Institute for Government think tank, said: 'The lack of visibility of the supply chain can limit accountability, particularly where conflicts of interest may be a concern. 'It's crucial for all public procurement that the proper process is followed, to ensure government is meeting the ultimate aim of delivering the best services for the best price possible.' A DCMS spokesman said: 'In order to undertake one of the largest government listening exercises with young people in a generation, DCMS appointed Savanta as the project's lead delivery partner through an open, fair and competitive tender process in line with government procurement guidance. The details of this procurement are publicly available on Contracts Finder. 'My Life My Say is a sub-contractor to Savanta, with all payments managed through Savanta rather than directly by DCMS. Robust conflict of interest procedures were followed throughout. No individuals with declared conflicts of interest were involved in the procurement process, which was delivered through the department's commercial team following standard procedures.' A spokesman for the charity said: 'My Life My Say is an award-winning youth-led charity, recognised by successive governments for our work championing young people's voices. As a leading youth engagement charity in the UK, we are proud to have partnered with Savanta on one of the largest national listening exercises with young people ever conducted in the UK to help shape the national youth strategy. 'While we are aware of our former trustee Harjeet Sahota's role at DCMS, we can confirm that Harjeet voluntarily stepped down as a trustee in August 2024 and has had no discussions in regards to this contract with staff at My Life My Say.' • Labour vowed to end cronyism. Unless they're Labour cronies Labour has faced allegations of 'cronyism' in recent weeks, after one of the party's pre-election donors won contracts worth millions of pounds. Tech consultancy Public Digital seconded one of its partners to work for Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, in the months leading up the election to help write Labour's tech policies. The donation was registered as being worth £100,000 and the partner, Emily Middleton, was given a senior civil service role in Kyle's department just weeks after the election. The company has gone on to win £10.2 million of contracts since Labour entered office to transform a series of different IT systems, which the government says followed all procurement rules.


Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Trump tells Zelensky he can end Ukraine-Russia war 'immediately' as he lays out terms for peace with Putin ahead of White House summit
President Donald Trump has issued an extraordinary rebuke of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, telling him he can 'end the war with Russia.' Trump categorically ruled out Zelenskyy's desire to see Ukraine join NATO and indicated he has no desire to see Crimea returned to Ukrainian rule. His shock position comes just hours ahead of his scheduled meeting with Zelenskyy in Washington on Monday. 'President Zelenskyy of Ukraine can end the war with Russia almost immediately, if he wants to, or he can continue to fight,' Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday night. 'Remember how it started. No getting back Obama given Crimea (12 years ago, without a shot being fired!), and NO GOING INTO NATO BY UKRAINE. 'Some things never change!!!' Leaders from Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Finland are rallying around the Ukrainian president and will join him in Washington on Monday amid fears he is walking into a trap. Their pledge to be at Zelenskyy's side at the White House on Monday is an apparent effort to ensure the meeting goes better than the last one in February, when Trump berated Zelenskyy in a heated Oval Office encounter. 'The Europeans are very afraid of the Oval Office scene being repeated and so they want to support Mr. Zelenskyy to the hilt,' said retired French Gen. Dominique Trinquand, a former head of France's military mission at the United Nations. 'It's a power struggle and a position of strength that might work with Trump,' he said. Neil Melvin, director of international security at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, said European leaders are trying to 'shape this fast-evolving agenda.' After the Alaska summit, the idea of a ceasefire appears all-but-abandoned, with the narrative shifting toward Putin's agenda of ensuring Ukraine does not join NATO or even the EU. Zelenskyy earlier pushed back against Trump's assertion — which aligned with Putin's preference — that the two sides should negotiate a complete end to the war, rather than first securing a ceasefire. Zelenskyy said a ceasefire would provide breathing room to review Putin's demands. 'It's impossible to do this under the pressure of weapons,' he said. 'Putin does not want to stop the killing, but he must do it.'


The Independent
8 hours ago
- The Independent
Rachel Reeves to take aim at environmental protections in bid to speed up infrastructure projects, say reports
Rachel Reeves is preparing to strip back environmental protections in an attempt to accelerate infrastructure building and boost the economy, according to reports. The chancellor is considering major reforms that would make it more difficult for wildlife concerns to hold up developments, according to The Times. Treasury officials are said to be drafting another planning reform bill, the publication reported. The move reportedly involves tearing up parts of European environmental rules, which developers have argued slow down crucial projects. While Labour ministers have previously insisted their current planning overhaul would balance growth with nature, Ms Reeves is understood to believe that the government must go further. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill going through Parliament overrides existing habitat and nature protections, which, if passed, would allow developers to make general environmental improvements and pay into a nature restoration fund that improves habitats on other sites. But Ms Reeves is considering more contentious reforms that are likely to trigger further backlash from environmental groups, according to The Times. Among the changes under discussion are plans for a smaller, UK-only list of protected species, which would give less weight to wildlife considered rare across Europe but relatively common in Britain, The Times said. Ms Reeves is also reportedly considering abolishing the EU 'precautionary principle' that forces developers to prove projects will have no impact on protected natural sites. Instead, a new test would assess the risks and benefits of building. The chancellor is also exploring limits on legal challenges from environmental campaigners. Speaking to the House of Lords economic affairs committee last month, Ms Reeves said: 'The reason that HS2 is not coming to my city of Leeds anymore anytime soon, is because I'm afraid, as a country, we've cared more about the bats than we have about the commuter times for people in Leeds and West Yorkshire, and we've got to change that, 'Because I care more about a young family getting on the housing ladder than I do about protecting some snails, and I care more about my energy bills and my constituents than I do about the views of people from their windows.' High-profile examples of costly protections include the £100m Buckinghamshire 'bat tunnel' built to protect wildlife from HS2 trains and the so-called 'fish disco' at Hinkley Point C nuclear plant, which uses sound to deter fish from cooling system intakes. The existing Planning and Infrastructure Bill already proposes a 'nature restoration fund' under which developers could offset environmental damage by paying for conservation schemes elsewhere. But the bill has faced criticism from both environmental groups and developers, who fear it will fail to speed up construction. Paul Miner of the countryside charity CPRE told The Times that targeting habitats regulations would 'take us backwards rather than forwards on nature recovery'.