Troubling, indeed. But Opposition keeps sticking its head in the sand

“HOW could we be giving kids puberty blockers?”, began Kay Burley of Sky News. She was interviewing Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, about the Cass Review and its revelations. Of course, up until recently, Ms Cooper’s party policy had been rather different to the report’s suggestion that actually giving kiddies life and body changing puberty drugs wasn’t such a good idea after all. Just ask Rosie Duffield.

In the not-too-distant past Yvette Cooper herself was “refusing to get into” discussions about what a woman is. David Lammy, the shadow foreign minister, was describing critics of gender ideology as “dinosaurs who hoard rights”. On one memorable occasion he even implied that it was somehow possible to “get a cervix” – as if you could pick one up at B&Q.

Earlier this week Anneliese Dodds, shadow women and equalities minister, confirmed Labour’s longstanding pledge to ban “trans conversion therapy” which would effectively outlaw anything other than “gender-affirming” care. They are still planning to reform the Gender Recognition Act to make social transitioning easier, something the Cass Review explicitly warns against. So Labour’s thinking has been more than a little muddled over the years.

But Ms Cooper, blinking as if she was seeing daylight for the first time (perhaps the effect of all those years with her head in the sand) replied that

‘Ah yes, culture wars. Those low-status squabbles which only the Right ever indulges in’

the report’s conclusions were “very troubling”. This fire is very troubling, said the man with a box of matches and a jug of kerosene.

She could have said “we were wrong about this, I’m sorry we spent several years monstering everyone who raised the alarm – especially within our own party”. But she didn’t. “Labour accepts all of the recommendations” she nodded sagely. Black was now actually black after all.

Now we might want to praise Ms Cooper’s seemingly Damascene conversion to the existence of basic reality. Was this a new, less mendacious era for Labour’s approach to this issue? Not a bit of it. What was really important about the report, said Cooper, was “not having all this get caught up in culture wars”.

Ah yes, culture wars. Those lowstatus squabbles which only the Right ever indulges in and which only ever go one way. For example, “don’t mutilate children!” equals culture war. “Let’s mutilate children!” equals not a culture war.

Last month, Labour MP Maria Eagle and several of her colleagues filibustered a Bill on puberty blockers and single-sex spaces by talking incessantly about ferrets. But, of course, the Left never does culture wars. For years the advocacy group LGB Alliance was banned from the Labour conference owing to their views on gender self-id. Good thing the Left never does culture wars, eh?

Without the so-called “culture war” there would have been no debate, no investigation, no Cass report, and Labour’s position would still be as it was until the day before yesterday. Whether they’ll be able to resist the temptation to stick their heads back into the sand remains to be seen.