JAN MOIR: Why our huffy and intransigent PM is still stuck in sanctimonious lockstep with the BBC on trans rights

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At PMQs on Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer stood up to give the House and the nation his thoughts on the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex – and, of course, apologise for pushing his progressive beliefs onto a largely resisting nation.

That included his conviction that trans women are women, that women can have a penis and that introducing self-identification for transgender people was the way forward; all that nonsense and fantasy-enriching thinking which has caused so much pain on all sides.

‘I am sorry, so sorry,’ said the Prime Minister.

Except that he did no such thing. Of course he didn’t.

Sir Keir has been on the wrong side of the argument since the argument began, but that doesn’t mean he is going to admit his mistake or climb down from his cosy post on the higher moral ground any time soon.

Never mind that this is a matter which has huge significance to public life, affecting all areas of society from how we raise our children to the ways in which thousands of organisations, including schools, prisons and the NHS, conduct themselves in future.

Not to mention businesses, the military and sporting bodies who allowed male-bodied athletes to take part in women’s sports.

At PMQs on Wednesday, Sir Keir Starmer stood up to give the House and the nation his thoughts on the Supreme Court ruling on biological sex 

It is hard to think of anything more important than this most basic of issues. Yet over the last few years dear Keir has been busy scrambling to be with the cool gang, repeating and tweeting that ‘trans rights are human rights’ – the fashionable but mindless mantra which put the desires of the trans community before and above those of nearly everyone else. 

Trans people, of course, deserve support, dignity and understanding, but not at the expense of others.

Women have human rights, too – as the law has ruled.

The argument has been lost and common sense has won, but the Prime Minister will never say: ‘I was wrong.’ Forget it.

Instead, he burbled on about ‘welcoming the clarity of a decision being handed down’ – with no acknowledgement that it is the exact opposite of everything he previously said and believed.

‘Does the Prime Minister now accept that when he said it was the law that trans women are women, he was wrong?’ Kemi Badenoch asked him on Wednesday.

‘Let me be clear,’ he began, and went on to be typically obtuse.

Part of me suspects that he still thinks he was right and that everyone who disagrees with him is some kind of irredeemable, knuckle-dragging bigot. And that the lawyer in him will encourage Labour ministers to unpick and undermine the ruling the very first chance they get.

The Prime Minister is not alone in his huffy intransigence. The BBC are in lockstep right behind him. Indeed, there have been moments over the last week when the state broadcaster seemed to be trying to pretend the ruling had never happened.

On the historical day the judgment was passed down, the top item on Newsnight – that terrible porthole into the BBC soul – was about Donald Trump, its collective obsession.

‘Another day when you-know-who across the pond dominated the headlines,’ said presenter Nick Watt, opening the show. No Nick, it wasn’t and he didn’t. This fiction was exposed during the newspaper review at the end of the show, with nearly all front pages devoted to the ruling and not a single mention of Trump.

In 2021, when Keir Starmer was leader of the Opposition and Rosie Duffield was still a Labour MP, he criticised her for saying only women have a cervix

Wouldn’t you agree this was strange behaviour from a news programme that usually loves a big court rumpus? When campaigner Gina Miller brought her cases against then PM Boris Johnson for Brexit and the proroguing of Parliament she was barely off the Beeb airwaves – and in the Newsnight studio more often than Emily Maitlis.

Yet it wasn’t until halfway through this week that the programme turned to the issue again, with footage of a protesting trans woman complaining that she ‘didn’t feel safe any more’ in the UK, and host Victoria Derbyshire piously asking Rosie Duffield if she felt ‘any responsibility’ for that.

This is an invidious, ongoing outrage. It is not Miss Duffield’s fault if a biological male is upset because the Supreme Court has ruled they are not a woman.

However, the Prime Minister, who has spent much of the last two years promising those in the same boat they could become women any time they pleased, should consider his stance.

And he should also think about apologising to Rosie Duffield, too. In 2021, when he was leader of the Opposition and she was still a Labour MP, he criticised her for saying only women have a cervix.

‘That shouldn’t be said. It’s not right,’ the idiotic Sir Keir told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show.

Duffield subsequently quit the Labour Party and now sits as an independent.

She deserves a medal, not the snide impugnation from Newsnight that she is somehow guilty for causing distress to the more fragile members of the trans community. One might have hoped Woman’s Hour (BBC R4) would be turning cartwheels at this historical victory for women – but on the day of the judgment it brought in a male lawyer to mansplain his misgivings.

The Today programme (BBC R4) glossed over the issue, PM (BBC R4) found a legal bigwig to trivialise the ruling, and there was no mention on the satirical show Have I Got News For You (BBC1) on Friday, which is normally so keen to satirise or praise the big news event of the week.

It is hard to ignore the pattern of groupthink and sanctimony that is emerging from this tarnished triumph. All sides claim they only want fairness and equality, but tolerance still seems a long way off. And Keir Starmer must take his share of the blame for that.

Michelle goes low 

When responding to censure, Michelle Obama once said: ‘When they go low, you go high.’ An admirable sentiment about rising above a situation and the coarser ethics of your opponents.

Now she says being on a higher moral plane is too hard! This week the former First Lady defended her decision not to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration by reframing it as a triumph for feminism.‘It took everything in my power to not do the thing that was perceived as right, but do the thing that was right for me,’ she said.

There is so much that is admirable about Mrs O – but not this. Maybe she doesn’t personally approve of Donald Trump, but so what? She still should have gone.

Not attending the ceremony wasn’t an insult to him, it was an insult to the American electorate.

You either believe in democracy or you don’t. Make your mind up, Michelle.

Eni Aluko (who she?) is accusing Ian Wright of blocking opportunities for female pundits by ‘dominating’ women’s football coverage.

Is he really? Isn’t it more likely that he is a very big, major star and a popular sporting commentator who is just doing his job?

We can’t have only female commentators reporting on female football.

Why? Because that would be sexist and regressive.

Post-match analysis? Eni’s not a victim, she’s just much further down the footy food chain than Wrighty.

Rosie’s no model for eco travelling 

First-world problem of the week. Neighbours of Jason Statham and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (pictured) have complained about the couple’s helicopter – frightening their horses.

Down in their posh bit of south London it is clearly all about Jason and Rosie’s convenience – and everyone else can get stuffed.

Yes, even if it means frightening the horses.

You have to laugh. Otherwise you’d cry! For darling model Rosie is very proud of her beauty range Rose Inc.

She likes to boast about its eco-friendly ethos and sustainably-sourced packaging, along with its vegan and cruelty-free products.

Yet here she is, burning up the atmos and clattering around to the shops in a chopper – but it’s OK, because her lipsticks are refillable.

I detest rap band for endorsing hatred on stage 

Irish-language rap group Kneecap at Coachella: messages displayed on the stage’s screens during their set read ‘Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people’ 

Irish-language rap group Kneecap have responded angrily to criticism of statements they made about Israel during their Coachella performance last weekend.

The group led the crowd in chants of ‘free, free Palestine’, while messages displayed on the stage’s screens during their set read ‘Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people’ and ‘It is being enabled by the US government who arm and fund Israel despite their war crimes’. Another read: ‘F*** Israel. Free Palestine.’

The rapping morons – one of whom wears an Irish tricolour balaclava on stage – said that their statements are ‘not aggressive’ in comparison to Israel’s attacks on Gaza.

The irony of making these statements at a music festival was clearly lost on them.

Let’s not forget that Hamas murdered over 300 young music fans at a very similar music festival in Israel back in 2023, the act which started this terrible war in the first place.

Kneecap’s glorification of this mass murder and their simple-minded insistence on romanticising terror as part of entertainment is disgusting.

Not least for any traumatised Jewish attendees who may have been in the Coachella audience.

For this wasn’t about artistic freedom, it was about hate speech and endorsing violence.

I detest Kneecap for what they have done and for the hatred that was magnified on what was supposed to be an innocent and joyous occasion.

For once I am with Sharon Osbourne, who urged the American authorities to send them home and for somebody – anybody! – to take away their work visas.

Not that it matters much, as it is unlikely anyone will ever book them outside Ireland again.

Except possibly for a nice little gig in downtown Ramallah.

Good luck with that, boys.