Mick Hartley

Blog

  • A moment of reckoning

    y.

    At the heart of this disgrace is the BBC’s failure to conduct even the most basic due diligence. That the narrator of the film – a child carefully chosen to evoke maximum emotional impact – was the son of a Hamas government official is not a minor oversight; it is an egregious failure of editorial integrity. Worse still, the BBC was misled by the independent production company it had commissioned, yet it failed to uncover the deception before broadcast. Such negligence is unacceptable in any context, but in the case of a documentary about a warzone – where misinformation can shape public opinion, influence policy, and even incite violence – it is nothing short of reckless….

    The BBC’s approach to complaints about its Israel coverage has long been characterised by arrogance and stonewalling. Time and again, concerns have been raised about its failures – whether in language choices, selective omissions, or outright factual distortions – only for the corporation to dismiss them with condescension. It was only through sustained pressure from figures like David Collier and myself, along with other indefatigable campaigners for media accountability, that the BBC was forced to confront its own wrongdoing in this case. But let’s be clear: had the BBC not been caught, it would not have admitted these failures. The pattern is always the same – deny, obfuscate, and then, when the evidence is overwhelming, reluctantly concede the bare minimum necessary to contain the scandal….

    The damage to the BBC’s credibility is now undeniable. It is not just those who exposed this scandal who should be vindicated, but also those who dismissed, ignored, or even defended the documentary who must now face accountability. The signatories of that ill-judged letter calling for the film’s reinstatement should reflect on their actions and issue a public apology. What did they think they were defending? A programme that engaged in fakery, deception, and mistranslation? A film whose integrity collapsed under the weight of the facts?

    The BBC’s reputation is in tatters, and rightly so. If it wants to rebuild public trust, it must not only own up to its failures but demonstrate that it has the courage to change. The days of brushing aside complaints, gaslighting critics, and hiding behind bureaucratic processes must end. This scandal should mark the beginning of a long-overdue reckoning with the BBC’s chronic bias against Israel and its failure to meet the most basic standards of journalistic integrity. Enough is enough.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • Medics playing God

    >

    And I agree with the article—the consequences won’t be evident in two years, when individuals may still be caught in the euphoria of having seemingly triumphed over their biological development. The real reckoning will come in twenty years, after prolonged use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions. That’s when we’ll see the full impact of this live experiment.

    The greatest mental health scandal of our generation is about to be reopened. Instead of addressing psychological distress at its root, we are interfering with normal developmental processes. Having led the world in putting the lid back on Pandora’s box, we are about to open it again. A tragic display of hubris.

    Like the lobotomies of the 1950s, future generations will look back in disbelief, asking: What were they thinking? But it won’t be the researchers and their cheerleaders who are left to pick up the pieces of fractured families and individuals who have lost the developmental opportunities that come with the challenges of puberty. That burden will fall on the next generation of psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and psychologists.

    And before anyone starts searching for that mythical figure, the true trans child, let’s be clear: there is only one thing with less prognostic reliability than an adult mental health diagnosis—a mental health diagnosis in children. Psychiatry isn’t like medicine. There is no schizococcus—no biological test to confirm a condition. There are only clusters of symptoms and illness behaviour.

    After 46 years in psychiatry, I’ve seen every form of delusional thinking & manic denial employed by the profession. That’s why my first book was called Making Room for Madness in Mental Health. Rather than helping people understand & manage the difficulties that come with development, we promise to remove the pain associated with being human-playing god by denying the facts of life.

  • An unethical experiment on children

    s children are in effect being put on a medical pathway to gender transition which will include, for many, progression to surgery. “The prescribing of puberty blockers introduces physical harms to a physically healthy child. There is significant evidence that puberty blockers seriously impact on bone density.”

    Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy at charity Sex Matters, said: “We have good reason already to think these drugs are harmful, and that the benefits are limited or non-existent.

    “It’s as if the NHS was planning a trial of lobotomies long after concerns first started to be raised — in fact, even worse because the test subjects are children. It seems that £10 million of public money is going to be spent on this unethical experiment.”…

    Thousands of children and young teenagers were put on puberty-blocking drugs — known as gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues — by the NHS Tavistock gender clinic (Gids) from 2011 onwards, in what is increasingly seen as a medical scandal. Some doctors are concerned that this new NHS trial, however well-intentioned, risks repeating some of those same mistakes.

    In particular, campaigners fear that the trial’s two-year follow-up period is insufficient to tell us about the long-term outcomes of putting children on a medical pathway.

    Dr Louise Irvine, a GP and co-chairwoman of the clinical advisory network on sex and gender said: “A two-year follow-up will tell us nothing at all about risks or benefits of puberty blockers. I am shocked they are putting children through the known risks of puberty blockers for no gain in knowledge and I consider it totally unethical.”

    "The trial is yet to pass ethical approval". We shall see.

  • Battery ferry

    orpy.com” class=”asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d83451ebab69e202e860faceaa200d img-responsive” src=”http://mickhartley.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/mt_imported_image_1758237361.jpg” style=”width: 550px” title=”image from www.shorpy.com” />
    [Photo: Shorpy/Detroit Publishing Company]

  • Prisoners and martyrs the “most dear” to Palestinians

    What the Palestinians really want. From MEMRI TV:

    Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas confirmed in a February 20, 2025, speech at the Fatah Revolutionary Council that the Palestinian Authority would continue its payments to Palestinians who committed terrorist attacks against Israelis, also known as "pay-to-slay." He reiterated that if Palestinians had only a single penny left, it would go to the prisoners and the families of the "martyrs." Abbas stated that the prisoners and martyrs are the "most dear" to Palestinians, and he would not allow payments to them to be reduced.

    It is worth noting that in the version of this speech aired on Palestinian TV and posted on Abbas's Facebook page, any reference to the continued payments to prisoners and “martyr” families was redacted.

  • Idiot media figures

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Full post:

    As you cannot know what the truth is behind the production but want it restored online for public consumption anyway – I want to clarify what seems to be your publicly stated position:

    You believe it does not matter:
    If it is Hamas propaganda
    If the BBC did give money to Hamas
    If it was scripted
    If it is mistranslated
    If scenes were staged
    If Hamas family members were involved
    If the actors support the murder of Jews
    If the actors celebrated Oct 7
    If scenes etc are stitched together
    If a proscribed group had editorial input/p>

    You still want it shown as a factual account to the British public./p>

    Your position isn't just ethically unsupportable and deeply unprofessional – it also supports breaking UK law to work with and pay radical Islamic terrorists./p>

    And if this gives any indication into the quality and professionalism of your own work – none of you should ever work in the industry again.

  • What the Palestinians want

    ’s decision, for he had one thing Arafat did not: the lesson of Arafat’s failure. Abbas understood the wages of inflexibility, he knew the price of rejection and that the Palestinians would pay it in blood. In declining Olmert’s blueprint, he condemned his own people to decades of dispossession. He didn’t just deny them a state, he stole the Palestinians’ future. That is not a tragedy, it is treason….

    The 7 October massacre has brought down upon Palestinian heads a ferocious Israeli retaliation and reliably sympathetic western governments are under threat from right-wing populists who harbour more affinity for Israel. The transfer of Palestinians out of the land, once a fringe prescription promoted by the likes of Meir Kahane, is now advocated by the president of the United States. Israel has shifted rightwards and any appetite for the sort of territorial division proposed by Ehud Olmert is limited to a depleted and moribund left. If the Palestinians ever return to the negotiating table they will find themselves negotiating over much less than before.

    Mahmoud Abbas is another Palestinian leader who chose self-sabotage over self-determination and the Olmert map is a symbol of his inexcusable folly.

    It's long been clear that the Palestinians have never been interested in a two-state solution: what they really want is the destruction of Israel. They've been encouraged in this head-in-the-sand attitude to a great extent by the beneficence of UNRWA, which for 75 years or so has catered to their fantasy that they are and always will be refugees – until the time of Israel's inevitable disappearance – while pouring money into schools which teach them that their goal in life is to kill Jews. Also, the Arabs are never held to account for their violence against Israel. After each defeat they just start back again, building up for the next attack.

    Will it be different this time? The Israelis are certainly at the end of their patience, but it's not clear that the Palestinians themselves are any nearer to some kind of accommodation. The great tragedy is that the world at large seems more pro-Palestinian than ever – helped along by distorted reporting from the likes of the BBC. 

    It's also not helped by the framing of this by western media as solely a territorial political conflict, while determinedly ignoring the clear and dominant Islamic doctrines driving Iran and Hamas.

  • Executed for “anti-people” crimes

    ions and implement fundamental reforms instead.”

    In other words, the officials were carrying out routine party policy, but were over-zealous to the extent that local complaints could no longer be ignored. So, instead of changing the policies, they just execute the officials and carry on as before.

  • You cannot trust Putin

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

  • It’s easy. Yes or no?

    Interviewing Stephen Feinberg, nominee for deputy defense secretary. At least one Democrat is prepared to challenge the Trump Ukraine lies.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Powered by