The Equalities Minister Liz Truss has made a speech condemning trendy and often evidence light programme such as ‘unconcsious bias training and the left’s policy of seeing groups rather than individuals. There’s the usual guff about equality for those in certain groups such as LGBT and the disabled in the speech and how the current cabinet is the most ‘diverse’ ever but there was also much criticism of the left and of identity politics.

The full speech is up on Guido Fawkes’s site but this snippet caught my attention.

In 1997, there was a huge celebration of all-women shortlists delivering Blair’s babes.

But 23 years later, the Labour Party still hasn’t had a female leader. In the last leadership election, there were four women standing…but the man won. Again.

In addition, this focus on groups at the expense of individuals has led to harmful unintended consequences.

It has led to the Left turning a blind eye to practices that undermine equality, whether it be failing to defend single-sex spaces, hard fought for by generations of women… enabling and tolerating antisemitism … or the appalling grooming of young girls in towns like Rotherham.

Although time and time again, the Left’s ideas have been shown to fail, they still pervade our body politic.

There’s little that I find I can fundamentally disagree with in this section. Ms Truss is correct that Labour talk tough on women but have failed to have a woman leader and promote policies that damage women such as attacking the idea of single sex spaces. She is also correct that Labour went a long way to encourage the turning of a blind eye to Islamic Sex Crime in places like Rotherham.

This might be the start of a government ‘war on woke’ but it is equally likely that this speech may merely be empty words to keep on board those who voted Tory for the first time in 2019 in the former Red Wall seats. We should not forget that wokery is extremely unpopular among the general public and this may be a cynical way to shore up the Tory vote in the period before the 2021 English local council elections. We will just have to wait and see whether the government is serious about going after the damaging and deluded Left or whether this is just empty politicking. I find the timing of this speech quite suspicious coming as it does before the local elections where it’s likely that the Tories will get a serious kicking over the way that they’ve managed the Covid situation. I’ve seen too many false dawns from the Tories who have promised much on issues such as migration and cultural issues but who have consistently failed to deliver on their promises, to take this speech wholly on trust.