Wings Over Scotland

So Cathy Newman of Channel 4 News got herself a scoop last night.

And to be honest, readers, we were a bit confused. “Gender critical views” are not only lawful things to hold and express, they’re one of a small subset of opinions that are explicitly protected as such in law. And why would a man very occasionally airing some lawful and protected views on social media be a news story? You might as well run “BREAKING: Premiership footballer discovered to enjoy cheese-and-ham toasties”.

So we thought it merited a closer look.

Newman didn’t reveal any of the offending tweets (such is the way nowadays, as covered in Wings passim – we’re told things are “offensive” or “controversial”, but not actually shown them to judge for ourselves). But Natasha Loder, the Health Editor of The Economist, was so obviously excited at the development that she let the cat out of the big black binbag of “serious questions”.

Wings readers might be scratching their heads trying to detect anything improper there. Professor George said women’s rights were worth defending and expressed the view that men shouldn’t punch women in the head in boxing matches – opinions which until recently would have been reliably shared by all human beings outside of the Taliban. He also endorsed a tweet from JK Rowling (which you can read in full here) in support of Sandie Peggie, who an employment tribunal found had been harassed by her employer in the service of a trans doctor.

Contrary to Newman’s claim, none of the tweets – or at a minimum, none that have been published – involved “mocking trans supporters”.

It was particularly curious given that Prof George had NOT even been employed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority at the time he posted any of them – as Newman semi-accurately noted, he only took the role last month after being appointed in November 2025.

One might have imagined that the MHRA would have been delighted to have such an upstanding figure on board. Its recent track record hasn’t been the best.

But it seems that Professor George took his responsibilities a little too seriously for some people’s liking, and a media hatchet job was swiftly commissioned.

It’s hard to understand why, however, if Prof George holding normal, reasonable, lawful opinions about medicine and science disqualifies him from performing key aspects of his job as the Chief Medical and Scientific Officer, the same principle doesn’t apply elsewhere in the NHS.

The Health Research Authority is heavily involved in the PATHWAYS puberty blocker trial that Professor George was just removed from oversight of.

And this is its current Interim Director.

Jonathan Fennelly-Barnwell was Deputy Director of Approvals at the Health Research Authority when the highly controversial puberty blockers trial was approved, and as such is the person who ought to have been most concerned with making sure it was safe and ethical.

It was in that role that he appeared in a Teams meeting last year with this as his background.

(He’s been blacked out here in case any details help reveal the identity of the colleague who sent the pic to us.)

So why didn’t he? Well, here he is liking a Facebook post last December about being a “trans ally” by Hazell Dean, the Patron of Pride In Surrey, whose founder Stephen Ireland was imprisoned for 24 years last June for the rape of a 12-year-old boy and other child sex offences.

Fennelly-Bramwell is a dedicated “queer” activist. In 2015 he contributed to a video project reported by the Towards Queer website that sought to “reclaim Shakespeare as a queer figure”. You can see the video here. 

In 2023, in his official NHS capacity, he celebrated the Stonewall riots, having previously enrolled the Authority in the Stonewall Diversity Champions Scheme and “delivered a suite of activities to support trans inclusivity” and issue “guidance on the use of personal pronouns”.

None of these activities are in any way unlawful or improper. But it seems reasonable to posit that given his views on “anti-trans arseholes”, his stance as a declared “trans ally” and his membership of the “LGBTQ+ staff led interest group”, Mr Fennelly-Barnwell  has at least as much of an impartiality issue as Prof. Jacob George.

So why didn’t he recuse himself from the decision to go ahead with the PATHWAYS trial, and failing that why hasn’t the CEO done so?

Oh, right. Perhaps that’s why the HRA has removed itself from Twitter.

The NHS is one of the most trans-captured organisations in the entire UK, as the Sandie Peggie case, the Darlington nurses case and the Jennifer Melle case (among many others) have all demonstrated starkly in recent months. But there have been few clearer illustrations of the double standard widely employed with regard to gender ideology than this.

A man with an unblemished records making a few comments (before he was even in a relevant post) that are both factually and medically correct, and in line with the views of the vast majority of people in the UK including those who work in the NHS, is smeared as some sort of dangerous bigot, while someone actively involved in approving the puberty blockers trials who refers to “anti-trans arseholes” and who wants to “queer” everything in sight remains at the heart of proceedings.

(Top of the list of things he wants to “queer” is spelling, it seems.)

But we’re sure Cathy Newman and Natasha Loder are on the case.