Even though we’re in the fallow period between Christmas and New Year, newspapers still have a few items of interest, especially when it comes to following up on stories from the past 12 months.

Theresa May supports Scottish trans law

On Tuesday, December 27, former Prime Minister Theresa May, the MP for Maidenhead, said she supports the Gender Recognition Reform bill that the Scottish parliament passed last week.

The Times reported:

The former prime minister broke ranks with fellow Tories in offering her support for the legislation, passed by Holyrood last week, which simplifies the process for trans people to obtain a gender recognition certificate without a medical diagnosis …

Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, confirmed that his government was contemplating the “appropriate course of action”, claiming there were concerns about the bill’s impact on the safety of women and children …

“We have different legal systems,” she told Radio 4. “Obviously, there’s a different system in Scotland, but I think it is important when any part of the UK is looking at legislation that only affects that part of the UK, that thought is given to what the impact would be on the Union. At the end of the day it is about people, and it’s about the impact it would have on people.”

During her tenure May gave her support to allowing people to change gender without medical checks, stating: “Being trans is not an illness and it should not be treated as such.”

Her successors have distanced themselves from her stance. May said this week: “The very fact that I put the proposal forward shows that that was something that I thought was important to do, particularly to take some of the medical aspects out of this. But the [UK] government has looked again at it and has taken the decision that it has.”

It is difficult to understand why Theresa May does not understand why so many Scots object to this new law. Perhaps she needs to find herself in a changing room with a random man claiming to be a woman. Then again, she is quite tall so she probably would not feel intimidated. What about shorter women, though? And what about girls? Shouldn’t Mrs May want to protect her sisters?

British Heart Foundation upset at MP’s claims about coronavirus vaccine

On Tuesday, December 13, the Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen was granted an adjournment debate in the House of Commons in which he stated why the coronavirus vaccine roll out should be halted.

On Wednesday, December 28, The Times reported that the British Heart Foundation is unhappy with Bridgen’s claims:

The British Heart Foundation has called on the Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen to provide evidence for his claim that a senior member of the charity was suppressing data on vaccine harms …

Bridgen said he had information that someone in a “prominent leadership role” in the foundation was “covering up clear data that reveals that the mRNA vaccine increases inflammation of the heart arteries”.

The charity said in a statement that it strongly denied the allegations, adding that its advice on the safety of the vaccines was “based on rigorous scrutiny of the latest evidence” and “we would encourage those making these allegations to share specific, credible information with us that supports them” …

Some of the MP’s claims, including about senior figures in the foundation, seem to be based on analyses by Aseem Malhotra, a controversial cardiologist who opposes the vaccines and whose dietary advice has been criticised by the organisation in the past. When in 2016 Malhotra authored a report that claimed eating fatty foods did not make you fat, the foundation issued a rebuttal in which senior academics described the claims as “absurd and plain wrong”.

Bridgen told parliament that “the benefits of the vaccine are close to non-existent”, and there was a “clear case for complete suspension of these emergency use authorisation vaccines” …

In a statement to The Times, the foundation said: “The scientific consensus is that the benefits of Covid-19 vaccination, including a reduced risk of severe illness or death, far outweigh the very small risk of rare side effects like myocarditis or pericarditis for the vast majority of people, especially as people get older.

“Scientific evidence shows that Covid-19 itself is much more likely to cause myocarditis than the vaccine is, and people who are vaccinated have a much lower risk of getting other serious complications caused by Covid-19.

“We employ a small leadership team of senior scientists and cardiologists to oversee and administer our research funding programmes, who also continue to undertake some of their own research. We can categorically say that nobody within this leadership team has acted in the way claimed by Mr Bridgen.”

In time, Dr Malhotra and Andrew Bridgen will be found on the right side of history. Furthermore, Dr Malhotra is right in saying that eating fatty foods do not make you fat. What makes people fat is combining fat with carbohydrate. One imagines that the British Heart Foundation also push a carb-heavy diet, when one can live a perfectly healthy life without starches and sugars.

Former political prisoner misses being locked up in Iran

For years, Labour MPs asked the Leader of the House and the Foreign Secretary at least weekly about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a journalist and charity worker who had been imprisoned in Iran from 2016 until her release in March this year.

It always struck me as interesting that no Conservative MP ever asked about her.

Zaghari-Ratcliffe took British citizenship while retaining her Iranian citizenship. Iran does not recognise dual nationality. She returned to visit her parents in 2016 and was arrested on her way back to the UK.

Liz Truss, then Foreign Secretary, managed to secure the woman’s release. Money was involved, compensation for an unrelated matter between the UK and Iran.

On March 16, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the move:

The following day, Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released into her family’s care:

On March 21, having returned to the UK and reunited with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their seven-year-old daughter Gabriella, she gave a press conference. What mother voluntarily leaves a one-year-old to take a long-distance journey?

The Mail reported:

Freed Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has today revealed her difficult path back to normality after being held captive in Iran for six years – while also taking aim at Government for taking more than half a decade to bring her home. 

In her first televised press conference since returning to the UK, the British-Iranian national admitted she was still getting to know her family ‘better’ again following ‘six years of hell’ in Tehran. 

In an emotional press conference, she praised her ‘amazing’ husband Richard’s tireless campaigning efforts and said her reunion with him and daughter Gabriella had been ‘precious’ and ‘glorious’.

Mr Ratcliffe meanwhile said their family needed time to ‘heal’ after a traumatic six years, but that he was ‘immensely pleased and proud’ that his wife was home.

He also joked with reporters that he was ‘negotiating’ with his wife about the pair sharing the same bed once again, revealing that she had been sleeping alongside their young seven-year-old Gabriella following her return on Thursday. 

The charity worker, 44, who has been held as a prisoner in Iran since 2016, was flown back to the UK last week after the Government settled a historical £400million debt owed to Iran over a cancelled 1970s order for British tanks. 

Mr Ratcliffe, who has campaigned tirelessly for her release over the last six years, praised the efforts of the Government in helping secure her return.

But sitting beside her husband, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who turned up to the media briefing wearing yellow and blue, the colours of Ukraine, questioned why it had taken so long.

‘The journey back was tough. I grant what Richard said about the Foreign Secretary, but I don’t really agree with him on that level,’ she told journalists.

‘I have seen five foreign secretaries over the course of six years. That is unprecedented given the politics of the UK.

‘I love you Richard, I respect what you believe. But I was told many many times: “Oh, we are going to get you home”. That never happened.

The Mail has a screenshot from BBC News of the press conference. It was clear that her husband really loves her. He gazed at her as he reached over to put his hand on hers. Check out the hateful look she gave him in return.

He said that:

it would be ‘baby steps’ for him and his family, revealing he was not yet ‘allowed’ to sleep alongside his wife and daughter Gabriella.

Mr Ratcliffe said: ‘It is baby steps for us. I’m super proud of her, he strength, her grace. 

‘We are still negotiating whether daddy is allowed in the same bed as Gabriella and Nazanin.

‘We’ll get there. I think we’ll do this (interview) and then we will disappear off and heal a bit.’

He also said it was ‘nice to be retiring’ from the public-eye after six years of campaigning, including a 21-day hunger strike.

On March 22, The Conservative Woman had a photo of Ratcliffe on the hunger strike for his wife and a post, ‘What aren’t we being told about petulant Nazanin’s release by Iran?’

Excerpts follow:

First, some facts. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born in Iran. She lived there until she was 28, during which time she was employed by the World Health Organisation, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and the Japan International Co-operation Agency.  

She moved to the UK in 2007 to undertake a Master’s degree at London Metropolitan University. Having completed her degree, she worked for various British charities in London, including the Centre for Public Innovation, BBC Media Action and the Thomson Reuters Foundation (TRF). 

A legal opinion prepared in 2017 by Professor John Dugard and Tatyana Eatwell, of Doughty Street Chambers, and Alison Macdonald QC, of Matrix Chambers, claimed that her work for the TRF involved ‘managing journalism training abroad (not in Iran); managing TRF’s partnership with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and other members of the Westminster Consortium, including the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), on a project aimed at strengthening the parliaments of other States, at those States’ invitation.  

‘Such States included Lebanon; fundraising for and managing FCO-funded projects in Morocco, Jordan and the Turks and Caicos Islands.’

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe is clearly very bright, ambitious and well-connected. She met her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, in November 2007. They got engaged in June 2009 and married at Winchester Register Office in August 2009.  

She became a British citizen in March 2013, though she remains a citizen of Iran. She would make regular trips to Iran to visit her parents. During one such trip, on April 3, 2016, she was arrested and detained by the Revolutionary Guard at Tehran airport on security grounds. 

Iran does not recognise anybody with dual nationality – a fact Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe knew, because she entered the country of her birth using her Iranian passport, in keeping with Iranian law.

Presumably she knew the risk she was taking by going there. She also knew her status immediately made Britain’s negotiating position extremely challenging: Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, the British government, which has not enjoyed strong relations with Iran in recent years, was in no position to dictate terms to Iran over the release of a person whom the Iranian regime considered to be one of its own.  

I am surprised that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe did not acknowledge this more clearly yesterday. She has spent most of her life in Iran, after all, rather than in Britain. 

After much lobbying at an official level, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was released after Britain agreed to repay a £400million debt for some tanks which were ordered by the Iranians in the 1970s but never delivered by the British.  

This is considered by some politicians to have been a bad move. For example, President Trump’s former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has called the debt repayment ‘blood money’ …

Lastly, I am struck by how well Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe looks. Indeed, while her husband appears pale and drained, she seems on the surface to be in pretty good health, perfectly strong and capable. This is to be welcomed, of course, but the contrast between her and her husband is noteworthy nonetheless. 

This episode sits uneasily with me. Something about it is not right. Certainly, it seems that we British are not being told something about this case, even while that £400million debt is repaid via public funds.  

I am certain that we will never learn the full truth of this matter and that no amount of inquiry by the Foreign Affairs select committee will bring us the truth. 

All I do know is that in years gone by, other hostages have been freed under very different circumstances and have not complained publicly about why it took so long within days of returning to Britain.  

Indeed, I know someone who was imprisoned by a dictatorship on trumped-up charges in the 1980s and held for longer than Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was. When he was eventually released, he never said a word against the British government. He was just glad to be home. 

A week later, Labour MPs appealed to have Zaghari-Ratcliffe made a peer in the House of Lords. Look at the love in her husband’s eyes:

Why? On what merits? In any event, it never happened.

On Wednesday, December 28, The Times reported that she told tennis star Andy Murray that she misses prison:

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe told an emotional Sir Andy Murray that she sometimes missed prison and the strong friendships she made during her six years of incarceration in Iran.

She was interviewing the two-time Wimbledon champion on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, which she guest-edited today.

Sir Andy teared up and had to pause while the pair discussed her experiences and her joy at being able to watch him win Wimbledon in 2016.

When asked whether she did anything positive with her time in prison, she said: “When I came out, there were times when I felt like I really missed my friends and missed prison.

“It’s a very odd thing to say. But then you get used to your space in prison and then, I don’t know whether people can actually say they missed prison, but I sometimes think I miss the environment and my friendships.”

She told Sir Andy of the “joyful” feeling of being able to watch him win the Wimbledon title in 2016 on one of the only two channels she was allowed to watch from solitary confinement …

She told him that she taught other inmates his name while playing an Iranian version of charades and that watching him win felt like being “close to home all of a sudden” …

Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 44, who has dual British-Iranian citizenship, was detained in 2016 as she was about to fly home after visiting family in Iran. She was released in March following a long campaign by her British husband, Richard Ratcliffe.

Oh, my days! Words fail me. Actually, they don’t. So I will think Pauline thoughts instead.

Mrs Sunak is on the cover of Tatler

The Sunaks opened the doors of No. 10 Downing Street to Britain’s oldest magazine, Tatler.

Akshata Murty is the cover lady for the society magazine’s February 2023 issue: ‘No. 10’s chatelaine: Inside the secret world of Mrs Sunak’.

It is a rather secret world, because the Prime Minister’s wife declined to give the magazine an interview. She authorised friends to speak on her behalf.

On December 28, The Times reported:

Murty, the daughter of an Indian billionaire who met the future prime minister at university in California, has never given an interview but authorised her friends to speak to Tatler. They describe a passionate Brexiteer who loves Yorkshire, rarely lets friends leave without food to take home and wants Downing Street to “open up” …

Murty is said to want to bring “more of the north to Downing Street”. Allegra Stratton, Sunak’s ex-head of communications and the wife of James Forsyth, his new political secretary, said: “Yorkshire has looked after Akshata.” She added: “Over the summer, during the first leadership campaign, it was bruising for her, and the entire family hunkered down in the constituency, and it put its arm around them.”

There’s a lot about interiors in the article.

Of course, we want to know if they live in No. 10 or No. 11:

The couple have opted to live in the flat above 10 Downing Street, which they used when Sunak was chancellor, rather than the larger flat above No 11, used by prime ministers since 1997.

Sunak and Murty, both 42, carried out an extensive refurbishment of the flat when he was chancellor, spending their own money, in contrast to the convoluted arrangement that landed Johnson in trouble.

Could Boris make a comeback in 2023?

Speaking of Downing Street, could next year see a Boris comeback?

The Telegraph‘s political editor Ben Riley-Smith thinks so:

The former prime minister will take opportunities to push his case for being the best-placed Tory to win the next election.

What occasions will these be? There are expected to be plenty. Perhaps it will be one of the (many) paid speaking events Boris is likely to take on next year. He is attempting – as friends have said publicly – to put ‘hay in the loft’. A recent appearance for the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers in Washington, DC alone brought in £276,130. There will be speeches on the world stage, too. Johnson dropped into the COP27 UN climate change conference in October, joking unusual summer heat had played a part in his ouster, and has vowed to keep championing Ukraine. 

The news of his COP attendance dropped before Sunak, the victor of their leadership tussle, had announced he was attending. It was a sign he is happy to be a thorn in his successor’s side. Speeches from the Commons backbenches can be expected too. The former prime minister has indicated he is willing to defend his legacy. Translated: he will speak out if his policies and manifesto promises are watered down or ditched.

Could we also get an appearance at next autumn’s Tory conference? He sat this year’s one out, but that was just after he left office. A return would be like slipping on an old pair of slippers, Johnson re-adopting the role that helped make his political name – the darling of delegates, tweaking the nose of the current leader.

It’s unlikely that Labour MP Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, would relish it, however. He told BBC Radio 4 that 2022 has been a ‘disaster’. The Times has more:

Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he had “never ever seen anything like it before” when reflecting on a tumultuous year in Westminster. He told PM on BBC Radio 4: “The whole thing has been the strangest of strangest of years.”

He added: “Brexit divided the country, divided families, and people’s respect for democracy has struggled — and of course we didn’t help this year with what went on.” Hoyle described as a “disaster” how the Conservatives were unable to unite round a prime minister. He said Boris Johnson had “the biggest majority we’ve seen for [the] Conservatives” but “it all fell apart”.

He said: “When you get to a point where one minister who’s meant to be answering questions has resigned, the next minister comes in . . . I’ve never seen anything like it, it was bizarre. We never knew who was going to be at the dispatch box.”

What a year it’s been. I hope that 2023 will be an improvement.

More news tomorrow.