The fun and games in woke Whitehall continue. After revealing earlier this week how FCDO mandarins were receiving lectures on “trans and intersex inclusion” during working hours, Guido has now been sent another internal document showing that the DHSC held an “intensive five-day training course” last month in which officials were given talks from “senior speakers” with “top level advice on policymaking“. Not only were staff treated to lectures about “intersectionality” and “health inequalities“, one of these “senior speakers” was Nannette Youssef from the Runnymede Trust: a Green Party councillor and self-described socialist who accused the government of having “far right backing”, “anti-Muslim” policies, and just months ago, tweeted “Fuck #PritiPatel”.

According to the document, Youssef was invited on behalf of Runnymede to “provide a perspective from an external organisation“. The online talk lasted a full hour, and once again, taking place at the start of a working day. Presumably the perspective of a self-described socialist and “intersectional feminist” is exactly what health department officials need at 9am on a Tuesday – not to mention in the midst of a pandemic.

A government source tells Guido:

“With backlogs building up, DHSC should know better than clocking off for this nonsense. But doing it in the name of diversity and indulging someone who maligns one of the most senior British Asians in public life, and a close colleague of their boss, is a bad joke.”

Doing it at the taxpayers’ expense isn’t a great joke either. The document also stresses – in caps – that the event programme was “NOT SEEN BY MINISTERS” and “NOT A STATEMENT OF POLICY”. That the civil service is being trained in this gobbledegook nonsense leaves Guido with little hope that the advice they go on to give will be sound…

Read the full document below…