Bartholomew's Notes

From the Daily Telegraph:

The NHS has been urged to apologise for publishing guidance extolling the benefits of first-cousin marriage despite the increased risk of birth defects.

Guidance published last week by the NHS England’s Genomics Education Programme says first-cousin marriage is linked to “stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages”.

But the practice has also been linked to oppression of women and also has a proven increased risk of genetic disease in offspring of first-cousin relationships.

Richard Holden, the Tory MP, told the Mail On Sunday: “Our NHS should stop taking the knee to damaging and oppressive cultural practices…” [1]

The item under discussion here is a short blog post that appeared a week ago under a strand entitled “Genomics in Practice” and titled “Should the UK ban first-cousin marriage?”. It is not “NHS guidance”; indeed, it ended with the disclaimer that “This article is for informational or educational purposes, and does not substitute professional medical advice”. This is acknowledged at the end of the Telegraph and Mail on Sunday pieces, where “a spokesman for NHS England” is quoted as saying that “The article published on the website of the Genomics Education Programme is a summary of existing scientific research and the public policy debate. It is not expressing an NHS view.”

The post was deleted following the adverse media coverage, but it can still be accessed on the Internet Archive. Contrary to the impression given by the Telegraph, the post acknowledged the points about oppression of women and increased genetic risk, and it noted in particular recent BBC coverage of increased rates of genetic illness in Bradford. However, this is balanced with the views of “Professor Sam Oddie, who has worked with families affected by genetic conditions in Bradford for over 20 years”. Oddie argues that endogamy “in which people marry within the limits of their close community” is more significant than first-cousin marriage, and that

genetic counselling, awareness-raising initiatives and public health campaigns are all important tools to help families make informed decisions without stigmatising certain communities and cultural traditions. In order to balance respect for cultural practices with evidence-based healthcare, Professor Oddie stresses a focus on what he calls ‘genetic literacy’ – that is, education and voluntary screening – rather than simply banning the practice of first-cousin marriage.

The issue of “benefits” came near the end of the post:

Research into first-cousin marriage describes various potential benefits, including stronger extended family support systems and economic advantages (resources, property and inheritance can be consolidated rather than diluted across households).

This is a perfectly reasonable observation that helps to explain why the practice persists and even has defenders: acknowledging the perceived reality of “potential benefits” does not mean “extolling” them. Oddie’s arguments against a ban are debatable, but are not so self-evidently wrong that they ought not to be aired on a science website. (2)

The Mail on Sunday report on which the Telegraph article is based comes via the paper’s political editor, Glen Owen, which is why it is primarily a vehicle for Richard Holden. However, there is also a Daily Mail version that focuses more on criticisms made by Pakistani-heritage opponents of cousin marriage. It should be noted that the practice is actually now in decline in Bradford.

The MoS also includes a quote from “Dr Patrick Nash, an expert on religious law and director of the Pharos Foundation”:

‘Cousin marriage is incest, plain and simple, and needs to be banned with the utmost urgency – there is no ‘balance’ to be struck between this cultural lifestyle choice and the severe public health implications it incurs.

‘This official article is deeply misleading and should be retracted with an apology so that the public is not misled by omission and half-truths.’

Nash published an article putting forward several lines of argument in favour of a ban last year – it was cited in the House of Commons by Holden in Decembere and is available on open access here. It’s actually a stronger piece than one might expect given the simplistic shrillness of his newspaper quote.

Footnotes

1. Holden’s reference to “taking the knee” is part of a strategy whereby the BLM protest gesture is reframed as an attitude of white submissiveness, divorced from its original context as a gesture of solidarity with Colin Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the US national anthem as a protest against police brutality.

2. The post also notes that “UK laws allowing first-cousin marriage date back to the reign of Henry VIII in the 16th century: having broken with Rome in order to marry Anne Boleyn, Henry passed a new law that enabled him to marry her cousin, Catherine Howard, four years after Anne’s execution”. Critics of the post cite this passage as evidence that its author doesn’t know the difference between consanguinity and marrying an in-law, although ironically the source provided for the detail is Holden’s own reference to it in Parliament. The most famous cousin marriage in British history of course is probably that of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; most people would regard describing it as an incestuous union as ludicrously polemical.

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From Mediaite:

President Donald Trump called on a friendly reporter during a press conference with Prime Minister Keir Starmer as part of his state visit to the United Kingdom on Thursday, who complimented the American president on being a “proud Christian leader.”

Bev Turner with GB News then asked Starmer, “Having been in DC for a few weeks, it’s really interesting to see how you run the country as a proud Christian leader. And it really begs the question to the prime minister, if you don’t mind, are we still a Christian country?”

Trump previously encountered Turner in Scotland in July, and she says that he remembered her when she visited the Oval Office earlier this month in the company of Nigel Farage.

I would have answered such a question by advising Turner to consult a sociologist of religion, but that obviously was not the point she was interested in: Starmer is known not be a man of faith, having stated in a Sunday Times Magazine interview from 2021 that he does not believe in God, and Turner was hopeful that his answer would be something that would alienate Trump and American viewers.

Instead, though, Starmer responded with some brief acknowledgement of what we might call Britain’s Christian heritage, and how that has been part of his own life:

“Yeah. Look, I mean, in terms of a Christian country, I was christened. So, that is my church, has been all my life,” Starmer began. “And we are, you know, that is wired into our informal constitution. Of course, we celebrate many other faiths as well. And I’m really proud that we’re able to do so as a country.”

This is the sort of answer you might expect from a politician: diplomatic and a bit vague, but also an attempt to emphasise common ground with a wide range of voters.

The press conference then moved on, but Turner thought she had sniffed out a gotcha and she returned to the subject later, as Trump boarded his plane. She told Trump that Starmer had said in his Times interview that he is a “convicted atheist” – not actually his self-description (1) – and she asked him whether he thought Starmer was “the kind of guy that says something when you’re there…”. However, Trump declined to be steered, and instead described Starmer as “nice” and a “fine person”, before discussing a couple of areas of disagreement. The idea of Trump of all people being asked to pass judgment on another politician’s sincerity in matters of religion is particularly ludicrous.

On social media, Turner followed up by promoting the views of an American fundamentalist who characterised Starmer’s answer as evidence that the UK is “a nation ruled by liars and Satanists”. Turner has frequently promoted conspiracism on social media (e.g. here, here and here), and at one point last year even toyed with the possibility that Trump himself is a “psyop”.

Meanwhile, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said in August that she lost her faith in 2008 after reading about the crimes of Josef Fritzl, while Nigel Farage has suggested that he avoids church because the vicar would subject him to a “Marxist lecture”.

Footnote

1. The 2021 interview can be read here. Starmer stated:

“This is going to sound odd, but I do believe in faith. I’ve a lot of time and respect for faith. I am not of faith, I don’t believe in God — but I can see the power of faith and the way it brings people together.”

Condensing this into “convicted atheist” gives an impression of a rather more antagonistic view of religion.

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The Daily Mail notes some curious rhetoric from Saturday’s “Unite the Kingdom” rally in London, which Tommy Robinson had billed as a “free speech festival”:

…speakers included New Zealand Christian fundamentalist Brian Tamaki, who told the crowd: ‘Christianity versus the rest. Islam, Hinduism, Bahai, Buddhism, whatever else you’re into — they’re all false. We gotta clean our countries up.

‘Ban any type of public expression in our Christian nation from other religions. Ban halal. Ban burqas. Ban mosques, temples, shrines. We don’t want those in our countries.’

I extracted the clip here, and the wider context is available here. Tamaki, who heads the neo-Pentecostal Destiny Church, is of Māori heritage; his act began with members of his church performing a haka, and after his speech they tore apart a series of flags, starting with a plain white one inscribed with “SECULAR HUMANISM” and “NO RELIGION”. This was followed by flags representing the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic State, and then the Palestinian national flag, described as representing “the Palestinian religion of lies and corruption” (1).

Tamaki was no outlier; David Campanale, reporting for Premier Christianity magazine, noted

There was a praise and worship band on the main platform, featuring Pastor Rikki Doolan (who was once caught on camera by an Al-Jazeera investigation offering to help launder dirty money), while a cleric in bishop’s garb led the assembled mass of humanity in the Lord’s Prayer.

…Tommy Robinson also picked up on the Christian messaging, telling the crowd, “There has been a globalist revolution. They have attacked the family. They’ve attacked Christianity. They’ve opened the borders. They’ve flooded our nations. We are the start of a counter revolution”.

He was followed by far-right and nationalist politicians from across Europe, including an AFD MP from Germany, the cancelled Romanian presidential candidate George Simion, who urged respect for “God, faith, family, homeland.” Dutch Catholic Eva Vlaardingerbroek spoke, as did representatives of extreme Belgian party Vlaams Belang, the Danish People’s Party and Polish MEP from Law and Justice, Dominik Tarczyński, who used to work at Westminster’s Catholic cathedral.

Campandale also noted the prevalence of “people wearing Crusader outfits”, and “flags with Bible verses such as ‘Jesus the Way, the Truth, the Life’, or ‘Jesus is Lord’ and ‘Turn back to God'”. However, “some people I interviewed in the crowd carrying Jesus flags said they were not Christians and would not be in church on Sunday”. His interviewing was cut short when he was chased off by two drunk men who had determined he was a “leftie”.

The “cleric  in bishop’s garb” noted by Campandale was Bishop Ceirion Dewar of the Confessing Anglican Church (2), who was prominent in Robinson’s previous rally in July last year – this year, he was in the second row of march, and one photo shows him standing behind Robinson, Laurence Fox and Katie Hopkins. His presence was noted by Hope Not Hate, along with “Rev. Brett Murphy and Right Rev. Dr. David Nicholls from Morecambe, Lancashire”. The white-haired Nicholls, holding a wooden crozier and also wearing bishop’s garb, can be seen in a photograph published by the Daily Mail, although not identified by the paper (3).

One speaker not noted by Campandale was the Texas Republican Congressional candidate Valentina Gomez, who told the crowd that “we either fight now or we die, and we’re fighters, we are warriors of Jesus Christ”. Gomez characterised Keir Starmer as “the biggest paedophile-protector in history” and called for a new prime minister who will “send all of these rapist Muslims and dirty rugs back to their shariah nations”. One hostile social media interlocutor who afterwards reacted to an upload of her speech was dismissed as a “dirty pakistani Muslim”.

Christianity and Christian values as Britain’s culture were also emphasised by ex-SAS soldier and sometime TV presenter Ant Middleton, including the perennial complaint that “we can’t even fucking celebrate Christmas these days without offending someone” (4).

Footnotes

1. Tamaki also had a warning for the king:

King Charles is supposed to be the defender of the faith, he took a oath. He has not defended Christianity, he’s defended Islam. He’s defended other religions. And I’m telling you on behalf of Australia and New Zealand and [at least probably?] Canada… You do not come out and declare that Christianity must be the official religion of our countries again, then we’re going to pull away from the monarchy and we’ll form a Christian alliance, a legion of nations. We’ll join the United States of America.

This anti-Royalist strand of the populist right is worth keeping an eye on.

2. Dewar’s website says that he was ordained in 1999 and consecrated in 2005, but does say by whom. On LinkedIn, he describes himself as a Pentecostal, and posts on Facebook indicate that he is close to the American Prosperity Gospel preacher Mike Murdock (previously blogged here in relation to another British associate) and to various UK-based British-African church leaders. In 2012 he was involved in a financial dispute with an elderly woman, in which a court ordered him to pay £1000.

3. Murphy was ordained in the Anglican Church of Australia but moved over to the Free Church of England in 2023, which he managed to stay with for a whole 13 months before being dismissed. Nicholls, meanwhile, is described as a “Retired Bishop” of the Communion of International Catholic Communities (based in Rockwell, Texas): he is also variously Vice-Chancellor of St. Andrews Theological University International in India and Chief of Chaplains of the Pontifical Walsingham Guard of the United Roman-Ruthenian Church. Their Emmanuel Church in Morecambe describes itself as Anglican and as part of the Church of England, although it is actually under the oversight of Archbishop-Bishop Frederick Belmonte of the the Anglican Church in the Philippines (Traditional). This is part of Anglican Church Traditional, which is not to be confused with the Traditional Anglican Church.

4. Ant Middleton also used his speech to announce his intention to stand for mayor of London, although this is a subject he has already referred to frequently on social media. There, he cites Sadiq Kahn’s ethnicity as a reason not not vote for him: he argues that “1st, 2nd & 3rd generation immigrants SHOULD NOT hold top tier government positions” and that “Our Capital City of our Christian country needs to be run by a native Brit with generational Christian values, principles and morals coursing through their veins”. Earlier this year, he was disqualified as a company director over £1 million unpaid tax; in March, he promised to “release my side of the story tomorrow”, but as far as I know it has not yet appeared.

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Wedger’s comments endorsed by Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp

A front-page splash at the Daily Express:

Sadiq Khan is facing pressure to resign over his failure to accept there is a grooming gang problem in London

It comes after a police whistleblower revealed to the Express that the “horrific crime” has been rife in London for 20 years.

…Decorated former detective Jon Wedger claims he uncovered a trove of evidence suggesting that there is organised sexual exploitation of children in the capital on a level that goes way beyond notorious scandals in towns like Rotherham or Rochdale.

…”They were being sold in crack houses, swapped for nine rocks of crack, then taken to hotels to have sex with builders that were working in central London. After that, the kids would then be taken to upmarket Arab restaurants in Mayfair around the Curzon Street, where they would be traded for as much as £2,000 each. That was happening on a daily basis.”

…The former detective said Mr Khan should be “removed immediately” for repeatedly refusing to accept the problem and continuing a policy of “willful neglect” that, he felt, amounted to an “act of malfeasance in high office.”

Readers of the Express with reasonably long memories may wonder how it is that Jon Wedger is “revealing” anything at all in 2025, given that he was quoted extensively by the newspaper as a supposed “whistleblower” way back in 2017. At that time, a month after he had taken “ill health retirement”, he claimed that he had been forced out after investigating a “a well known prostitute in 2004 who was suspected of using children”. This individual

would ply youngsters, including a 14-year-old girl, with drugs and alcohol and then pimp them out to men in budget hotels near Paddington railway station in west London.

Wedger alleged he had been warned off by a senior officer after discovering links with organised crime and corrupt officers. A bit of digging by the Hoaxtead website a couple of years later showed that he was referring to the case of Fiona Walsh, although his claims of cover-ups and conspiracies failed to withstand scrutiny, not least because Walsh was tried and convicted and sent to prison in 2006.

It is notable that Wedger’s earlier story makes no mention of “upmarket Arab restaurants in Mayfair”, and it reasonable to suppose that this is an attempt to add an ethnic element to his (old) story that would resonate with accounts of Muslim-heritage “grooming gangs”. This then provides rather tortuous grounds for his criticism of Sadiq Khan, who did not become mayor of London unil 2016. Wedger’s complaint is based on a video clip of an exchange between Kahn and Conservative London Assembly member Susan Hall, which has been transcribed here.

The new Express article comes with a reaction quote from Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, who has also posted it to Twitter/X:

The comments by Jon Wedger are damning. This is yet another example of a cover up by the police who shut down his investigations into child sexual exploitation in London.

Sadiq Khan should be leaving no stone unturned to get to the bottom of organised child sexual exploitation in London – instead he has been facilitating a cover up.

Philp’s confidence in Wedger here as someone who has particular insight into police cover ups is somewhat problematic given broader allegations he has made. Take, for instance, a series of interviews Wedger provided to one John Cooper in 2023, which Cooper is selling on Amazon under the title The Great Reveal: Ex-Scotland Yard Detective Exposes Child Trafficking and Satanic Ritual Abuse Going All the Way to the Top. In 2019 Wedger heavily promoted wide-ranging SRA claims by a fanatic named Wilfred Wong, and he has since advocated for Wong’s freedom after he was convicted of abducting a child at knifepoint. Wedger’s self-description of being a police whistleblower has also been challenged by the Independent Police Support Group.

I noted a previous example of Chris Philp making an ill-considered investment in a particular narrative here.

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From the Independent, last week:

The Government has been accused of making “almost no progress” on plans to investigate grooming gangs as ministers are recruiting a chairperson to lead a national inquiry.

Home Office minister Jess Phillips told MPs the appointment process was in its “final stages” and a panel of survivors and victims would be part of the final approval after Sir Keir Starmer committed to a fresh national inquiry in June.

…Ms Phillips replied: “The victims of this crime have sat in front of me with tears in their eyes and said they hate it when we shout at each other about these things, and they wish we would work together.”

She later added that police were involved in the perpetration of these crimes, as well as the cover-ups.

“I would be lying if I said that over the years, I have not met girls who talk to me about how police were part of the perpetration, not just the cover-up, and we need to make sure that victims can come and give that testimony,” Ms Phillips said.

Two retired South Yorkshire Police officers were arrested over alleged involvement in historic child sexual exploitation and abuse in Rotherham in December and January, and more general allegations about “corrupt police officers” working with grooming gangs in the area were reported in July.

Phillips’ apparently off-the-cuff comment has been seized on as an admission that she had information that ought to have been acted on long ago; populist-right commentators suggest the matter has relevance to her October 2024 reply to Oldham Council, in which she explained the government’s (then) position that “it is for Oldham Council alone to decide to commission an inquiry into child sexual exploitation locally, rather than for the Government to intervene”. This was framed by right-wing media as a cover-up, with Elon Musk accusing her of being a “rape genocide apologist”.

Phillips is not without faults, but conspiring to cover up sex offences is not among them. Some clarity, though, would be helpful. Did she really mean to say she had “met girls”, or did she mean young women who had previously been abused as girls?

It also occured to me that she may be referring back to a specific claim about organised abuse that she promoted back in 2017; not “grooming” offences, but supposed ritualistic abuse involving a church and “VIPs” – including her constituency predecessor, John Hemming. The allegations were false, and Hemming wrote about the matter in 2019:

Many people will know that my family and I have been subject to a campaign of false allegations by Esther Baker for the past 4 1/2 years. Yesterday there was a court judgment Baker v Hemming [2019] EWHC 2950 (QB) which formally confirmed that the allegations were false… There is a good summary in the Daily Mail here.

…A substantial campaign was built up to promote allegations which had no substance to them. Various Labour MPs and in particular Jess Phillips and Tom Watson supported this campaign. Jess Phillips is not and never has been the constituency member of parliament for the Esther Baker. However, she dedicated a considerable amount of time to ensuring that the allegations got the maximum publicity including inviting Baker to meet her in the House of Commons.

Baker alleged that some abuse had occurred in woodland, with police standing guard.

There is also this curious report from left-wing website Skwawkbox in 2017, which I previously noted here:

The SKWAWKBOX has also spoken to a serving MP who was one of several witnesses present at the time that a positive identification was made by a young adult who had suffered sexual abuse since childhood. The MP told this blog,

We were all in the Strangers’ Bar [in the Houses of Parliament]. The young victim was holding a phone and looking through pictures online, looking for someone else. Suddenly s/he screamed, dropped the phone and stood there shaking and crying, saying ‘it’s him, it’s him!’ The picture on the screen was that of a serving Chief Constable. It was a very real and spontaneous reaction.

A retired Metropolitan Police officer was also among the witnesses. After they reported the allegations, the MP and Ms Evans were both interviewed at length by the police force – not that of the accused senior officer – to which the accusation was reported…

Was Jess Phillips the unnamed MP? And if so, was this incident the basis for her comment in the House of Commons?

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From BBC News:

Reform UK has distanced itself from a conference speaker who suggested that Covid vaccines were linked to the King’s and the Princess of Wales’ cancers.

Aseem Malholtra, an adviser to US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, said: “One of Britain’s most eminent oncologists Professor Angus Dalgleish said to me to share with you today that he thinks it’s highly likely that the Covid vaccines have been a significant factor in the cancers in the royal family.”

…The party said that it “does not endorse what he said but does believe in free speech”.

Malhotra has been celebrated within the conspiracy milieu since 2022 – this was when he published a review essay in which he claimed that Covid vaccination caused accelerated heart disease, based on his personal incredulity about the cause of his own father’s death several months after he had advised him to stop taking statins.

The idea that cancer and heart disease are supposedly being caused by Covid vaccination acts as spurious reassurance that prophecies of mass mortality have not failed after all, and speculation about the Princess of Wales in particular has been rife. Of course Farage and Reform would rather talk about “free speech” rather than their poor judgement in giving Malhotra a platform.

But how convincing is the supposed “distancing” from Malhotra, given that cited Dalgleish as his authority? Here is Reform deputy leader Richard Tice in February, quoting Piers Morgan:

Safe & Effective the experts told us….. Now even PIERS MORGAN: “I was with one of the top cancer experts in Britain for lunch a couple of days ago, who was utterly scathing about the long-term impact of the mRNA vaccines … and says that they’re reaping a whirlwind in the world of cancer as a result of the vaccines.“

By not providing a name, Morgan asks us to be impressed by credentials while simultaneously shielding his source from scrutiny – although it’s almost certain he was talking about Dalgleish, who has long been known to Farage from UKIP days and from more than one interview on GB News.

Dalgleish has also been promoted by Allison Pearson, who yesterday introduced Lucy Connolly to the conference.

UPDATE: Don McGowan notes that Malhotra is “Chief Health Advisor” to Action on World Health, and anti-WHO campaigning group that was launched by Nigel Farage in May last year.

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