Ed Kiely

On stage at the Conservative Party conference, the health secretary, Steve Barclay, kept fumbling his words. Promising to defend women’s voices in healthcare, he mangled a reference to ‘biological sex’. Announcing his flagship measure, a rewrite of the NHS constitution, he stumbled again: the plans will ‘recognise the importance of dialog- … different biological needs and protect the rights of women’. His garbled remarks were translated in a briefing to the Telegraph: the government is planning to ban trans people from ‘single sex’ hospital wards.