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Saturday, 21 February 2026

Starmer’s New Cabinet Secretary Made Staff Join Non-Binary Book Club

 Keir Starmer’s new Cabinet Secretary, Dame Antonia Romeo, told a civil servant to join a “gender non-conforming book club” and “challenge the patriarchy” as part of their performance review. The Telegraph has the story.

The new Cabinet Secretary set out plans for the former staff member to spend one day a week on inclusivity programmes when she was head of the Department for International Trade (DIT) from 2017 to 2021.

These included helping to raise “awareness and visibility of non-binary identities” and attending the book club, according to documents reviewed by the Telegraph.

The employee was told to spend up to 20% of their time fulfilling inclusivity goals such as encouraging colleagues to display their preferred pronouns and “recruiting non-binary staff”.

Sir Keir Starmer elevated Dame Antonia to the post of Cabinet Secretary on Thursday, despite a briefing war erupting against her over historic claims of bullying and misuse of public money.

The new allegations will raise fresh questions about her suitability for the role of Britain’s most senior civil servant.

As part of an annual review, she set the employee a target of joining the department’s “gender non-conforming book club”, where government workers supposedly read Middlesex, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides about an intersex American, as well as books about people transitioning gender, the source said....<<<Read More>>>...