Just when you think the madness of the transgender wars has subsided and the very real threat to the rights of women is receding, we are asked to consider the legal protection of “breastfeeding men”.

The Supreme Court’s ruling in April that the words “women” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act refer to “a biological woman and biological sex” is as definitive as it is simple. The case brought by For Women Scotland and backed by the author J.K. Rowling was a watershed moment that, in theory, turned the tide on a decade that looked set to herald a new dark age. …

It should have been an awakening from a form of madness, and it was no coincidence that it was three Scottish women who sought legal clarification. The battle was national, but in Scotland it was state-sponsored, which made it so much more dangerous. …

Last week, Scottish Trans, a taxpayer-funded trans rights charity, said that the Supreme Court’s ruling damaged the legal protections of men “who are able to breastfeed”. These are, apparently, men who identify as women and who use hormone therapy or drugs to stimulate a form of lactation. …

Why are we indulging these flat-earthers, let alone funding them? Breastfeeding men are an oxymoron – a feature of an Orwellian dystopia that the Scottish National Party and the Greens have attempted to will into existence. The Equality Network, of which Scottish Trans is a part, has received £2.5 million in public money over the past five years. Its funding is ongoing.

More pertinently, why are natal men who believe they can feed babies using drug-induced lactation not being routinely investigated by social services for this grotesque and dangerous form of experimentation? …

It’s not the only example of state-sponsored profligacy in the last week. There were reports that “financial irregularities” at the Scots Language Centre, a charity that has been state-funded for the last 15 years, and promotes “the mither leid”, had left the language body facing collapse. …

On the same day Scotland’s nine international offices were revealed to have spent £1 million of taxpayers’ money in five years on 300 parties and events, including a ceilidh on a Brussels roundabout, an event in Beijing on the theme of “period dignity” and a Swiss celebration of whisky and cheese. …

Yet another revelation on the same day, described how the SNP had breached public-sector pay rules to pay the Scottish Labour peer, Dame Helena Kennedy, £1,000 a day – more than £100,000 in total – to chair a working group into outlawing misogyny in Scotland, ordered by Sturgeon and signed off by the former First Minister Humza Yousaf, despite civil service guidelines capping daily pay rates at £438. The proposed law was later shelved, despite the cost being more than three times the £36,000 originally budgeted.

Meanwhile, NHS Fife revealed that it had spent more than £220,000 of public money defending itself in the employment tribunal brought by nurse Sandy Peggie, who was suspended after complaining about having to share a changing room with a biologically male transgender medic. …

This utter waste of public resources would be infuriating at any time, but in an administration which has imposed the highest rates of income tax in the UK, and at a time of economic uncertainty, it is verging on the criminal. It doesn’t matter how often it is called out; nothing changes. …

From costly quangos to underperforming charities and spendthrift departments, there are few brakes on this excess. Even where wrongdoing can be proven there are no prosecutions and the guilty parties often leave with payoffs.