At 60 JK Rowling is a national hero. What have her spineless critics achieved?

Telegraph

3 days ago

Tomorrow is JK Rowling 's 60th birthday. So, as well as wishing her many happy returns, I feel it's the perfect time to reflect on the qualities that have made this monumentally successful author stand out from the crowd. Obviously there's her epic imagination, her mastery of plot, her flair for page-turning prose. Above all else, though, she has something that makes her practically unique in the current cultural landscape.
It's called a spine.
Nowadays, such an item constitutes a rare and unusual gift, because – from publishing to comedy, and from theatre to pop – 21st-century culture is dominated by cowardly conformists. People who obediently parrot the latest fashionable mantras about politics, history and 'social justice', while traducing those who dare question them. As a result, the arts world has effectively become a kind of private members' club, from which anyone who voices the incorrect opinions about current affairs will be automatically blackballed.
This, I believe, is a key reason why so much of today's art and entertainment feels stale and predictable: it's commissioned and produced by people who all think the same. Who have identical views and values. In short, they promote every form of diversity, except the one that matters most: diversity of thought.
What makes their conformism all the more pitiful is that they're utterly blind to it. They invariably see themselves as fearless rebels. Take Kneecap, who appear to think they're brave for flying Palestinian flags in front of thousands of people who agree with them. Sorry, dears, but if you want to do something truly rebellious at Glastonbury, try flying an Israeli flag. In today's stiflingly homogeneous cultural climate, that would be greeted as the most shocking act of subversion.
Which brings me back to JK Rowling – because, unlike so many of her artistic peers, she exhibits zero desire to keep in with the in-crowd. Politically, we know she's on the Left (she used to donate to Labour). Yet she doesn't toe the Left-wing line. On the contrary, she's been happy to enrage the Left by mocking Jeremy Corbyn, lampooning idiotic efforts to legitimise 'sex work' – and, most scandalously of all, refusing to kowtow to trans activism.
That, in particular, took real courage. Genuine independence of thought. And it's why she should be saluted today by anyone who believes in free speech. Because, over the past few years, she hasn't just been campaigning for women's rights to single-sex spaces. She's been campaigning for what George Orwell recognised as the single most important right that any of us can have: the right to say that two plus two makes four. And rarely has that right been under greater threat than in the 2020s, a period during which so many politicians, employers and broadcasters have insisted that two plus two makes five – and tried to crush those who won't comply.
Of course, some might argue that JK Rowling's got it easy – because, thanks to her mind-boggling riches, she's beyond cancellation. But if anything, that makes her interventions all the more remarkable. Being so fabulously wealthy, she didn't have to bother. She could have ignored the whole trans row, and just sipped cocktails on her private yacht, blissfully oblivious to the vastly poorer and less powerful women being persecuted for the crime of defending their own rights.
Yet she intervened anyway, knowing full well how this would be received. How many other super-rich celebrities would willingly risk endless abuse, threats, and the concerted trashing of their reputation by speaking out for a cause deplored in high-status circles? How many would choose to bring all that grief upon their own heads, for no personal gain?
Miserably few. But JK Rowling did. And now, unmistakably, it's paying off. Her financial support helped the group For Women Scotland bring the appeal that ended with the Supreme Court ruling that, under the law, women are female – and therefore do indeed have the right to single-sex spaces. More than the money, though, I think her most crucial contribution has been moral. Her speaking out has emboldened countless others to speak out, too.
This is why, as she turns 60, JK Rowling has become more than just our biggest-selling novelist. She's become a national hero. And what have her spineless critics achieved? Obviously they'll never have her success. But more importantly: they'll never have her guts.