JK Rowling blasts the National as ‘anti-women'
Scotland's self-identifying 'newspaper' is at it again – and this time it has provoked the wrath of renowned writer JK Rowling. The National has chosen to dunk, yet again, on women's rights organisation Sex Matters, dubbing it an 'anti-trans campaign group' which is 'threatening' legal action after it raised concerns about how the Scottish government is – or, more to the point, is not – implementing the recent Supreme Court judgment that backed the biological definition of a woman. But feminist-in-chief Rowling has had enough – and was quick to slam the Nat-obsessed tabloid as 'anti-woman'. Ouch.
Taking to Twitter, Rowling defended Sex Matters – which intervened in the For Women Scotland gender case – after remarking scathingly: 'For Women Scotland is a feminist campaigning group. You appear to be an anti-woman newspaper.' And she's not the only one left unimpressed by the pro-indy paper's choice of language. For Women Scotland have waded into the conversation, pondering under Rowling's post:
I do wonder if the head of Newsquest is aware that this smear – which lawyers suggested, only last night, amounts to defamation – is routine in the National.
Oo er. The separatist bulletin is certainly no stranger to controversy. It fell foul of the Scottish press pack after one of its reporters first wrongly reported that Alba party members had verbally abused First Minister John Swinney inside the cathedral where Alex Salmond's funeral was taking place – before secondly shirking responsibility by claiming that of the journalists there, 'we had all mistaken inside for outside'. Cue a rather miffed response from the Beeb's Scotland editor, who indignantly wrote back that: 'It is not true to say 'we had ALL mistaken inside for outside'. At no point did I hear any jeering inside nor did I hear anyone suggest there was any.' It just goes from bad to worse, eh?
And Mr S would remind readers that the secessionist journal managed to rather successfully annoy even its own columnists after it printed an Anglo-bashing splash last year before of the Euros final between England and Spain. Ahead of the match, the newspaper decided to depict a rather large red-faced, bare-chested, tattooed England fan as a football being launched into the air by Spanish midfielder Rodri. 'Time for revenge!' the cover screamed, 'Our message to Spain: Save us from an England win (or we'll never hear the end of it!)'. It prompted one of its own columnists, ex-SNP MP Joanna Cherry, to tweet: 'No. I really don't like this at all' – while SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn slammed the design for its 'xenophobia'. The National's editor eventually rowed back – but it was too little too late…
At the time of writing, the piece remains online with its language unchanged. Will the National be forced to U-turn once again, with the help of FWS's little legal reminder? Stay tuned…
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
MPs switch sides to vote no to ‘drastically weakened' assisted dying Bill
Four MPs have confirmed they are switching their vote on the assisted dying Bill from yes to no, branding it 'drastically weakened'. Labour's Paul Foster, Jonathan Hinder, Markus Campbell-Savours and Kanishka Narayan wrote to fellow MPs to voice concerns about the safety of the proposed legislation. The letter comes on the eve of a crucial vote on Friday which would see the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill either clear the House of Commons and move to the Lords, or fall completely. The MPs wrote: 'The Bill presented to MPs in November has been fundamentally changed. 'This is not the safest Bill in the world. It is weaker than the one first laid in front of MPs and has been drastically weakened. 'MPs were promised the ultimate protection from a High Court Judge but that protection is missing from the final Bill.' They said colleagues with 'any doubts about the safety of this Bill' should 'join us tomorrow and vote against it'. As it stands, the proposed legislation would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, with fewer than six months to live, to apply for an assisted death, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel featuring a social worker, senior legal figure and psychiatrist. While the MPs cited the replacement of a High Court safeguard with the expert panels, Bill sponsor Kim Leadbeater has insisted the change is a strengthening of the legislation, incorporating wider expert knowledge to assess assisted dying applications. But concerns around the panels have also been raised by the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych), which announced in recent weeks that it has 'serious concerns' and cannot support the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill in its current form. The college's lead on assisted dying for England and Wales, Dr Annabel Price, expressed worry there will not be 'enough space or time to carry out proper, holistic assessments', and that the only involvement on a panel being to check decisions made by others 'is deeply troubling'. The relatively narrow majority of 55 from the historic yes vote in November means every vote will count on Friday. While acknowledging there could be some change in the numbers, Bill sponsor Kim Leadbeater has insisted she remains confident it will pass the third reading stage and move on to be considered by peers in the Lords. Speaking on Thursday, she said: 'There might be some small movement in the middle, some people might maybe change their mind one way, others will change their mind the other way but fundamentally I don't anticipate that that majority would be heavily eroded so I do feel confident we can get through tomorrow successfully.' Ms Leadbeater has insisted her Bill is 'the most robust piece of legislation in the world' and has argued dying people must be given choice at the end of their lives in a conversation which has seen support from high-profile figures including Dame Esther Rantzen. Making her case for a change in the law, she said: 'I know that many colleagues have engaged very closely with the legislation and will make their decision based on those facts and that evidence, and that cannot be disputed. 'But we need to do something, and we need to do it quickly.' A YouGov poll of 2,003 adults in Great Britain, surveyed last month and published on Thursday, suggested public support for the Bill remains high at 73% – unchanged from November. The proportion of people who feel assisted dying should be legal in principle has risen slightly, to 75% from 73% in November. MPs are entitled to have a free vote on the Bill, meaning they decide according to their conscience rather than along party lines. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has indicated he will continue to back the Bill, as he did last year, saying earlier this week that his 'position is long-standing and well-known' on assisted dying. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, while describing Ms Leadbeater's work on the proposed legislation as 'extremely helpful', confirmed in April that he still intended to vote against it. Ms Leadbeater has warned it could be a decade before assisted dying legislation returns to Parliament if MPs vote to reject her Bill on Friday.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Doctors told my Nana she had a short while left. They were wrong. She defied the odds and lived for almost a decade. That's why I'll be voting AGAINST the assisted dying bill: ROBERT JENRICK
Robert Jenrick has made an emotional appeal against assisted dying, as MPs prepare for a momentous vote on whether to let the terminally ill end their own lives. Writing for the Daily Mail below, Mr Jenrick reveals how he helped look after his grandmother, Dorothy, as a teenage boy – and how she continued to bring joy to the family as she defied a terminal diagnosis for nearly a decade. The Shadow Justice Secretary says the prospect of legalising assisted dying 'fills me with dread', adding: 'My Nana felt like she was a burden. I know how much she hated the indignity she felt at having to ask my Mum or us to help her with basic needs. 'People like her – and there are many such people – may consider an assisted death as another act of kindness to us. How wrong they would be.' He goes on: 'Our society pays little regard to end of life care. We need to do much more as a country to help the elderly, like my Nana, in their final years. 'But my experience has taught me that there can be dignity in death, and that even in someone's twilight years, there is joy to be extracted from life. 'So I'll be voting No. And as I do so, I'll be thinking of my great pal – my Nana, Dorothy.' The appeal comes as MPs prepare for a Commons showdown over the contentious issue tomorrow. MPs will hold a final vote tomorrow afternoon on whether to press ahead with the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which would make it legal to help someone end their own life in certain circumstances for the first time. It will apply only to those with a terminal illness and a diagnosis giving them fewer than six months to live, although critics warn it could be 'the thin end of the wedge'. Labour MP Kim Leadbeater said she was confident the Bill would pass. But campaigners opposed to the legislation last night said the vote was on a 'knife-edge'. The Bill cleared its first Commons hurdle in November with a comfortable majority of 55 votes. But some MPs have suggested they will switch their votes today or abstain. The original legislation has now been amended dozens of times. Ms Leadbeater herself has tabled a further 37, mostly technical amendments to be considered today, while opponents will launch a last-ditch bid to tighten up the Bill, including by barring its use by people suffering from anorexia. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch labelled it a 'bad bill' that will not deliver and urged Conservative MPs to follow suit. 'This has been a free vote. I'm somebody who has been previously supportive of assisted suicide,' Mrs Badenoch said. '[But] this Bill is a bad Bill. It is not going to deliver. It has not been done properly. 'This is not how we should put through legislation like this. I don't believe that the NHS and other services are ready to carry out assisted suicide, so I'll be voting no, and I hope as many Conservative MPs as possible will be supporting me in that.' Former Labour frontbencher Dan Carden became the latest to say he will vote against the Bill after previously abstaining. Mr Carden, leader of the Blue Labour group of MPs, told the Guardian that 'legalising assisted suicide will normalise the choice of death over life, care, respect and love'. He added: 'I genuinely fear the legislation will take us in the wrong direction. The values of family, social bonds, responsibilities, time and community will be diminished, with isolation, atomisation and individualism winning again.' Tory sources said that Rishi Sunak, who backed the Bill at its first stage, is likely to be one of many MPs who decide to miss tomorrow's vote. Downing Street would not say whether Keir Starmer, who backs the principle of assisted dying, will vote. One government insider described the legislation, which has been introduced as a private member's bill, as 'a mess'. 'Even among people who support assisted dying, there are a lot who are not sure this was the best way of going about it,' the source said. 'We would have been better to have let a Royal Commission look at it first.' Supporters of the Bill insist they have put rigorous safeguards in place to prevent vulnerable people being coerced into ending their lives early. Anyone found to have pressured someone to kill themselves could face up to 14 years in prison. But critics warn the protections are too weak – and point to the decision to drop the requirement for all applications to be considered by a High Court judge. The key safeguard was abandoned following warnings it would place too much pressure on court time. Instead, applications will now be considered by a three-person panel featuring a senior legal figure, a psychiatrist and a social worker. A government impact assessment found that within a decade the legislation would see 4,500 people a year end their lives early. It forecast that the premature deaths would save the NHS almost £60million a year in 'unutilised healthcare'. The Government is formally 'neutral' on the issue. Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner are among senior members of the Cabinet who voted against the legislation in November, while Sir Keir and other senior figures such as Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper voted in favour. The Government has said it will implement the Bill if it is eventually passed by Parliament. But ministers forced Ms Leadbeater to accept an implementation period of up to four years because of concerns it will prove difficult in practice. My Nana felt like she was a burden. People like her may consider an assisted death as an act of kindness to us... how wrong they would be By Robert Jenrick It was never the plan for my Nana, Dorothy, to live with us. She'd moved from Liverpool to a sheltered flat near our home outside of Wolverhampton to be close to Mum and Dad. But her terminal emphysema made that impossible at times. It was a dreadful thing, leaving her constantly struggling to breathe, reliant on powerful inhalers and later oxygen canisters. So, after a hospital stay, when I was a teenager, she came to our house to recuperate for 'a few weeks'. She ended up staying for years. Her mind remained razor sharp even to the end, but her body gave up. The condition left her barely able to walk down a corridor or across a room. She was in considerable discomfort and often bedbound. Throughout all that, though, her dignity was astonishing. Immaculately turned out. Neatly dressed. Hair coiffed. Every single day. First diagnosed with emphysema, then cancer, doctors gave her a short while to live. They were wrong. She defied the odds and lived for almost a decade. Throughout, my Mum primarily, but also my Dad, my sister and I were her carers. Fetching prescriptions, changing beds, running her to doctors' appointments. There was nothing by way of help. In fact, the day my grandmother died, my Mum came home to a message from the council saying that her condition was not yet serious enough to warrant their support. After Nana became seriously unwell, my mother was loath to leave her side. Looking back, Mum showed a saintlike devotion. She put her whole life on hold for years, as so many carers across the country do. She received no recompense, no reward. This was a duty of love. A multi-generational household has its ups and downs. Teenagers and octogenarians aren't always natural housemates. She found our noise, robust family debates and occasional parties difficult and wasn't shy about saying so. With only one television, battles over my desire to watch teenage comedies and her desire to watch Emmerdale or Corrie raged for years. But there were many happy moments too. Long discussions about the past, the news, and politics, as we sat completing the Daily Mail crossword every day. She encouraged me to go to university and make the most of the opportunities she missed leaving school at 13. Watching her deteriorate was heartbreaking. It affected us all. There was something particularly tragic about someone so sharp, so witty, so aware of the world, stuck in a failing body. Increasingly, she felt a burden. She prized what remained of her independence and hated making a fuss. None of this came easily to her. In her youth, she'd done remarkable things like serving as a volunteer fire warden during the Blitz around St Paul's Cathedral. She'd known the tough times and faced them all with a quiet stoicism. The days before she died were terrible to watch. By then, each breath had become painful, and talking a struggle. It hurts beyond words to see someone you love in that state. I'll always remember the last time we saw each other. I went to see her in hospital. I held her hand and we spoke a little. I kissed her cheek as I left. She whispered, 'we've been great pals, haven't we?' We had. Tomorrow, I'll cast my vote on the Assisted Dying Bill. The legislation lacks basic safeguards. It would allow patients with anorexia to end their life without telling their families. The representative bodies of Pathologists, Psychiatrists, and Palliative doctors all oppose it. Our courts are bound, under human rights challenges, to expand eligibility yet further. The safeguards our courts were supposed to provide when the Bill was first proposed, and which I warned at the time were utterly impractical to deliver, have been stripped out altogether. Then there is the matter of how hard it is to predict when someone might die. This law is meant to only apply to those with less than six months less to live. But speak to any doctor and they'll tell you just how hard that is to predict. The doctors told my Nana that she had just a short while left. They were wrong, like they are in many cases. She lived for almost a decade until her death at the grand old age of 94. With assisted dying legalised, inevitable mistakes like this would be too terrible to contemplate. But for me, it's the examples around the world where assisted dying is legal that prove it's a bad idea. In Oregon, under 30 per cent of the patients dying by assisted dying do so because they're in physical pain. The overwhelming majority die because they fear 'losing autonomy' or feel a 'burden on family, friends and caregivers.' These numbers are the same just about everywhere data is collected. That fills me with dread. My Nana felt like she was a burden. I know how much she hated the indignity she felt at having to ask my Mum or us to help her with basic needs. People like her, and there are many such people, may consider an assisted death as another act of kindness to us. How wrong they would be. It's easy to make laws that work for 80 per cent of people. It's very hard to make them work for everyone. It's Parliament's role to represent that minority, but the Assisted Dying Bill leaves them exposed. There will be people – we all know them in our lives – who are shy, who have low self-esteem, who have demons within them who will feel societal pressure to end their life early. I know plenty of these people. They are often poor. They are vulnerable. They are lonely. Parliament must be their protector. But this Bill fails to uphold that duty. Thousands of people will lose months, if not years, of their life to avoid causing hassle for their family. Thousands more will be haunted by the thought of whether they should do so too. If it wasn't obvious from the data, we know it instinctively. Our society pays little regard to end of life care. We need to do much more as a country to help the elderly, like my Nana, in their final years. But my experience has taught me that there can be dignity in death, and that even in someone's twilight years, there is joy to be extracted from life. So tomorrow, I'll be voting no. And, as I do so, I'll be thinking of my great pal – my Nana, Dorothy.
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Here's how to teach controversial history
'The repeated refusal by Palestinian groups to accept the existence of Israel is a major obstacle to peace,' says a teenager passionately. 'There cannot be a negotiation when one side refuses to accept the other's existence.' Half an hour later, the same boy is arguing with what sounds like equal conviction that 'Israel has to be accountable for its actions. Until then, there will be no peace, just a surrender, and the people of Palestine will never accept surrender disguised as diplomacy.' He is not a boy who doesn't know what he thinks, but a pupil at Lancaster Royal Grammar School (LRGS), speaking in a debate between 13 to 15-year-olds from five schools in England, Scotland and Spain on which side is to blame for the failure of the Middle East peace process. In order that they should learn that the world is more complicated than good-and-evil narratives suggest, and that there is usually something to be said for the other person's point of view, pupils make both sides of each argument. Two teams of pupils take opposite sides in a debate and then swap causes after a break. The debates are organised by Parallel Histories, a charity set up by Mike Davies. When we shared a house at university, I would not have fingered him as a catalyst for social change. He was absurdly good looking and more into rowing than studying. But as a Quaker partly brought up in Belfast, he was interested in questions of peace and conflict. And he did like a good argument. After a successful business career, he became a history teacher at LRGS at 41. He taught feudalism by making a pile of desks, chairs and children to illustrate how uncomfortable it is at the bottom of the social hierarchy, and reconstructed the Battle of Hastings with a horse as a prop. But what he really wanted to teach was the historical roots of modern conflicts. So he organised a trip to Northern Ireland, where pupils met ex-IRA and ex-UVF fighters, and one to Israel/Palestine, where they talked to militants on both sides and played football in a refugee camp. Mike went back to Israel on a Winston Churchill fellowship to find out how history was taught. He realised it was impossible to teach a neutral history. Every event could be seen from both points of view. 'Our voters and future leaders,' he wrote in an article, 'need to understand there are always competing narratives, and to pick apart the propaganda and the facts.' He set up Parallel Histories to make that happen. Mike died last year, but Parallel Histories is flourishing. Now run by a former Labour minister, Bill Rammell, it works with 1,700 schools, training teachers, organising debates and providing materials, such as official documents and eye-witness accounts. Most are in Britain, but nearly 400 are in America. It offers pupils a rare chance to learn about contested subjects such as the Middle East, Northern Ireland and the British Empire. Schools tend to avoid such difficult topics. By providing the materials and the framework, Parallel Histories makes them safe. It has organised debates on the Middle East between Jewish and Muslim schools and about Northern Ireland between Protestant and Catholic schools. Watching that debate this week, I felt something was happening that could help counteract the polarisation pulling people apart. Conflicts become intractable because both sides are convinced their point of view is the only legitimate one. Seeing the argument from the other side is essential to resolving any conflict. That's what Parallel Histories teaches participants to do. So a girl from O Castro, an international school in Spain, argues that Israel cannot make peace with Palestine's corrupt and chaotic leadership — and then, swapping sides, that Israel's illegal settlements mean it is not an honest negotiating partner. Her classmate points to Hamas's electoral victory in 2006 as evidence Palestinians are not interested in peace; then making the opposite argument, he quotes an incendiary comment from Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and asks how the Palestinians can negotiate with people who think like that. The aim is not to change pupils' minds but it sometimes happens. 'Because of my family background,' said Adnan, a pupil at LRGS, when I talked to pupils after the debate, 'I grew up 100 per cent supporting the Palestinians. I still have more sympathy for them, but I can now see where the Israelis are coming from.' Ben's journey took him in the opposite direction. 'I used to think Israel was in the right, but I've come to understand it's very complex. They've both done stuff to each other over the years.' Although it was conceived before social media became the main source of news for young people, the programme helps counter some of its effects. 'It's very easy to get brainwashed on TikTok,' says Lewis, from South Molton Community College in Devon. His classmate Taylor agrees. 'It's all from the Palestinian perspective.' Pupils are encouraged to question sources — essential in an era of fake news. I listened to a detailed argument between pupils from Farlington, an independent school in Sussex, and O Castro about the trustworthiness of each other's material. Pupils learn useful skills too. Debating is tough: you've got to marshal facts, structure an argument and look people in the eye. 'I wasn't that comfortable with public speaking,' says Alex, another Devonian. 'It's really built my confidence.' Some arguments are intense, but they're all polite: participants disagree agreeably. Parallel Histories may not bring about world peace, but teaching teenagers to see things from somebody else's point of view is a good start. Well done, Mike.
