Latest news with #BaronessNicholson
Telegraph
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
House of Lords removes ‘provocative' Pride flags from canteen
The House of Lords has removed Pride flags from its canteen following a complaint by a peer. At the start of June, the River Restaurant was decked out in the banners to celebrate the beginning of Pride month. However, among the banners used was the ' Progress Pride ' flag, which includes the colours of the trans movement and is seen by many as indicative of support for gender ideology – the idea that sex is a spectrum and that people can change their identity. Baroness Nicholson, a Tory peer, complained to the Lord Speaker, Lord McFall, and officials agreed that they should be taken down as they had not been sanctioned by the authorities. Similar flags were not displayed in the House of Commons canteen. Helen Joyce, the director of advocacy at the Sex Matters charity, said the decision to display the flags was 'provocative and inappropriate', and that it was 'reassuring' they had been taken down. 'The baby blue and pink of trans activism, which features in the flag, signals support for a harmful fringe ideology that justifies a wide range of human rights abuses, including puberty blockers for minors, surgeries that leave people sterile, the placement of rapists in women's prisons, and the destruction of single-sex services and spaces,' she said. Critics advocate separating trans and gay rights The Progress Pride flag, designed in 2021, is replacing the traditional rainbow Pride flag in many venues. It includes an extra triangle of colour on the left hand side, made up of stripes including white, pink and light blue – the colours of the trans movement. But many critics say the trans rights movement should be decoupled entirely from the gay rights movement, using the phrase 'LGB without the T'. The flag also includes a yellow triangle with a purple circle to represent 'intersex' people – a classification which is rejected by many. On Wednesday, Lady Nicholson tweeted pictures of the flags in the River Restaurant, which were displayed over the cooked breakfast items on sale, on the social media platform X. When one user replied to say that they supported 'LGB without the T', she tweeted: 'Exactly.' The flags had been removed by Friday lunchtime, following Lady Nicholson's complaint to the Lord Speaker's Office. On Friday, she tweeted: 'The superb River Restaurant in the House of Lords has had the decorations that I pictured removed. 'The food remains as stunning as before. I am most grateful to the Lord Speaker for his swift and thoughtful response to my request. I respect all people in all walks of life always.' Lady Nicholson was a Conservative MP between 1987 and 1995, when she made a high-profile defection to the Liberal Democrats in protest at John Major's policies. She was made a peer in 1997 and later served as a member of the European Parliament for the Lib Dems. She returned to the Tory fold in 2016. During her time in Parliament, she voted in favour of Section 28, which banned the 'promotion of homosexuality' by local authorities, and against gay marriage. 'Do pronouns get you a bigger plate of beans?' A number of users on X responded to her picture of the flags. Sean Ako said: 'As a gay man I find this to be incredibly dehumanising. Can't I have my breakfast in peace without having a flag waved in my face? I don't need to be celebrated first thing in the morning. I need to be caffeinated.' Clean City Bird wrote: 'Honestly, what has the progress flag or same-sex attraction got to do with having breakfast? Do you get a bigger portion if you state your pronouns while they plate your beans?' Margaret Kearney said: 'Think about the flags as you eat breakfast or have tea and toast. For some it could be a turn-off to eat anything. These flags have taken over everything. Thanks Emma for letting us know about this.' A spokesman for the House of Lords said it had not been the Lord Speaker who had personally intervened. 'Informal decorations were put up locally to mark the beginning of Pride month,' he said. 'These were taken down at an appropriate point due to their unofficial nature.'
Daily Mail
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
JK Rowling reveals how she has been scammed by con artists after becoming super-rich - as it is revealed she has given £200million to charity
JK Rowling has revealed she has been 'scammed a few times' as it emerged she has donated around £200 million to charity. It was while writing the sixth instalment of her world-renowned Harry Potter wizarding series, when the author came across a picture of a small five year old boy, Vasek Knotek, with his face leaning against barbed wire. Since then, the impassioned 59-year-old sent letters to the former director of fundraising for Save the Children, MEP Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, keen to help vulnerable young people in the ex-Soviet country. A year later in 2010, Rowling and Baroness Nicholson set up a charity named Children's High Level Group, later renamed Lumos, a name of a charm in one of Rowling's books - a shining light in the darkest of times. In over the two decade since the author first saw the image from the Czechian orphanage, the Harry Potter author has given £63 million to the charity aiding children in the eastern European country. According to the Sunday Times, in total, Rowling has donated nearly £200 million to three charities - Lumos, the Volant Charitable Trust and the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic. However, the author also shared how she has been forced to exercise more 'due diligence', to ensure her cash is going to those who need it, as she revealed she had 'definitely' been 'scammed a few times'. Retelling her agony of skimming through countless letters begging for help, she shared how once she had received correspondence from a Lloyd's investor who had lost a considerable amount of money in 2005. 'They told me how lucky I was to have grown up poor, so I'd never know the agony of losing a fortune, and asked me to give them money because they and their spouse could no longer afford to go to the opera,' she told The Sunday Times. While adding how she is the last person who would complain of her wealthy lifestyle, she explained that life is filled with dilemmas 'you never dreamt of having to deal with' when you obtain a great deal of money. Reflecting on her own difficult childhood in Chepstow, southeast Wales, and then her life in poverty after leaving her short-lived marriage to head to Edinburgh with her fourth-month old daughter, Jessica, Rowling shared she would at times go hungry. 'I prioritised feeding my daughter, but that wasn't the worst of it. It's the daily indignities — overwhelmingly, not being able to give your child the things you'd like,' she said, 'I remember meeting another mum whose son was the same age as my daughter. He had a roomful of toys. I had a shoebox in which Jessica's two toys lived. It's that kind of thing that really gets to you.' Rowling's charitable revelation comes shortly after she engages with a furious war of worlds with Boy George after he accused her of hating men amid the Supreme Court's ruling on the legal status of transgender women. Rowling, who also writes under the male pen name of Robert Galbraith, blasted the Culture Club singer after he said that she could not tell the difference between a transgender woman and a biological man. The 63-year-old popstar has expressed support for transgender people online, in line with other stars such as Tilda Swinton and Pedro Pascal , who recently branded Rowling a 'heinous loser' on Instagram. Boy George was responding to a tweet criticising Pedro Pascal. The actor (above) has been unequivocal in his support for transgender people (seen in the viral 'Protect the Dolls' t-shirt sold in support of trans rights) Responding to a tweet suggesting that Pascal - an outspoken supporter of trans rights - was a misogynist, the singer wrote: 'Stop this nonsense that if you don't agree with @jk_rowling you hate women. She hates men. This is where this truth lies. 'She cannot differentiate between a 'trans' woman and a biological male. Which is weird with her imagination?' But Rowling - who now tweets almost daily about what she has called 'sex-based rights' - fired back with an eye-rolling emoji and the retort: 'I do not hate men.' She wrote: 'I'm married to a man, George. I do not hate men. 'I simply live in reality where men - however they identify - commit 98 per cent of sexual assaults, and 88 per cent of victims are female. 'Trans-identified men are no less likely than other kinds of men to pose a risk to women or girls.' She did not elaborate on how many of those committing sexual assaults were thought to be trans. She then added: 'Accusing me of hating men because I don't think trans women should be given access to all women-only spaces does rather suggest that... you're well aware that these are, in fact, men.' Rowling has been vocal on the subject of trans people for several years; in 2018, a spokesperson explained that her 'like' of a tweet calling trans women 'men in dresses' had been a 'middle-aged moment'. And following the Supreme Court judgment on April 17, Rowling has consistently referred to transgender women as being 'men'. The ruling, on an appeal brought by campaign group For Women Scotland, concluded that the legal definition of a woman was that of a biological female, when interpreting the Equality Act. It has led to the Equality and Human Rights Commission overhauling its rules on single-sex spaces - meaning that even trans people with gender recognition certificates (GRC) are still considered to be their biological birth sex. MPs have pointed out that the judgment will likely lead to discrimination against those who do not appear traditionally male or female.
