17-06-2025
Is Stella Creasy the worst politician in Britain?
For all my adult life I have been an advocate of the 'Jenkins' Law', a guide to public policy based on the writings of the commentator Sir Simon Jenkins. Jenkins' Law is simple, useful and infallible: whatever he writes, the opposite is correct. In recent years, however, a variant of this law has emerged.
Not so much a variant as a complementary alternative: Creasy's Law. The principle is similar. Whatever Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow since 2010, says or writes, the opposite is correct.
This week Creasy's Law has, once again, proved its utility. Ms Creasy is behind an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill which would remove all legal prohibitions on abortion up to and including during birth, even if the baby is fully capable of surviving outside the womb.
It is widely accepted that the law surrounding abortion requires modernisation, not least because of advances in medical technology; and, from the other perspective, what many see as the unjust prosecution of women such as Nicola Packer, who was cleared by a jury last month of illegally terminating a pregnancy after taking abortion pills during lockdown.
But Creasy's amendment goes far beyond modernisation; it is about removing any bar to abortion, no matter how near to birth – or even during birth – by scrapping the crime of intentional destruction of a child 'capable of being born alive', as well as removing all other legal bars on late-term abortions.
Creasy says all she wants to do is remove criminal sanctions, but in reality her amendments would simply remove the current 24-week limit with no replacement. In addition, she wants abortion to be classed as a 'basic human right'.
The usefulness of Creasy's Law is especially clear here. Even amongst the country's abortion clinics her proposals are regarded as wrong-headed. Rachael Clarke of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service told BBC Radio 4's Today programme last week that Creasy's plan 'is not the right way' to overhaul abortion laws.
'We are not supporting NC20 [Creasy's amendments], and neither are any of the abortion providers in the country,' Clarke said. Nor does it seem the public supports Creasy. A ComRes poll from several years ago found only 1 per cent of women supporting abortion up to birth – a clear example of Creasy's Law in action.
Creasy is such a useful figure to have in public life because her interests roam over many areas, and she is thus able to help the rest of us pinpoint immediately what to think by thinking the exact opposite. Probably her most notorious comment was in 2022, when she weighed in on one of her favourite issues: 'Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes'.
Creasy has been a long-term advocate of ignoring biology and allowing men who pretend to be women to claim all the rights under law that they would have if they were actually women. It's a shame so much time – and money – was spent clarifying the law around sex. There need never have been a Supreme Court ruling.
A few years ago Creasy wrote: 'As I walk past everyone going to Christmas parties and drinks on my way to get the kids from nursery, yet again acutely aware the motherhood penalty is just a gift that keeps giving…. Not just flexible working we need but flexible networking too.' For Creasy, it seems, having children should not impact one's life. Creasy's Law is helpful here, too, showing that parenting involves a trade-off between the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and the needs arising from being a parent.
Creasy has advocated for aggravated criminal sentences as a hate crime for men who hold what she considers to be 'misogynistic' beliefs. No need to go through a debate on this or look at the ideas underlying it; just apply Creasy's Law to know it would be wrong.
It's easy to look disapprovingly at Stella Creasy, who is not only wrong about everything, but compounds that with a patronising manner which seems to treat anyone who disagrees with her as some kind of bigoted fool. Instead, we should see how useful she really is and turn more often to Creasy's Law for guidance.
