J.K. Rowling has said she would happily do a spell in jail if a future Labour Government makes it a hate crime to deliberately call someone by the ‘wrong’ (i.e., biologically correct) pronouns. The Mail has the story.
The Harry Potter author said she would rather do time for misgendering than submit to “compelled speech”. She spoke out after the Mail on Sunday revealed that Labour plans to introduce stricter sentences for abuse targeted at transgender people.
Deliberately misgendering someone is already a hate crime if it is motivated by hostility to the victim’s transgender identity, the Government said last year, but Labour’s policy would mean tougher penalties for perpetrators.
If it becomes an ‘aggravated offence’ such as race hate attacks, harassment based on someone’s gender identity could result in a prison sentence of up to two years.
But because of the police’s heavy-handed intervention in previous online spats, critics fear the move could see gender-critical campaigners prosecuted for refusing to use a transgender person’s preferred pronouns and referring to them by their birth sex [sic].
Ms. Rowling joined the row last night after posting on social media the word “no” above an image of the slogan “trans women are women”.
Told by a user on X, formerly Twitter, that voting Labour would mean two years in jail, she replied: “I’ll happily do two years if the alternative is compelled speech and forced denial of the reality and importance of sex.
“Bring on the court case, I say. It’ll be more fun than I’ve ever had on a red carpet.”
Worth reading in full.
If the Government really wanted to fight this ‘war on woke’, of course, it would introduce a statutory right to use biologically correct pronouns and ban discrimination against anyone who elects to do so. Similarly, we hear that Ministers are going to “tell” the General Medical Council that “women are women” and stress “the importance of the use of correct language” after the medical regulator removed the word ‘mother’ from maternity guidance. Or the Government could pass legislation requiring that all maternity guidance use the word mother. It’s the Government, for goodness sake, not a think tank. Why aren’t Ministers coming up with laws to counter all the nonsense? If the people pushing this stuff were susceptible to pleas to be sensible we wouldn’t be in this mess.
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They are all getting out even the American banks are starting to get jittery about this country. If you leave it too long to get out then you might have difficulties. Just walk down the street and look at it. I’ve been in third world hell holes where the people look happier.
Scamdemic squandering, public sector plundering, climate pandering, energy blundering – extended agony of compulsive economic self-harm.
The cure is now available across the ocean in the New World.
The technicalities of whether we are in a recession don’t interest me much. It just seems obvious that socialism reduces prosperity and freedom, and always will.
Every last advantage we had has been destroyed. The CIA used to list Britain in terms of being a major resource for coal. All gone and shut off or being shut off. Believe me there will be nothing left which is as they want it. Just like they stripped the RAF AWACS aeroplanes down so that they could never be started again. They have destroyed your country and your quality of life and now they just wait for you to drop off. Rot away in the final years under a canopy of toxic fog.
Understand the situation. A lot of people are so lost that they have to dress up as furry animals in order to have sex. What does that tell you? The steam has gone out of the system the culture the mythos has died. Forget all this nonsense about government scrutiny it is grotesque and laughable.
Blimey! Do they do that in Parliament as well?
We finally sold up and got out in August 2024. Aside from a pension, we pulled everything out, and have now stuck over two thirds in property where the weather is nicer, the food better, the scenery much grander, and where there’s far more fun stuff going on.
I don’t weep for England; it’s an arbitrary concept. No, I just tell people to go where you are treated best (courtesy of Nomad Capitalist).
To my two kids, aged 12 and 14, I say:
Find what you enjoy and do it well.
And – Travel! Travel! Travel!
Of course countries are arbitrary but they do make a difference. England is worse off without you, but good luck!
A recession should really be calculated by GDP on a per capita basis. In real terms we have been in a recession for years.
Indeed I find it astonishing that anyone bothers quoting GDP without qualifying it per capita – meaningless!
You can see a pattern developing here.
The ONS admits that it does not have reliable figures for the UK’s population, so they’d claim that it would be impossible to generate any accurate per-capita GDP figures.
Rather than address the problem, they and their political masters prefer to keep quoting the meaningless headline GDP figures knowing that the public are too gullible to question the data.
Indeed. Basic statistics and economics should be taught in schools – but they are probably racist.
Vaguely on topic (economics, politics) I have been ploughing my way through this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NLzc9kobDk
Lex Fridman interviewing Javier Milei. It’s rambling in places and Fridman I think should have made it more interactive, but it’s refreshing to listen to a politician who has actually thought about what governments should and should not do and has educated himself a bit about political and economic philosophy.
Unfortunately they are too po-faced and arrogant to admit their mistakes. Hopefully America can demonstrate that lower taxes equates to more revenue, along with less bureaucracy – Less government is what we need!
Predictably, today’s BBC news headlines are dominated by the Elon Musk’s supposed Nazi salute and Donald’s decision to pardon the “Capitol rioters”, neatly avoiding having to address what seemed to be a pretty polished inauguiration speech.
I assume that our media will keep up this snarky line of reporting for the next 4 years, regardless of any evidence of the success of Trump’s policies.
The recent sinking of the pound vs the dollar will make things worse, boosting inflation