Baroness Nicholson 'cancelled' by Booker board

Someone asked who funded Booker Prize. It is funded by Sir Michael Moritz and his wife Harriet Hayman. I believe it is through Crankstart. I have e-mailed them already. Asked if they knew the difference between free speech and hate speech. I don't expect a reply but I hope lots of people will complain. They say they agree the Baroness is free to speak but that people were thinking this was the view of Booker. I guess a mass of trans activists e-mailed as they do!

Plenty of model types ‘write’ books don’t they?

There was once a very pretty girl who grew up to be a model. She wore lots of nice dresses and everyone thought she was great. The end. (Where’s my advance?)

Maybe you can just identify as the author of prize winning literary novels without having to go to the trouble of actually writing one.

Why is the booker involving itself in twitter spats about bergdorf.?
Has bergdorf taken up writing literary works or is it the bergdorf-booker prize now?

I see the offer on twitter. No one has pointed out the organised complaint (I think MB set it up) against the baroness.

TRAs always add "racist" in there when they're annoyed with something someone has said about gender. Presumably we're not meant to notice that it's not true because questioning it could lead to you being targeted next and everyone knows that.

A genuinely lovely woman who's helped so many people over the years thrown out on the say so of a couple of blokes who'll never do even 1% of the good she has. Envy is an ugly emotion, and it's hard to miss in the way TRAs talk about women.

I'm arriving late on lots of threads today to give my weighty views. Sorry.

Emma Nicholson was attacked because she was effective. She was listening and taking action and getting public results. Easy to see why she gets a lot done. But she is easy to paint as verboten. A religious woman in her 70s who's been conservative or Conservative all her life and now has a life peerage, and the bizarre contradictions of British public life which are opaque to most mean that many on twitter probably think she lives in Downton Abbey. A lot of prominent radfem/GC voices viscerally dislike working with right-wingers because of exactly this. Personally I found her brick by brick practical approach exciting. But I see why those who contribute on the theory side find it difficult. Theyve been able to say clearly that sacking her in obvious vengeance is wrong though.

However, I think Mermaids weighing in on this is just possibly a tactical mistake. They've made a few of those. One that nobody seemed to notice was a report where they named a particular clinician at GIDS as being insufficiently affirming for their liking. I thought that was truly shocking. In the end I think Mermaids is quite hollow as an organisation and eventually they will fall over their feet once too often.

In the meantime - I thought Marlon James' statement was completely vile. And I also absolutely love his writing,the female characters I've read I thought were amazing and I'm going to go on buying his books.

Has been not seen what MB has said on twitter?

I doubt it, but he would probably argue that MB doesn't have an honorary title either.

However, I think the Booker will have real problems now that they have set this standard that they cant associate themselves with anyone who has ever said something insulting on twitter, even if they delete the tweet and apologise.

This is the new sponsor of the Booker (Original FT article behind a pay wall, but link in article).

www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/how-a-billionaire-investors-unhinged-china-freakout-explains-donald-trump

“If a Chinese company schedules tasks for the weekend, nobody complains about missing a Little League game or skipping a basketball outing with friends,” he writes. “Little wonder it is a common sight at a Chinese company to see many people with their heads resting on their desks taking a nap in the early afternoon.”

This follows his 2015 remarks about not 'lowering standards by hiring women'

www.vox.com/2015/12/3/11621140/venerated-vc-michael-moritz-opens-mouth-inserts-foot-on-question

You can see why Mark Damazar wouldn't want to focus too much on 'women's issues'.

According to Mark Damazar, the key tweet called MB 'a weird creature'.

I don't know the context because it has since been deleted.

This tweet was not mentioned in their statement which talks about "the views expressed by Baroness Nicholson on transgender people".

I don't know if Baroness Nicholson has expressed any views on transgender people. As far as I know she has expressed views on child protection and women's rights.

Politically I am probably of a very different stripe than the Baroness, but reading her life achievements it's quite clear she's an extraordinarily principled and brave woman. At 79, still has the energy, insight and courage to ask questions, take action and stick to her principles.

The idea of these cowardly no marks cancelling her and smearing her because of a shitty and easy to manipulate social media channel is just beyond belief.

As said above, what were these mythical racist homophobic transphobic comments? Where are they?

I haven’t been keeping up with what’s going on but the baroness has just apologised to MB in Twitter

There is absolutely a type.

Never admit they are wrong, not deep thinkers, full of their own self importance, thinks their farts don’t smell, misogynist. Usually men.

Mark Damazar has form:

www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/13/bbc-radio

After nearly a decade on the programme, the 51-year-old journalist only discovered he was to be fired when he received a phone call from a newspaper journalist. Last night, Stourton said: "It was a complete surprise to me. I found out via a phone call from a journalist, yesterday while I was doing a literary lunch at Haringey. I rang up my boss and said, 'Is this true?' and he said, 'Yes it is'." Asked of his reaction to the news, he said: "I'm very sad ... well, more than that really."

The BBC, released a statement saying Stourton was leaving to concentrate "on other BBC projects". The broadcaster said last night he had no knowledge of these projects. Asked why he believed he was "sacked", Stourton replied: "Because the controller of Radio 4 Mark Damazer wants Justin Webb."

There is definitely a ‘type’ of man isn’t there?

It seems so.

Mark Damazar kept mansplaining to Mishal Husain that her introduction falsely linked Baroness Nicholson to the Booker because of her honorary title. MH had to explain twice that the introduction linked Baroness Nicholson to the Booker because of its history.

He claimed that the action was taken because of Baroness Nicholson's tweet about MB, not because they were accusing her of being homophobic, transphobic or racist, which conflicts with their statement. As Baroness Nicholson said, when you distance yourself from somebody and then say that you aren't homophobic, racist or transphobic, you are clearly saying that they are homophobic, racist and transphobic. I think the linguistic term is a 'contrast clause'.

(He is probably having to back pedal frantically on this, because David Willets)

Its also clear that despite his claims, he hasn't paid any attention to what Baroness Nicholson or JKR have said if he honestly believes this is just about restricting spaces to biological women.

I'm suspicious that the person demanding the removal of the Baroness was the American sponsor.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia. So some TRA has edited the transphobia comment.

I will listen to it

What a wonderful caring person the baroness is

I follow her on twitter.

The people she has helped

I can’t believe that 2 people campaigned against her and the booker bowed down straight away

Just listening back. The Booker guy painted himself into a corner, basically admitting they cancelled her because of Twitter reaction.

He was exactly what I expected. There is definitely a ‘type’ of man isn’t there? A nyaff we’d say in Glasgow.

Radio 4 this morning 0749 onwards some guy from the Booker and the Baroness....

Well wozzit news and Wikipedia - those two bastions if truth...

I just saw this entry on her wikipedia page:

'On June 25th 2020, Nicholson was stripped of her title as honorary vice president of the Booker Prize following homophobic, racist and transphobic comments.'

The reference is Pink News. Surely this is not right ? What were the racist comments ?