Baroness Nicholson 'cancelled' by Booker board

Literature is open, plural and questioning but we have decided to be closed, singular and dogmatic in our beliefs.

Literature is open, plural and questioning."

War is peace
Freedom is slavery
Ignorance is strength

The rule of threes. Transphobia (which is everything) = homophobia = racism.

And they're apparently too stupid to see the profound homophobia and racism at the heart of trans ideology. I suppose that would require them to actually spend a few minutes thinking.

Fuck that.

The Emperor is wearing no clothes.

Human beings cannot change sex.

Women's rights matter, raise up women and you raise up society - we have to be able to name ourselves to do that. No man can have the title of woman.

You know, I'm about done with this fight.

When I look at the huge list of young women authors merrily giving away their rights, the women on Porth Rugby Team, or Kent Women's Cricket team, the Lisa Nandys of this world saying they see nothing wrong with putting male rapists with intact penises into women's prisons...

I have no skin in this game any more. I'm middle aged. My only child is male - he'll be fine. My sporting days are long past. I'm vanishingly unlikely to end up in prison.

Younger women - you want to live in this world? Fine. Crack on. I'm sure you'll still love it once you get old enough that biology comes back to bite you, or you find yourselves facing a rugby team whose entire front row is 6'3" transwomen.

I tried, I really tried on your behalf. But sometimes there's no helping people.

Can you be a believing Catholic or Muslim, or believe in traditional Protestant or traditional Jewish doctrines, and simultaneously believe in everything that modern social liberalism teaches?
I'm an atheist (and socialist and bisexual) but I think it's a concern if people are saying that religious people are no longer welcome in national life.

It's the latest mantra. The rule of threes. Transphobia (which is everything) = homophobia = racism.

Nonsensical, really, and an insult to anyone who has genuinely suffered from any of these prejudices.

So they deplore racism, homophobia and transphobia, but misogyny is fine?

The said:

"The issues are complex, but our principles are clear. We deplore racism, homophobia and transphobia—and do not discriminate on any grounds."

Why are they talking about racism? What is the relevance to this decision?

Also, they might as well have announced "But we absolutely support sexism, and completely endorse anything David Willetts has said to that effect. All quotes from David Willets, however recent can be assumed to fully express his and our views now."

i find it frightening, i dunno what else to say.

theyve set out their stall very clearly about what will happen to any women who dissent.

Fuck sake. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton opposed gay marriage at one point. Many politicians did, not at all long ago that it was not seen as not at all mainstream as it now is.

Yes, we do need a list of the authors who waded into this one (many without doing any research on it I suspect).

Here are some of the ones I saw liking and commenting:
Sarah Perry
Helen MacDonald
Sara Collins ('The Confessions of Frannie Langton')
@ArmisteadMaupin
@PatrickFreyne1

Interesting surprisingly few of the 'Big Names'/Blue Ticks. I suspect most of them have the good sense to keep their head down and their mouths shut if they know who buys their books (hint: it's women over 50!)

Also Waterstones Piccadilly - so don't shop there.
@WaterstonesPicc

Patrick Gale, how little it takes for a man to sell his soul. It's not homophobes he's scared of it's the LBGT mafia.

I don’t get it. Why do these organisations bow to the mob (I’m assuming here that they don’t agree with the mob...)

For fucks sake, if Dominic Cummings can survive several days of righteous national outrage and still come out with full government confidence
Why would an annual book prize giving body give a shit about a few misogynistic SJWs kicking off at them on Twitter?

Patrick Gale? Arse.

I used to like Patrick Gale too. Oh well. It's become less and less surprising to me that men I previously thought were liberal-minded and progressive turn out to be raging misogynists.

This is how it is now. Mass pile ons organised through twitter and complaints everywhere until women are removed, deplatformed, unemployed etc. And their voices silenced on twitter which is where all this crap starts. Time to move off twitter. Get on to parler. It supports free speech, women can talk and organise, and the power these individuals have through the backing of twitter will diminish. Hopefully as parler takes off twitter will be a thing of the past.

For God's sake, Patrick Gale too. Another gay man and one of the few male authors I liked, but he decided to stick the boot into JK Rowling when she first tweeted, and here he is again now.

It's Witch of the Week!

Who will be put to the flames this time?

All prior words, thoughts and deeds to be scrupulously examined and if anything can possibly be misconstrued and used against you, better watch out, ladies! You will be publically condemned by order of men who know better than you!

All in all, best stay indoors and stay quiet, eh? 'Shut mouth, open purse', wasn't it?

Good girl.

They can't actually cancel her though. Sure they can get a few orgs like The Booker to distance themselves but ultimately she's a life peer so they're stuck with her.

Now maybe a concerted effort will be launched to do away with the HoL. A lot of people don't agree with the system.

I'm okay with that too because it means we'd also lose the new Baroness Hunt.

Am I right in thinking that this all happened over the space of 2 or 3 days?

From the Guardian:

"Barr, a novelist, memoirist and host of the Literary Salon, learned of her association with the prize earlier this week, after Munroe Bergdorf, the model and transgender activist, said she was referring Nicholson to the Parliamentary Standards Conduct Commissioner over Nicholson’s posts on social media about the trans community. The peer also drew fire earlier this month over her views on same-sex marriage.

Barr immediately challenged the Booker on Twitter, writing that “as a gay writer I feel very concerned that a person who is actively and publicly propagating homophobic views holds a position of such power & prestige in your rightly esteemed organisation”.

There isn't even a pretence of understanding the wider issues.

Damian Barr reads a tweet and the witch hunt starts.

Absinthe, I hear you. My industry too, or used to be. It's horrible watching it dismantle itself like this. It's almost like somebody had planned the best way to quell freedom of thought and speech.

Baroness Nicholson only had the role because she was married to the boss. Hardly something she had achieved through her greatness in publishing.

So remove her for that reason, not because of twatter.