Nigella Lawson apologizes for 27 year old column

In the future every politician, every celebrity will be entirely bland. No one who has put anything in public will survive.

It also has a lot less integrity to apologise to an individual on an issue of a political disagreement while not actually setting out clearly that your politics have changed (and if you say that they have changed, to set out in what way and why).

I will just add and

I'm not sure I understand the distinction between those who identify as a different sex or gender and those who identify as a different race. But that is seen as offensive, of being white privilege and cultural appropriation. There was another news story last week about a US professor who'd been living as a black person when she was white.

the moderators at the Times are having a busy morning - I wonder how many comments are now in the queue?

How do people find old tweets/articles etc that are "offensive" ? Do they forensically search a particular person's archive as they are targeting them in particular, or is there a small (or large?) army out there all digging through everything anyone said or wrote of a dubious nature, however long ago?

I read a lot, and virtually everything written pre-, er, now, contains something someone might object to. Some things a great deal worse than others, of course, but I foresee that almost every single thing ever published is going to have to be burned if we carry on with this "cleansing" business.

this is so depressing - I know Nigella has her problems but I would imagine that she has the financial security to stand with JK and do the Right Thing. Watching the flying monkeys coming for the fragrant Nigella would be a big heads up for many people.
Instead, she keeps her head down and adds to the voices wanting to destroy women's rights and protections and it is mostly left to the ordinary women who are desperately trying to get the word out there and risking a lot to do it.

I agreed with every quote from Nigella’s original column as quoted in the Times article. I am very sorry she has apologised- what for? There isn’t a right not to be offended. She can apologise for making any individual person feel upset because they don’t like what she thinks, but she shouldn’t ever have to apologise for saying what she thinks. Which is what loads of other women are being pressured to do right now. Even if they are able to speak out in the first place which is not a given in this current climate for women.

I hope Nigellas apparent conversion of thought to a more misogynistic, homophobic and non-reality-based position is something she could be persuaded to debate in writing with other journalists. Perhaps the Spectator or Times will invite her. We urgently need more high profile people talking about this.

Do these people not realise that at some point there will be a line they are not willing to cross, for some it will be the word womxn (I cant be arsed to check if that is right) for some it will be cervix havers, it doesnt matter because it is never enough, they will push and push. Total obedience is required. At some point nigella will want to say no, what then?

Ridiculous - 27 years ago! Who cares what she said nearly thirty years ago...nobody anywhere! Showing her age me thinks!

We will never understand what it is like to feel like we have been born into the wrong body whether that is a mental health issue or genuine medical issue - we don't get it. It must be incredibly distressing to feel that way.

Yes we will never understand what it's like - so we should pay very close attention to the words of the many de-transitioners who do understand.

That’s the thing though James people are clearly not being entitled to opinions are they? People with the ‘wrong’ opinions are being doxxed, their employers contacted, had work withdrawn, the police contacted, taken to court & screamed at to die in a grease fire

So no it seems we’re only entitled to an opinion so long as it’s “TWAW no debate”

Yes agree with PP - she has new TV show out & a new book. She doesn’t want to be cancelled plus I also think she doesn’t want to be thought of as - horror- old and not up with modern thinking. I mean that is the big weapon that’s weilded too isn’t it. GC women are ‘old’ and/or ‘ugly’. For someone like nigella who has used her beauty as part of her weaponry to get ahead being seen as old & ugly would destroy her public persona

So yes I get why she recanted

Still sad though in all senses of the word

and we are all entitled to our opinions

JamesZebra

Really? Perhaps you can clarify that for the people who have been hounded, demonized, no platformed and sacked for refusing to submit to the new orthodoxy. Your statement is false. People are not allowed to have their own opinions. They are supposed to regurgitate the slogans. Or face the consequences.

We always had The Times when she was a columnist - before her TV cookery fame - and I did sometimes find her pieces irritatingly pious or preachy, so I was never a fan, and this latest doesn’t surprise me at all.

I just wonder if a lot of this is down to a lack of understanding on our part. We will never understand what it is like to feel like we have been born into the wrong body whether that is a mental health issue or genuine medical issue - we don't get it. It must be incredibly distressing to feel that way.
Years ago people were very against gay and lesbian relationships but as time has gone on there has been a lot more understanding and awareness around this. Perhaps the same could be said about the trans discussions that are happening at the moment. I am not saying this to cause an argument. I know people on MN have very strong views on trans issues and we are all entitled to our opinions- I just think maybe 50 years from now it will all make a lot more sense one way or another.

I do think it is crazy to be pulled up on something that was said 27 years ago but I guess that is the nature of the day and age we live in now. Lots of things are online and once they are out there they can't be taken back. I think its quite worrying in a sense that we all probably said and did some things in our younger years that we would cringe at now yet years down the line could be held accountable for.

Plus, she might simply feel that it's just not worth the bother of putting up with hateful Twitter fanatics. Easier just to apologise. Not saying it's the right thing to do, but I can understand why she did it.

Frightening times we live in

What I find fascinating is the historical parallels. None of them flattering. It's recant or be damned. This fanaticism has been heightened by social media, but the echoes are there. The Robespierre faction in Salem putting on a struggle session for retweets.

I’d assume that NL is terrified about having the same fate as JKR and being besties with JM, of course she’s —now— a trans ally.

Frightening times we live in.

Woman made to publicly apologise for stating people with dysphoria should be given mental health support and not lop off healthy body parts. Woke.

TRA's saying women should be raped or killed for not buying trans ideology and stating biological reality. Woke.

Very happy to not be a woke, virtue-signalling idiot.

Bit of an own goal on Elan-Cane's part. Snarking at Nigella allowed Times to reprint what Nigella actually said, which was -

In the column, written after Elan-Cane expressed views to have surgery, she wrote: “Christie Elan-Cane claimed that she felt wrong as a woman and that her proper state was ‘androgyny’. To this end she managed to find a doctor to perform first an operation to remove both her breasts and then to remove her womb. No disease was detected or claimed: there was no medical justification for such brutal surgery. Of course, it’s Christie Elan-Cane’s body. But behind the desire for self-mutilation surely lies the most troubling self-hatred (she made no bones about her disgust at her femininity) and that’s not the kind of thing you can excise with a surgeon’s scalpel.”

So something printed 27 years ago, which was only remembered by Elan-Cane and the Times archive, has now been brought to light again. And I doubt many Times readers will find any fault in it.

As for Nigella going woke, the tide will turn and she might find herself having to backpedal.

It’s also the fear of being vilified and being subject to trial by social media.