Herald Scotland article

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Interesting article from Iain MacWhirter today.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/18279092.iain-macwhirter-nicola-sturgeon-must-defend-womens-rights-lose-next-election/

great article

Now that is a letter I can get behind. Clear and factual. Excellent.

Excellent - apart from the bit at the end about self ID, I think he seeks to distinguish ID from sex but his suggestion still corrupts language.

There was a comment this weekend on the Times website, to the effect that the SNP have Hobson's choice - either they push through the GRA in Scotland and alienate 50% of the electorate before the next Holyrood elections, or they postpone it, and have to campaign with people asking them how they are planning to safeguard women and girls - knowing that answering 'we aren't - we're bringing in the GRA and trampling on the rights of women and girls' will lose them significant numbers of votes.

Yes, Aesop, that last sentence kind of skidded off. As ever the careful use of language matters!.

Looking through the comments on that thread, there's one point that comes up again and again, for example:

You entirely missed my point. GRA doesn't change the access rights.

This displays a disappointing lack of awareness.

The Gender Recognition Act being changed to include self-ID will change culture. It will mean that when the many thousands of bearded queer transwoman start wandering into all kinds of women's spaces, no one will feel able to stop them or even to say a word. No matter what exemptions exist in the Equality Act, these will become de facto inapplicable.

The end result will be either women having to put up with their loss of privacy and dignity and manage as best as they can or having to withdraw from women-only spaces. At that point they might begin to wonder whether official mixed-sexed spaces will actually afford them more protection.

I liked this comment.

'While I was out canvassing and leafleting in December, many people asked what the views of the candidate I was canvassing for, was on this issue. Most I spoke to don't agree with it and would not have voted for the candidate if his views were not what they were. Now that the whole Flowjob debacle has been brandished across the media, and the resultant backlash, I suspect it will have served only to inform even more of the electorate what this legislation is and how it is being pushed through,...'

This proves that people are asking at least questions to campaigners and candidates. And that people are also waking up to the whole Drag Queen Story Time inappropriateness. Chicken or egg, doesn't matter. Questions are being asked.

I liked his perspective, too.
Is the Herald a main paper in Scotland?

Yes, it's probably the biggest selling broadsheet, that or the scotsman. Unfortunately a lot of SNP voters may have moved to the national. I think he appears on some bbc Scotland politics programmes. Hopefully he might also take this to tv screens too.

It is difficult when folks you disagree with on so many other issues say such reasonable things

Main paper in the west, originally the Glasgow Herald. The Scotsman is the Edinburgh paper.

Thanks both

Yes it’s a big paper and I’ve seen a few very good articles from them. Definitely influential, he’s a well known journalist here

He's openly GC on Twitter too.