'Johann Lamont: The Scottish Parliament has not improved the lives of Scotland's women'

[ArabellaScott]

Article in Holyrood magazine.

www.holyrood.com/news/view,johann-lamont-scottish-parliament-has-not-been-good-for-women?fbclid=IwAR2FlElFCAapU80SgtSmfLLGibDXE1xjxrf2Xlxs-eckkEPKO_x1_HTGcbU

'it's very often young emboldened men, have almost been given permission to push back pretty aggressively against arguments about women's rights. '

www.holyrood.com/news/view,johann-lamont-scottish-parliament-has-not-been-good-for-women

Sorry, that link didn't work properly either. MN doesn't seem to like the comma in it.

The link doesn't work for me

Thanks Arabella.

There was also this good reminder.

“And it is as if the trans community all speaks with one voice. We know that's not true.”

Try.
www.holyrood.com/news/view,johann-lamont-scottish-parliament-has-not-been-good-for-women

No. They have a glitch in their copy link function. Paste it in search and it come up.

Speaking to the Holyrood podcast, Lamont said one of the big weaknesses of the last parliament had been a “reluctance to test arguments”.

“It's partly because we've got a parliament that likes to pass legislation to signal things, because that's one heck of a lot cheaper than going and spending money and changing people's lives,” she said.

“And that's one of my biggest regrets, is that there's too much of 'well we pass a bit of legislation to show how much we care, to send a message', and then do nothing else.”

She is spot on there.

www.holyrood.com/news/view,johann-lamont-scottish-parliament-has-not-been-good-for-women

Sorry about the link fail. Not sure how to fix that!

We're going to miss Johann Lamont in Scotparl.

The link starts out OK but changes once posted
Good article

Archive link: archive.fo/6NDVn

Holyrood article by by Andrew Learmonth
15 April 2021
(extract)
"In an interview with Holyrood, the former Labour leader said MSPs were more interested in passing legislation that “signal things, because that's one heck of a lot cheaper than going and spending money and changing people's lives.”

Lamont also tabled a series of amendments designed to find out whether ministers believe there are more sexes than male and female.

She wanted the Hate Crime Bill to include the words “a reference to sex is a reference to being a woman or a man”, as well as changing references to “persons of a different sex” to “opposite sex”.
She said this would make the Bill consistent with the 2010 Equality Act, which says sex is either “a reference to a man or to a woman”.
The Glasgow MSP had some success at the end of last year when she won an amendment to the Forensic Medical Services Bill to allow the survivors of rape and sexual assaults to pick the sex rather than the gender of the person examining them after an attack.

Her interventions have often seen her branded a bigot. During the hate crime debate, Green MSP Patrick Harvie agreed with a Twitter user who accused Lamont of “vicious transphobia.” (continues)

This should work.

www.holyrood.com/news/view,johann-lamont-scottish-parliament-has-not-been-good-for-women

@ArabellaScott

Sorry about the link fail. Not sure how to fix that!

We're going to miss Johann Lamont in Scotparl.

We really are. Her loss concerns me greatly.

I thought her comments on the signalling with policies rather than making real changes and differences was right on the money with the current Scottish government.

Thank you for links. to Johann

The thing is that the policies will make real changes and differences - but I think they will often be unintended, and not necessarily positive ones. That is, they won't be positive for women.

• thanks for the archive and sorted links, Rowan and OldCrone.