@ScribblingPixie
I don't think he wanted to close her down, he just didn't see the discussion of single sex spaces coming and jabbered the BBC nonsense. He gave her a lot of space to talk and absolutely handed her the opportunity to say that it only takes one predator to end a woman's life when safeguarding doesn't happen.
This was my feeling too. He was making “the right noises” but ineffectively and he gave her loads of time to speak. He didn’t ridicule her or say anything sharp or incisive, didn’t cut across her or tell her she was a bigot or that others would call her transphobic.
Maybe he’s desperately wobbling on the top of the fence, maybe he’s still full on TWAW, but I couldn’t definitively discern his personal position from what he said. He certainly wasn’t making it with his usual brash confidence.
But how wonderful that she spoke up. She was magnificently clear, she linked the two issues together in a way that I haven’t seen done outside of Mumsnet or GC Twitter. Even if not all women are on board, as Campbell said, so what? If some women feel unsafe, and there comments demonstrate they have sound reasons for feeling that way, then we need to listen to them. That’s the message.
And in fact, if you look at this from another angle, she was brought on to discuss women’s safety, perhaps including the angle that men are not listening, so when she raised this, Campbell had no choice but to listen. He was almost hidebound NOT to challenge her too hard. I don’t think she could have done a better job.