Kathleen Stock

Contributing editor @unherd. Podcasts @project_lesbian. Books: MATERIAL GIRLS(2021); DO NOT GO GENTLE (2026). Agent: @littlehardman. No longer a prof.

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

“The bill will definitely come back, there’s no two ways about it. This is not an issue that’s going away.” Kim Leadbeater, talking today about forcing her assisted dying bill through Parliament in the next session.

If you'd like to get up to speed with arguments against the systematisation of assisted death, buy my book. Hardback, e-book, audiobook - all out now.

"Characteristically sharp, clever and vital," Jane O'Grady, The Daily Telegraph

"Admirably clear and cogent... this is a polemic, but a polite one." Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian

"I gladly admit she has all but changed my mind". Bel Mooney, Daily Mail.

https://t.co/xDU7hUEnV1

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

@BoozeAndFagz @ThePosieParker @spikedonline @bindelj What the fuck are you on about

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

Meanwhile Posie and I (and every other terven who have been around here for about a decade, falling out intermittently) have had several differences over the years, but she gives just as good as she gets, and you would have a hard time working out who "slandered" who first. Again, I realise this is of little interest to chaos merchants but it is the truth.

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

@BoozeAndFagz @ThePosieParker @spikedonline @bindelj Have at it, even

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

I neither believed or disbelieved, I took the police at their word about lack of evidence at the time (stupidly, agreed) and wrote about the idiocy of Americans turning a vulnerable little girl with knives into a folk hero on the basis of a three second video, then chucking thousands of quid at her. Further comment is on my own feed, feel free to join the mob there.

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

Briefly unmuting to add that I've asked UnHerd to add updated information about the conviction at the bottom of the article, should be there by lunchtime. (No I do not want cookies etc.)

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

Have come back from weekend away, to find a load of people telling I'm despicable for an Unherd piece I wrote a while back on "Sophie of Dundee". Will link it below so you can read it/ more people can misunderstand it and tell me I'm a sneering disgrace, etc.
Lat week the young girl's Bulgarian attackers were found guilty of assaulting her and pulling her hair, and I'm glad they were convicted. I hope they get sentenced accordingly.
I'm now supposed to apologise for showing contempt for working class girls in my article - but I didn't. I know I didn't because I don't feel anything like that, never have, and never will.
What I did do was (stupidly, I agree) believe Police Scotland when they said there was a lack of evidence to show any crime.
What I also did in my article was to take the piss out of onlookers putting out Braveheart memes about the girl - that is a fair cop.
That is: I mocked and criticised people - mostly uninformed Americans, I thought - who watched a 3 second viral video of a young girl with large knives, and tried to turn her into Mary Queen of Scots, or William Wallace.
My general writing style is mocking and acerbic, and this piece was no different - but I was not mocking the girls (sorry but it is true) - I was mocking the perception of them in the US imagination at the time. (Yes, even the line about machetes and Irn Bru.)
If you think it is a good idea to give a small girl carrying large knives loads of money and make a folk hero out of her, based on a three second video about which you know nothing else, I can tell you definitively (because I have asked some of them since) that plenty of Dundonians would disagree with you. And I still think the way the video was used was not in the girls' best interests.
I obviously have regrets about how I wrote the article, in that it seems plenty of readers did not get what I was trying to do or say - but that is the peril of writing in public, and I take it on the chin.
I realise this is not the apology some want, but its all I got. I hate fake apologies - and anyway, if I had to apologise to anyone, it would be to the girls, in private, for writing about the situation prematurely, not strangers on here who don't know me or my intentions, having the time of their lives ganging up.
Muting this and every other thread now, as let's face it, there is not a lot more I can learn about what a disgrace I am - and if that applies to you, tbh I am not that fond of you either. Very happy if you unfollow me and continue to be deeply disappointed from a distance.

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

Here's the piece for cross-referencing/ further misunderstanding https://t.co/VdfTzDeCph

[Philip Murray @philipmurraylaw]

Already something very fishy about Lauren Edwards’ assisted suicide Bill. Edwards says she doesn’t think the Bill should be enacted through the Parliament Acts, yet is insisting exactly the same Bill be passed by the Commons as last time, refusing even to incorporate Lord Falconer’s 70+ amendments from the last session.

There can only be one reason for this: the Parliament Acts require the same Bill to be passed by the Commons in two sessions. I’ve no doubt that Edwards will continue to present her Bill simply as an opportunity for the Commons to ask the Lords to “finish the job”, but the idea that the Bill won’t end up on the statute book if the Commons passes it again is, frankly, disingenuous.

[Dan Hitchens @ddhitchens]

1. This statement contains several inaccurate or confused claims.

First, Edwards says the bill is only for those “at the very end of their lives.”

But the bill’s “6-month prognosis” criterion is very broad: 1 in 5 of those eligible will actually have at least 3 years to live.

[UnHerd @unherd]

The Equality Act’s fatal paradox, by Kathleen Stock

For Keir Starmer, the colourless legalese of the 2010 Equality Act remains a sacred text.

Reform has said meanwhile it would get rid of the Act altogether, claiming it causes unfair discrimination against white people.

Yet Badenoch’s call to only ditch one part, the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED), means she gets to look impressively decisive relative to Starmer, and reassuringly humane relative to Farage.

Her proposed Hegelian manoeuvre — from ‘Black Lives Matter’ to ‘White Lives Matters’ to the comfortingly non-specific synthesis ’Everyone Matters’ — is all the more attractive to those of us keen to avoid experiencing a civil war in the near future.

Read more below ⬇️

https://t.co/rQUiuMJJyr

[The Lesbian Project @project_lesbian]

New FREE episode of the pod with all the sapphic traffic, out now: lesbian nuns, lesbian vampires, queer emotional support robots. Get it here, or listen in your app https://t.co/85RkKwLQGD

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

@vlok_andre @ddhitchens @TheCriticMag Thank you, that's great to hear

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

Many thanks to @ddhitchens for a fantastic review of my book Do Not Go Gentle in @TheCriticMag - subscribers only, I'm afraid. It's a fair cop that I see the future as increasingly bleak, though I'd like to stress I also find a lot of fun in the present! https://t.co/xE6f7gEMgU

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

The commodification and dehumanisation of impoverished women, given a veneer of respectability by the charade of "labour contracts". As always @bindelj is on the case, this time in Belgium. https://t.co/A12ygTTvT3

[Julie Bindel @bindelj]

I wrote, for @unherd, about Europe's pimp state - Brussels: https://t.co/bFaNUZ6LQ0

[Dennis Noel Kavanagh @Jebadoo2]

1/ I went to Parliament to watch the Women and Equalities Committee. The chair of the EHRC Mary-Ann Stephenson (MAS) and CEO John Kirkpatrick were giving evidence, the other adults in the room were Rosie Duffield and Rebecca Paul MP. Other than that it was the slow kid's table.

[Nikki da Costa @nmdacosta]

Unprompted, respondents are wary that the Bill is only being considered for cost saving reasons, with assisted dying cheaper than prolonged care.

Considerable concern it will become a first option rather than last resort, and lead to future underinvestment in care and NHS 2/

[Nikki da Costa @nmdacosta]

🚨Ahead of today's WH debate, JL Partners spoke to former Labour voters in Peckham, Bassetlaw and St Helens about assisted dying.

Many started off sympathetic.But support fell away when asked obvious questions re safeguards, NHS pressure, coercion, cost and trust 🧵 1/

[The Other Half @OtherHalfOrg]

We were down in Rochester & Strood today - where MP Lauren Edwards is under the most pressure to revive the failed assisted death Bill and push it through into law.

Local residents turned out with The OH's @fionamacmac & @TheNotDeadYetUK, to ask her not to return this Bill.