Manchester, England
For decades, Manchester was plagued by gangs of mostly Pakistani-heritage men who systematically abused white working-class children. One group of fathers, sons, and uncles used a pump on a child’s anus so as to properly prepare her for gang rape.
The police and social services covered it up and shut down investigations—all for the good of diversity. They called 10-year-olds prostitutes and promiscuous. They allowed abusers to pick up and drop off children at local authority homes.
Manchester suffered one of the worst Islamist atrocities this country has ever known when Salman Abedi bombed the Manchester Arena. The city responded by not looking back in anger, with hashtags and crocodile tears. It was “One Love” all the way.
Last year, the Heaton Park Synagogue was attacked by someone called Jihad Al-Shamie. He wanted to slaughter Jews in revenge for Gaza.
Just recently, two men who planned to target the Jewish community in Manchester in what police said could have been “the UK’s most deadly terror attack” were jailed for life. They were homicidal Islamists.
Yesterday, clan voting practices secured a place in Parliament for Hannah Spencer, the new Green MP for Gorton and Denton. She could be seen dancing to an Arabic song, “My Blood is Palestinian.”
She had no idea what she was doing or what people were singing. It pretty much sums up the country right now.
Stupidly gyrating into oblivion.
Mad. Literally mad.
I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.
I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days.
Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them.
However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created.
When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said.
The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness.
Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison?
I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges.
The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest.
Adults can't expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public - but I have the same right, and I've finally decided to exercise it.
The murder of Charlie Kirk is a tragedy, and a sign of the utter desperation and cowardice of those who could not defeat him in argument. Charlie Kirk has been killed not for espousing extremist views - because he didn’t. He has been killed for saying things that used to be simple common sense. He has been killed because he had the courage to stand up publicly for reasonable opinions held by millions and millions of ordinary people both in the US and Britain. The world has a shining new martyr to free speech.
Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and loved ones.