Jonathan Sanders

Proud Welshman, living and thriving in Norway.

I even speak sense occasionally.

Blue tick is in the post.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧🇳🇴

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

@RealJamesWoods Isn't that Jane Macdonald giving a haymaker...

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

@GeoffNorcott Oh I don't know Geoff, I think the country became a far safer place when they put Philip Schofield in a giant condom.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

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.

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

@MadelaineLucyH Russell Brand?

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

@GOLDBABYO I once had an employee who wanted to sleep in the storeroom for his hour lunch break every day because the job was so tiring.

Retail.

[James Cleverly🇬🇧 @JamesCleverly]

Smashing up other people’s property is illegal. Injuring a police office with a sledge hammer is illegal.

Having a political motivation for illegal acts doesn’t stop it being illegal.

Samuel Corner, 8 years 8 months for GBH and Criminal Damage

Charlotte Head and Leona Kamio, 6 years 45 days for Criminal Damage

Fatema Rajwani, 5 years 8 months for Criminal Damage

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

@Heccles94 If @elonmusk decided to do that it would be wonderful, otherwise keep your grubby little mitts out of other people's pockets.

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

@ItakGol Google?

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

@J18149952 @GriftReport .. and probably his last - at least with Ryanair.

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

@robertwlk How bloody dare you!

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

These thugs fractured the spine of Sgt Kate Evans, who spoke in court of the medical and emotional trauma she still lives with.
Prison is where they belong.
Unlike Zack Polanski, I want serious consequences for anyone who attacks police officers risking their lives to protect us.

[Robert Wilkinson @robertwlk]

That's the 10th passenger to call me a terrible bus driver.
I don't know where these people get off.

[Patrick Christys @PatrickChristys]

One of them smashed a police officer’s spine with a hammer

[Jonathan Sanders @jwsanders2011]

Now I'm in the SpaceX membership club what shareholder benefits can I expect?

Window seat?
On-board spending credit?

[G @stevensongs]

Elon Musk has enough money now to fix every McDonald's ice cream machine, but he won't because he only thinks of himself.

[Rabbi Poupko @RabbiPoupko]

In a world filled with Hannah Einbinders, be a Jerry Seinfeld.

[Heidi Bachram @HeidiBachram]

Those blocking the prison van containing the violent criminals just sentenced are chanting “globalise the Intifada” now. Given the context seems like a call for violence. @metpoliceuk

[Andrew Snowden MP 🇬🇧 @A_J_Snowden]

Keir Starmer: "We don't have £4.5 billion for defence."

Keir Starmer the next day: "I’m announcing £4.5 billion for more cycle lanes and zebra crossings."

He’s just reached the point where he’s just laughing at us all now.

You really couldn't make it up.

[Marc Feder מרדכי אריה @nomadicmarc]

We love you @JerrySeinfeld