I HAD the pleasure of interviewing the Scottish poet Jenny Lindsay last week. She is one of the bravest and most inspiring people I’ve ever encountered in my journalistic career.

Her book Hounded: Women Harms And The Gender Wars chronicles the way in which her career was destroyed by a malevolent and insidious campaign of lies and outright intimidation, simply for stating her reasonable opposition to gender self-ID. 

One of the most chilling aspects of Ms Lindsay’s hounding was the abject cowardice of some arts organisations, venue operators and media organisations. Even though many had misgivings about the threat to women’s rights posed by self-ID they all too often caved in to mobs of witchfinders.

These have made it their business to roam Scotland seeking out gatherings of women for the purpose of intimidating them and, ultimately, silencing them. 

They are able to indulge in such displays of orchestrated misogyny because the frauds who identify as left wing in Scotland have abandoned these women. At the same time, they’ve allowed their organisations to be hollowed out by a medievalist cult of science deniers.     

The SNP, the Labour Party and The Scottish LibDems have all chosen to look the other way when their women members have been hounded out of their jobs and off platforms. Not a single individual in a leadership position in the trade unions has spoken out against this. 

I know several who are troubled by this erosion of free speech and the threat that women face whenever they gather to try to speak about this. Their abject cowardice in this matter, though, renders anything else they say about poverty, inequality, and the rights of minorities utterly worthless. 

In her book, Ms Lindsay outlines some stark differences in behaviour and approach between women and those who would seek to silence them. “If we take a close look at feminist and gender-critical women who become hounded, what we see are women whose main modus operandi is writing, speaking, lobbying politicians, signing petitions or, in the case of those in the creative arts, making women-centred work about their lives. What you will not find is women who argue for violence and other harms against their opponents.”

In modern, progressive Scotland our main left-wing organisations are now led by people who represent the worst of us: supine, weak and unwilling to stand up for what they know is right, lest it costs them their jobs and their titles. 

Greens with envy
I’m deeply concerned about a very public hounding of a woman currently happening at Holyrood. This one concerns Kate Forbes, the Deputy First Minister, and by far Scotland’s most capable politician. 

It seems the Scottish Greens have developed a very creepy obsession with Ms Forbes and her religious beliefs. The language they routinely use to denigrate Ms Forbes at her place of work goes well beyond what you would accept as decent and civilised. It is designed purely to humiliate her, mock her and make her feel besieged: the classic tactics of bullies. 

Earlier this year, I was in Holyrood to witness Ross Greer, the Bearsden Bolshevik, and Patrick Harvie spew poison at Ms Forbes following her appointment as Deputy FM. It was a deeply unpleasant experience. It was little more than an attempt to humiliate and delegitimise Ms Forbes in front of her peers. Mr Harvie suggested that Ms Forbes’s promotion signalled a return to “the repressive values of the 1950s”. 

Patrick HarvieLast week, he was at it again. In a rambling and badly-written newspaper interview, he said: “John Swinney appointed someone as Deputy First Minister, someone who had very recently come out with extreme social conservative positions as well as some fairly clear conservative economic positions, that again was a serious cause for concern. 

“Those concerns remain. What we’ve seen is someone who has sat in Cabinet and signed off the Gender Recognition Reform Bill then eventually said they wouldn’t have voted for it.”
The message was clear even if the writing wasn’t: get rid of that woman or else we’ll bring down your government. 

Holyrood hellhole
JUST as distressing as the Scottish Greens’ hounding of Kate Forbes has been John Swinney’s failure to defend her. It’s Scotland’s misfortune right now to be led by a man who is so craven that he probably consults focus groups before doing his shopping. I’ve seen supermarket trolleys with a deeper sense of purpose than our First Minister. 

The party he leads are also characterised by cowardice. This cowboy outfit waged a five-year campaign of intimidation, led by its dismal chief ermine-botherer Ian Blackford, designed to silence Joanna Cherry. 

It’s populated by plastic hardmen like that daft wee Weetabix in a suit who tried to get wide with me and some Alba members in a Holyrood lift.  

Women have a right to feel protected at their place of work, and this applies equally to successful politicians like Kate Forbes. If neither her own boss nor any of her servile colleagues will invite Mr Harvie out for a chat about his conduct towards Ms Forbes, then the Holyrood authorities definitely should. 

The vicious hounding of Kate Forbes is doing massive reputational damage to the Scottish Parliament and it needs to stop. 

A pressing matter
IT was good to see so many of Alex Salmond’s former parliamentary office staff travel long distances to attend his funeral last week in Strichen. They all had a different story to tell about their old boss than some of those who waited until he was dead to stick the boot. 

I also achieved a lifelong ambition while filing my own despatch on Mr Salmond’s exequies from the back of the bar in the splendid White Horse Hotel. 

A journalist from the Press & Journal, Aberdeen’s stalwart daily organ, had dropped in too and wanted a picture of the regulars raising a glass to the memory of Mr Salmond. 

I simply couldn’t resist this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to appear in the P&J and happily took my place among the afternoon imbibers before resuming my task of writing my report before a rather tight deadline.

As ever, it’s always a pleasure to help out with our esteemed regional dailies.