JK Rowling Challenges Police To Arrest Her Over Scottish Hate Crime Law | This Morning's View

We're starting the program with our

morning

view

with the lovely Nick Ferrari and the beautiful Good Morning. Thanks for joining us. Thanks Nick. Nice to see you. Let's start with the headline which is really the reaction to the new

hate

crime

. The Public Order in Scotland Act 2021 creates a new offense of inciting

hate

related to age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or being interx. JK rling has taken to Twitter, challenging the

police

in a social media post criticizing hers, she insisted on the legislation. is very open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those who speak out about the dangers of eliminating women and girls Single-sex spaces Nick, we'll start with you, can you tell us a little about the background and where you're likely to go? does

this

come? where

this

is likely to go is cause a big r yes of course here's the background so this is for Scotland only as something is needed to unite the Prime Minister and Peter Tatel who is a phenomenal and Veteran gay rights advocate. and both have spoken out against this new law, as have senior

police

officers themselves, what do you foresee that anyone who is Ted to incite hatred against trans people could face

arrest

now?

That seems to make sense, as Peter Tachel points out. In the protected groups provided for by this legislation in Scotland, women do not feature, so trans women, trans men, women themselves? Freedom of speech because if people should be allowed to say whatever they want as long as it doesn't cause specific harm, this law would actually put if you made a comment that might seem derogatory about trans people in the privacy of your own home you could face

arrest

, you could face a jail sentence and the other thing that worries people is that these claims can be made in special centers, as they are called, if you go back to the days of the trials of Salem witches.

You decided someone was a witch and told the local community that then that person was effectively swept away, that's what they're worried about, like I said at the top. If you can combine Prime Minister Peter Tatchell and several senior police chiefs, I will do it. Question the validity of the law, son, what's wrong with you? Subjectivity must be the most difficult thing here. Absolutely fine, there are some very vague definitions in this law. In fact, I completely agree with JK Rowling that it will be open to abuse, so while there has been a

crime

since the 1980s in relation to inciting hatred in relation to race, there are very good reasons for it, it should be at the level of far-right political organization, political parties are racist and legislators felt they needed a law to crack down on which now, by taking that very specific law and extending it very broadly to a whole range of categories, including things that are subject of an intense democratic debate, which is, as we all know, the debate about gender and sex and the relative importance of gender identity and sex.

It's a very controversial topic in society by creating a hate crime law in that controversial area, you run the risk of people saying very mild legitimate things, things like you know sex is real. I don't think people can change their sex. I think women's sports. should be for women only, you run the risk of other people accusing you of hate speech on the basis of transgender identity, which will have a huge chilling impact on freedom of expression and there are a couple of additional things to say, The first is that the police have been very bad at understanding freedom of expression, democratic freedom of expression in this country, so having a little common sense may be, exactly, so the courts have determined that the police have acted illegally in relation to the debate about gender and sex that they have had.

We've basically given people warnings for saying things that are completely legal online, which is really very concerning. The other thing is that we've had some court cases where judges have said that they've seen that activists in this debate, particularly those who think that gender identity can replace sex entirely, accuse people of being hateful when they are not and we have had some important court rulings where the judges have observed that, so we know that there is a lot of bad faith, insults, um saying that you are hateful, you can I'm not saying that in this debate the danger is that it becomes a situation where there is something that is a really legitimate debate in society, which is that we need to protect the dignity and rights of trans people, but we also need to protect single-sex spaces for women. and women-only sports, it's a very sensitive issue, it's about conflicting rights, we need to be able to have an open conversation about the danger is that this law makes it harder, not easier, and that's why JK Rowling has made this thread where Le expressed some of his

view

s that some people would say are hateful.

I think some of them are important points of view that need to be expressed and she said, "Go on then, I dare you to arrest me," so she's testing the law, so to speak, and Nick and I would love to know your opinion on this. So, we are not beholden to a judge's interpretation of this law. Yeah, and before that, you're subject to the police's interpretation of the law because and I think Sonia characterized it. Brilliantly, I don't think it's appropriate to go into some of the descriptions that JK Rowling has used about some of these people, although I fully support her point of view, it will become so subjective that I have to refer it to the police. officer first, then he goes to his equivalent of the crown prosecution service, where charges will be laid, and then he goes before a judge, all because, as his son has so lucidly said, someone has a different view on something like transport.

I think we need to live in a country where, as long as you express your views clearly, you don't use hate language, you don't incite any kind of riot and we have the Public Order Act 1986 which prohibits it anyway. I need this additional law, yes, I would completely agree with that and I think when it comes down to it, the police are very bad at understanding the Democratic rights to free speech and protest. In reality, this is a government that has given the police many more powers. to determine what protest is okay and what democratic protest is not just as a balance, that's quite Catal, that all the police or I mean, I don't know how Sy, well, in general, we know that they are kind of bad at that and the fact of the matter is we really shouldn't get it, it shouldn't be their job, so you know, we have very overstretched police forces, sometimes they don't even come when you have been robbed at home, why do we force them to keep watch the limits of legitimate debate online when they sometimes overstep them and give people warnings when they shouldn't?

So I think it's just about understanding what the job of the police should be. be okay, I guess, by the way, they've been given an impossible job, haven't they? Yeah, they have the I mean again, they have law enforcement in those states, so just anything that could cause any kind of alarm, distress, distress. of public peace that allows them to act, so yes, to a certain extent, what Sonia just said, but if someone is sitting on a bus and is subjected to vile comments because they happen to be trans, what we want are laws that allow that and that is What does the public order law do?

We don't need this additional Scots law, yeah, and we also have laws that say um and that's another thing that SA does, that actually this is what Scots laws do so that people don't have problems with which one it is. If you commit a crime against someone and there is evidence that part of the motivation for the crime was hatred against that person because he is gay or because he is trans or because of the color of his skin, you will receive a higher sentence. that nobody has a problem because this is a legitimate democratic debate.

It's interesting that women are absolutely not okay with that. I think it's really problematic that when a crime is committed, it's related to some of these protected characteristics, you know. um in these categories you will get a higher sentence, but for women you are not okay, let's move on to a new story, uh, exploring the fact that there is new data out there, it has been revealed that NHS doctors waste a staggering amount of 13.5 million hours a year restarting. computers and literally looking at loading screens, that's the equivalent of 8,000 full-time doctors costing a billion. I mean, I've spent a few times looking at that little round thing that says, it's the Wheel of Doom, that's what it is, uh, Nick, what are you doing?

What do you think of all this? Well, that's why I can't get an appointment with my doctor. Clearly, he or she is sitting in this damn circle going around and around. Look, we have to put it in a little context. Imagine how many. Man or woman hours are spent working with the NHS and the amount of patient records that can be accessed, but ultimately this is something that needs to be done. Last week, remember Allison, we were talking about public satisfaction in the NHS being at its lowest level in over 40 years, mainly due to problems with A&E and the GP waiting list.

I think this plays into this. We'd better say that the government has promised that there will be new investment. They talk about an investment of 3.4 billion pounds. Focus on top-of-the-line computers. It seems to me that what R's computer is saying is that no, it's just pinged too often. I mean, it's only a matter of time before we have a blackout, isn't it nice that the NHS actually did it? Remember when there was a big type of hacking in the NHS? Yes, absolutely, it has been a long-standing problem in the NHS. You have these computers running on technology and software from the 1990s and early 2000s, like Microsoft does.

I don't even do updates for them anymore and the problem is we've underinvested in it and in technology in the NHS so that's true when it comes to things like the monitors that doctors and surgeons use, it's true when it comes to It's pretty basic, like communicating between departments in a hospital, so it's not just about the money we spend on the NHS year after year here and now we don't spend enough there, we also don't spend enough and we haven't in the last 20 years , I would say we probably haven't spent enough on the technology that really holds back the doctors and nurses we have.

I mean, they have to waste all this time, so the only thing I'll say is that I don't know if you remember that under the Labor government there was a big NHS IT project which has a terrible reputation because the NHS is so big when you try to remake it, you know there was a project that billions and billions have been spent on and you know, you know it never quite materializes, so it's a huge thing, like how do you remake it for a painting like that, the bridge, do you know? Don't you when you get to the end, you probably have it? starts exactly exactly, that's a very good metaphor, thank you, okay, more of these guys in a second, don't do it.