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By Matthew Robinson |
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| Good morning.
Alex Salmond has accused Nicola Sturgeon of throwing away years of Scottish independence campaigning with her “self-indulgent nonsense” over trans laws. Also, Salman Rushdie, pictured above, has said he dreamt of a “colossal” attack before he was stabbed more than a dozen times in August. |
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Sturgeon’s trans row set us back years, says Salmond
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| Nicola Sturgeon is facing a fresh crisis after she was accused by Alex Salmond of having “thrown away” years of campaigning for Scottish independence over her controversial trans laws. In his first public intervention in the row over transgender rapist Isla Bryson being sent to a women’s prison, Mr Salmond said nationalists had managed to drive up support for independence to above 50 per cent in the polls. But he said backing had declined since her “self-indulgent nonsense” on gender self-identification laws. The former SNP leader told a Burns Supper for his Alba Party on Saturday that he had assumed the leaders of the nationalist movement “well understood” the need to win over “every part and section” of Scotland. However, Ms Sturgeon insisted she was not spooked by a YouGov poll, published at the weekend, which found backing for separation down from 53 per cent to 47 per cent in a month, and support for the SNP at a Westminster election at 42 per cent.
Meanwhile, the crisis around Ms Sturgeon’s leadership intensified on Monday when she referred to Bryson as “her” following days of refusing to say whether she regarded the transgender rapist as male or female. Challenged at a press conference about the “Freudian slip” and whether she regarded Bryson as female, the First Minister said: “She regards herself a woman, I regard the individual as a rapist.” She also attempted to calm the civil war in the SNP by insisting MPs and MSPs who oppose her Gender Recognition Reform Bill did not have to stand down. Shirley-Anne Somerville, the education secretary and a Sturgeon loyalist, suggested at the weekend that they should consider quitting. Scottish political editor Simon Johnson has the full story. |
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Islamist extremism ‘treated like mental illness’
Islamic extremists are being treated as victims rather than the public being protected from the threat they pose, an official review into the Government’s anti-radicalisation programme will warn. The report into Prevent is expected to find that officials have been too focused on addressing the “personal vulnerabilities” of extremists, with terrorism treated as a mental illness. Seven of the 13 terror attacks in the past six years, including the murder of MP David Amess, have been carried out by extremists who had been referred to Prevent. |
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Salman Rushdie says he dreamt of ‘colossal’ attack
Days before Sir Salman Rushdie was stabbed on stage at a literary festival in the US, he dreamt that an attacker would hurt him with “a sharp object”. In the nightmare, a figure “like a gladiator” came at him, the author revealed in his first interview since the August attack. That day at the Chautauqua Institution in New York state, Sir Salman was stabbed more than a dozen times in the chest, liver, hand, face and neck, and has since lost the sight in his right eye. But as arts and entertainment editor Anita Singh reports, he has not lost his sense of humour. |
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Some View on the World 