Me on Channel Five News

In case you missed it: me on channel five news debating page three. Check out Neil Wallis's patronising back pat at the end of the clip!  Eww.  ***takes Brillo pad into shower***

I seem to be their guest of the moment lately, here's me from a few weeks back discussing the Delhi Rape case with the much more sensible Sunny Hundal:

In need of a closing ceremony for sexism!

Oh dear, I wasn't planning to watch the Olympics closing ceremony but I rather enjoyed most of the opening ceremony and circumstances have brought me here.  Now during the opening ceremony we saw a piece about the NHS.  It wasn't about big pharmaceutical companies, presumably because while they do distribute some useful and effective drugs they also have a poor track record of pushing drugs on those who don't really need them and charging too much to those whose illness, or perceived illness, may have made them easy targets.  But somehow in the closing ceremony there's a big celebration of the fashion industry.  Does the fashion industry do ANYTHING other than tell women they need more and different overpriced clothes? Does it not just generate need by encouraging people, mostly women, to feel bad about their appearances.  Does this not indeed lead to recognised medical conditions like anorexia and body dismorphic disorder?

Big pharma might be horrifically corrupt but at least they do some good for some people.  Does big fashion benefit anyone?  Third world workers in garment factories are notoriously mistreated. The average Briton has about ten years "worth" of clothes in their wardrobe. It would be better for us all if we closed the whole industry down and transferred those workers to pharmaceutical companies work on developing new medicines and treatments.  Or better still get them working in the NHS, and start properly funding medical research in the UK so we don't leave it all in the corrupt hands of big pharma...  How is this not obvious?

Now of course my outrage has been ignited a bit further by the arrival of Russell Brand.  It's a matter of hours since he (allegedly) horrifically sexually harassed a woman. His track record on the matter is less than great.

...And now two male singers are onstage in suits and jackets next to Jessie J who is dressed in a flesh-coloured catsuit which makes her look basically naked.  I'm all FOR nudity, but lets just have men and women nude please, otherwise it's creepy and presents women as sex objects.

Maybe they were inspired by the sexism of having only the men's marathon winner being given his gold by the big cheese.  Interestingly as the winner was Ugandan, footage must now (I assume, wasn't shown) exist of David Cameron and Boris Johnson standing up for the national anthem of a country where homosexuality is illegal. Much as I lack respect for the Lib Dems, it does make me rather wish Brian Paddick was Mayor of London.

Oh hang on - here's Eric Idle. Brilliant, how fun and cheering.  And nicely atheist too, bit like John Lennon's Imagine earlier.  I'm starting to forgive them. Oh what's that behind him? A row of women dressed as angels in bikinis. Facepalm.

I had better sign off before they get Jim Davidson on!

The Bachelor and Me!

I know that many regular Cru-blog readers spotted me this week on the UK TV series The Bachelor. And many viewers of that series have also tracked me down and been in touch. Hello!

Before it was aired I kept pretty quiet about it for confidentiality reasons - obviously the series relies on audiences not knowing in advance who will go through to the next round each time. Now it's been out (and if you didn't see it you can still do so on the Channel Five website and on your TV's "catch-up" service, assuming you're in the UK) I can answer some of the questions I've been bombarded with over the last few days!

1) It's not a very feminist show, is it?

Twenty-four women competing to date one guy? No of course not. There is however (in the US only so far) a sister show The Bachelorette where 24 guys compete to date one woman.  Personally I was pleased withthe show espousing the idea that women can impress a guy by making him laugh and I figured I'd rather the expert comedy teacher shown was a woman than a guy. So when it was offered I said "yes". If it brings a few new people to my work - awesome. One thing that does annoy me about it is that they always refer to the women as "girls". I said "women" to them all the time, which did sound odd to some of them I think, but hey, small steps!

2) What is Spencer like? Did you fancy him? Did he flirt with you?

I didn't meet him, but the crew all said he's really nice off screen (though I agree he comes across a bit arrogant on screen). I could have stayed and watched them doing the actual comedy roast but I decided to go off for dinner instead.

3) Any behind-the-scenes gossip?

Not really. I only met half the women and not Spencer at all so I have no idea who's going to win.  This is the best I can do:

Brandy (as you can tell) really loves comedy. When she gets back to the UK, with or without Spencer, she might come and take my comedy course at City Academy.

Wondering why Helen is interviewed so much? She's the only one who doesn't mind being interviewed without her make-up, so she gets a bit more exposure!

While half the women are preparing for and having their group "date" with Spencer they take the other half out on day trips so they won't get bored. While my "lot" wrote comedy the others had gone to a private beach for the afternoon.

If I had to date one (I doubt they will ever make this show, they couldn't afford the insurance!), it would be Helen, a surprising choice for me as she's religious. But she was a lot of fun to spend time with.

The only one I didn't really click with was Tabby, she seemed a bit shy, or aloof, hard to tell in a short space of time. But then she was the one who won that challenge, so what do I know??!

4) Can I learn comedy too?

Yes sign up for a taster class at City Academy and I'll see you there!

5) What other TV and radio shows have you done?

Loads and loads but usually as a political comedienne and feminist and atheist activist. Please watch this blog or follow me on Facebook and/or Twitter @Cruella1

Bachelor Girl

Strange as this might seem, I will be making a guest appearance on tonight's episode of The Bachelor on Channel Five, 10pm (thats a UK channel, dont know if it'll be viewable elsewhere). Yes really. Do watch if you're curious. I shall be off MCing the Funny's Funny women's comedy competition final at the Empire Casino in Leicester Square. You're also very welcome to that, tickets are £15 from www.sohocomedy.com and it's being headlined by Andi Osho who is on the telly a lot more than me.

That internet, eh?!

The sort of weird shit I get on Facebook:

"hey, i saw you on big question and to be honest i didn't really agree with a lot of your points on certain matters. also the way in which you presented your points was very abrupt and aggressive, HOWEVER ... i have this inexplicable, major sexual attraction to you and i have no idea why, seeing as i quite frankly find what you have to say really irrritating most of the time. Yet I seem to find myself incredibly drawn to you. I thought i would tell you this, seeing as  their is nothing to really lose, and would be interested to see if you have this effect on other individuals!

regards

anand gopinathan

p.s. wouldn't you rather not live like their isn't a god, than die and find out there really is?"

Mmmm, you mean give up half a day a week, a proportion of my income and all the good sex I have on the off chance of something so improbable it can be dismissed out of hand? No thanks.  Also there is nothing inexplicable about your "major sexual attraction to me".  I am super-hot. Cheers.

Revival Review

Had a lovely review in London is Funny for my Edinburgh preview at the Revival festival last Thurs.

"The only real feminist-heavy thwack came from Smurthwaite at the end with extracts from her topical show The News at Kate. She handles weighty material without ever getting preachy and owns the stage, but is never overbearing. And if her rapport with the lads on the front row was anything to go by, she deals deftly with a vociferous audience too."

Full review here!

Follow Me!

Photographer Travis Hodges took some photos of me a few weeks ago as part of a project photographing popular Twitter users who nominate one another.  Here's the shot he took (I LOVE IT!)

And the whole project can be viewed here. If you're on Twitter and don't follow me already my tag is @Cruella1.

Daily Mega-Fail

Yesterday's Daily Mail: Brave woman speaks out about child sex abuse.

Today's Daily Mail: Wa-hey, look at this sexy fifteen-year-old!

Seriously.  How do they sleep at night?

Heavyweight Smurthwaite

I LOVE this cartoon made about me by Lucas Black.  Thank you!! Do go and read more on his blog here.

What is the Latin for hernia?

OK, so it's not hernu, which is a shame cos students across the country could memorise it easily just by thinking about the notion of a major pain in the arse.

Tomorrow morning 7am on LBC I shall be laying into one nasty piece of work called Piers Hernu*. It will feel earlier than it is, party because of the clocks going forward, but mostly because of his grating sexist opinions I expect.

Tune in if by any miracle you are up. LBC does have "listen again" functionality but you have to pay money for it usually.

*Unless of course he turns out to have perfectly reasonable opinions about women in the media. Last time we were on air together he had such intelligent salient things to say that he resorted to calling me a "harriden" and a "battleaxe". Worse still when we got off air he then tried to be matey with me, seeking my reassurance, going "it's a bit of a laugh isn't it?", "it's just a bit of fun", "I just play along" and expecting me to agree with him. I was like "No, I'm actually a feminist in real life too. I don't just play one on the radio!"

Bishop admits to me that the bible is lies!

Found this lovely clip someone has cut and put up on the internet from The Big Questions. It's more recent than "the bitchslap" but I think it's interesting, not least because this rude pompous guy admits that the bible he believes in contains outright lies. Mmm. Also I made some points that needed making about religion and the environment. Later that same day over lunch I asked him if he wanted to say grace and he blanked me! Anyway - enjoy:

And to those people who've been asking when I'll be back on TBQ the answer is I don't know - I have been on twice this series already - first and second episodes - so they're undoubtedly doing their best to avoid rebooking me for a bit for variety. Maybe I/they should record a "Smurthwaite's edit" version so you can watch the show with my commentary over the top...!

Abortion, Dorries, Phillips and me.

AKA (as suggested on Twitter) Bodily Autonomy Deathmatch I and II

Last Thursday a story appeared on the front page of the Telegraph claiming some abortion providers in the UK were providing abortions on the grounds of gender (gender of the foetus that is, the mother is usually female).

Now there's a few things wrong with this.

Firstly they're investigative journalists who sent pregnant actresses in with hidden cameras to pose as abortion-seekers. This piece is not (as has been widely assumed) about real women actually doing this. While there are some countries in the world (India, China) where this is an issue, there's no real evidence to suggest it happens with any frequency in the UK. Where it does happen it should be tackled of course by tackling the inherent sexism in those cultures - not by forcing women to continue with a pregnancy against their will.

Secondly referring a woman for an abortion because of the foetus' gender in the UK is not actually illegal. It is only illegal if that is the ONLY reason given. In fact the only acceptable reason for referring for a termination in the UK is that it would cause greater harm to the woman's physical or mental health to continue with the pregnancy than to terminate it. So you can't grant one because a woman was raped, or is eleven years old or anything else. This at some level makes sense - the only reason to have an abortion is because it is better for the woman to have one than not to.

Thirdly if any law has been broken - it's only because the journalists set out to trap doctors (and for some reason counsellors, they don't seem to have managed to distinguish between the two very well!). Real women seeking a termination would be very unlikely to give only one clear reason in that way. In fact when I watched the clips I thought if I was the doctor hearing this strange blunt request I'd probably assume the woman was a victim of rape or violence and was giving a fake reason because she didn't want to talk about the underlying problem.

Fourthly what a stupid way to operate. Any law, or interpretation of it, that actively encourages patients to be dishonest with their doctors is a stupid one. The procedure is legal, lets just leave it to women and their doctors to decide between them what to do.

Finally how VERY handy. Remember a few months back Tory MP and well-known misogynist Nadine Dorries was trying to make it compulsory for doctors to offer "independent" counselling from unregulated idiologically-driven groups like Life to women asking about abortion? And there was a vote in the Commons. And she lost. Badly. In fact even Frank Fields who launched the motion with her ended up not voting for it. Well they're now "starting a consultation" (by which I mean preparing to ignore what people actually want) on bringing that same piece of DEFEATED legislation in by the back door - through a change to Department of Health guidance which can be done without a parliamentary vote. Yes - democracy in action. Bill gets blocked in a landslide vote by democratically elected politicians and now they're still planning to bring the policy in! So it's a great time for someone to kick up a fuss about abortion being "too easy" (go tell that to women in Northern Ireland, or indeed women in the rest of this country who've actually needed one) and implying women are asking for it for "the wrong" reasons.

So needless to say my phone starts ringing. I did (I think) 16 TV and Radio interviews in one day. And clips of them were played on many other stations too. Here's a list with links to the website where you can see/hear it where I can find one (do send me more if I'm missing any you've found!)

BBC London breakfast

BBC 5 Live Nicky Campbell (from 1h30 in)

BBC Newcastle Jonathan Miles

BBC Essex Etilie George

BBC Manchester Heather Stott

BBC Foyle Joe Doran

BBC Sheffield Rony Robinson

BBC Three Counties Gareth Lloyd

BBC West Midlands Joanne Mailin

BBC Northampton Stuart Linnell

BBC Tees Mike Parr

BBC Radio 2 Jeremy Vine (from 30m in)

Sky News Boulton and Co

Sky News outdoor interview with health correspondent

BBC Merseyside

And clips of my appearance on these were reportedly heard on everything from BBC Radio One and BBC Six Music to Magic FM!

I also did two more interviews the next day on BBC Somerset and BBC West Midlands again (where they seemed to cut me off and let the anti-choice guy talk at length but without letting me hear what he said or respond).

For the most part I was just chatting on my own to the various presenters. Some may have had callers who disagreed with me or other guests who expressed other views later on but felt like for the most part I was given plenty of opportunity to make my points. On BBC Merseyside I was "up against" Anthony Ozimic from SPUC who is just rubbish in debate. Apart from anything else why nominate someone without a womb to be your organisation's representative for telling people with a womb what they should and shouldn't do with it? As I may have said several months ago on ITV Daybreak "If you're against abortion Anthony, I strongly recommend you DON'T have one". He also accused me and/or Abortion Rights UK of being "in bed" with this government, which considering I was speaking against what the Department of Health is proposing, is very strange. Mind you having met the guy I'd be highly surprised if he knew the phrase "in bed with" didn't refer to spiderman pyjamas and a hot water bottle so ho hum (slam!).

More excitingly, after previously taking to Twitter to declare herself officially "not scared" of me, Nadine Dorries MP herself deigned to face up to me on both the Jeremy Vine show and the Boulton & Co Sky News show. The Jeremy Vine show (incidentally the only show ever to have arranged a face-off between us before, over the abstinence-only-for-girls debacle!) went well. Dorries made her points and then I explained why she was wrong and why she was behaving undemocratically over the counselling issue.

Somehow while I was in a car heading over to Sky News offices Dorries had a bit of a funny turn. I guess maybe she (accurately) felt she lost the Jeremy Vine debate and it got to her. Thing is she put up a good fight, it's just that I had truth and justice on my side. Anyway on Boulton and Co she was dreadful. Flustered and unclear, she was on video link-up from what I guess is outside her constituency home and the wind was making her eyes water, I briefly felt bad that I'd actually made her cry. She barely made any points. Which was a shame really cos I'd rather have seen her best arguments and had a chance to deal with them (as I did on the Jeremy Vine show).

Afterwards she was on Twitter gloating (? odd) thus:

Nadine Dorries MP ‏ @NadineDorriesMP

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Following appearance of @Cruella1 on @SkyNews 74% of participants in #boultonandco poll say abortion too easy.#more@cruella1onTVplease

But she was wrong because:

Saul Fowler ‏ @SydenhamDragon

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@NadineDorriesMP @cruella1 never let the facts get in the way of a good sideswipe, eh? Poll results flashed up at start of your debate.

In reply to Nadine Dorries MP

So I asked her to apologise and retract what she'd said:

Kate Smurthwaite ‏ @Cruella1

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@NadineDorriesMP @SkyNews Nadine will you correct your tweet, poll on #boultonandco was BEFORE our discussion? #Dorrieslies #assumethatsatag

Later on I asked again

Kate Smurthwaite ‏ @Cruella1

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@teresaholm1 @NadineDorriesMP @SkyNews PS Nadine - still no apology/retraction of your overt lie from yesterday. #Dorrieslies

And the next morning again

Kate Smurthwaite ‏ @Cruella1

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@NadineDorriesMP @teresaholm1 @SkyNews So no apology? No correction? Just abuse? Wow #gotnovalidargumentsleft?

And she (after a long delay) responded thus:

Nadine Dorries MP ‏ @NadineDorriesMP

@Cruella1 @teresaholm1 @SkyNews Took my info from a Sky Tweet I wasn't in studio.Blocking you now. Your ranting and screeching is tedious.

Yeah!! Blocked by the Nads! File this under "You know you've made it when...".

And to be honest I thought that was as exciting as it was gonna get until today. BBC Radio Four's show The Moral Maze rang me up and asked me to go on air and have a little chatty-poos about abortion with none other than Daily Fail columnist Melanie Phillips. And you can listen to that one here (the whole show is about gender-selective abortion, I'm the third "witness" but do listen to the first witness Ann Furedi too who is great). Phillips tries (oh irony) to accuse me of advocating eugenics! Ha ha ha.

Sadly I only get 7-8 minutes to deal with Phillips and a guy called Matthew Taylor who was also on. Here's the full version:

Seriously Melanie for a suposed journalist you really don't have much grasp of language do you? Eugenics is where the government decides what characteristics it considers desirable in the next generation and then forces some women to have children (often with men they don't want to have children with) and others not to. What I'm advocating is the opposite of that, where the government butts the hell out and lets women choose for themselves. Of course individuals selecting for themselves what genetic traits they'd like their kids to have is as old as the hills. That's exactly what is going on (subconsciously or consciously) when a woman looks across a crowded bar at a guy and thinks "nice eyes". She's picking traits that she thinks might help her offspring. But of course then she also gets to know the guy and is highly likely to change her mind if she finds him stupid or unimaginative. Of course he's doing the same to her, checking out her genes.

And great news - science is getting much much better at helping us do this. Increasingly we can actively allow wannabe parents to select embryos to be implanted during IVF to avoid hereditary diseases where it may not be obvious in the bar whether the object of your desires is a carrier of the gene. In a few generations, at least in the west, this is likely to mean much lower incidence of things like sickle cell anaemia and Huntingdon's disease. It would be unspeakably cruel not to allow that sort of progress to be used to prevent suffering. And if it became possible to select embryos for hair and eye colour too then firstly - that would be pre-implantation IVF embryo selection - not abortion. And secondly - so what? So a woman was raped by a red haired guy and says she can't keep the baby if it's going to have red hair and remind her of that trauma. It's her body, it's her life, why should the state compel her to become a brood mare for the foetus they deem appropriate? That WOULD be eugenics Melanie. And that's what you advocate. Stop it.