Julie Burchill at Spiked on smug men v JK Rowling:
But the trouble – and the real fun, the sadistic rather than the sporting kind – happens when a bad writer thinks they can ‘take on’ a good writer. It makes it especially entertaining if the first is a man and the latter a woman, due to the element of ‘mansplaining’, which we will see magnificently quashed.
…
There’s been back and forth on X this week, but it seems increasingly likely at the time of writing that Campbell has retired to lick his wounds. He is humourless, like most dry drunks and all on the ‘progressive’ side (just listen to any Radio 4 ‘comedy’ show), whereas Rowling – who once seemed something of a po-faced swot – has become funnier the more successful she is. An early sign that she was determined to enjoy herself – and hopefully offend haters into the bargain – was when she pictured herself in April last year, drinking a cocktail and smoking a cigar on a yacht with the words, ‘I love it when a plan comes together #SupremeCourt #WomensRights’.
Well yes but an even earlier sign was that first surprise photo of the famous lunch in Hammersmith.
After years of refusing to interact with any of us ‘unkind’ types on the gender-realist team, as is characteristic of people who know that they are doomed to lose any sensible argument, Campbell recently indicated that he and Rory Stewart would be ‘happy’ to welcome JKR to their podcast, The Rest Is Politics, just in case she could use the publicity, one supposes.
Just in case he’s stupid enough to think she would say yes when he has ignored all the non-JKR women who have objected to his daughter’s disgusting insults and mockery. Whaddya know, he is that stupid!
More in sorrow than in anger (the same way he must have punched that journalist who dared to mock Robert Maxwell, his former employer), he added that ‘previous attempts’ to get her on the pod ‘have been rebuffed’.
Why would they not be rebuffed? If Campbell is even 10 percent as obnoxious as his daughter that is reason enough to refuse any invitations for public chat.
A million memes bloomed showing unattractive men pressing their clammy attentions on attractive women who wanted none of it. And then JKR herself landed a sucker-punch: ‘That’s because I wasn’t interested in being used to boost the viewing figures of a pair of exceptionally arrogant men whose understanding of this issue drips with classism and misogyny.’ The three women known as For Women Scotland, who were in London last week marking the anniversary of their legal triumph at the Supreme Court, offered themselves up for a ‘grilling’ on The Rest Is Politics instead. ‘We are still in London’, they said on their X account. ‘He can ask us on the podcast and call us toxic to our faces. If he has the guts.’ Answer came there none.
In short he is a shameless sleb-chaser and a disgusting little toady. No wonder his daughter is a giggling sadist.