John Strawson

@AdrianRamsay warns Greens at a 'crossroads', says there is a risk under @ZackPolanski party 'digs in' with 'small groups of people on the hard left' going round trying to influence how parties are run - He is not calling for Polanski to go, but clearly calling on him to act after controversial conference motion - Really worth listening to Ramsay, who has been in the party since 1998, make his arguments - bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0pjpx…

It was good to see @newswatchbbc cover my story this morning and thank you @SamiraAhmedUK for presenting it. The piece focused in particular on the headline the BBC News website put on its report of my settlement, which appeared to question its size. Watching, though, I was surprised to hear the BBC's statement that BBC News "cannot independently verify" the amount of the payment to "Ms Kon" (that's me). If BBC News wanted to verify the size of the settlement, or any of its other terms, all it needed to do was ask. That includes the non-financial remedies, such as the agreement to restore my name to the end credits of the Oscar and BAFTA-winning @MrNobodyAgainstPutin and the other films it had been removed from. I would have been happy to share the relevant sections of the agreement. The BBC lawyer who signed it, as I did, might also have been able to help. On Monday, an hour or two before the report was published, a senior BBC journalist called me about the story and the overall settlement. He asked if he could record the call, I agreed, and my recollection is that we discussed the details. I don't want to dwell on this. I don't want to spend the rest of my life arguing with a former employer I still believe it was a privilege to work for. My focus now is to take what I've learned from all this, move on, find a new role and rebuild my life. As I do that, I hope the BBC will heed this week's calls to do the same: to learn from my experience; to acknowledge the need for, and set up, an independent inquiry into not only how it treats its Jewish staff but how it reflects its Jewish audiences; and to move into a new Charter with commitments that are kept, so that in its second century the BBC is truly for everyone, its staff and its audiences alike. #BBC #Antisemitism

It's been reported by the Telegraph that Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered Israel to support Argentina on the Falklands over Britain. Why should Britain be expected to defend Israel's national interests if Israel's leadership refuses to respect ours? Britain is not obliged to give any foreign government unconditional political or military support. Our foreign policy should be guided by British interests, and British interests only - that is the Restore Britain position. The Falkland Islands are British, and will remain British.

I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points. I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them. However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created. When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said. The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness. Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison? I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges. The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest. Adults can't expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public - but I have the same right, and I've finally decided to exercise it.

We have published an open letter against the removal of Sally Rooney’s books from sale in Britain.  Between them, the signatories to the New Statesman open letter have won every major literary prize, from the Booker to the Pulitzer. They include Nobel laureates: Anne Carson, the most recent winner of the literature award; Annie Ernaux, and JM Coetzee. These are voices from all over the world, including pre-eminent novelists: Julian Barnes, Zadie Smith, Jeanette Winterson, George Saunders, Ben Lerner and many more. Key figures in the wider Rooneyverse are signed up: Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones, Alison Oliver, Fionn O’Shea and Lenny Abrahamson. Among the award-winning actors, filmmakers, and screenwriters who have signed include: Tilda Swinton, Susan Sarandon, Jessie Buckley, Jonathan Glazer, Armando Iannucci and Sharon Horgan. In total, over 150 major figures have signed. Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist.