Badenoch: I’d give JK Rowling a peerage

The Tory leadership contest is heating up and, from today, members can vote for their favoured candidate. Just hours before her appearance on tonight’s GB News leadership show, Kemi Badenoch has sparked discussion by declaring that she would give renowned writer and women’s rights campaigner JK Rowling a peerage.

Praising the Harry Potter author, Badenoch said, after being asked whether she would make Rowling a peer in an interview with TalkTV, that: ‘I would. I don’t know whether she would take it, but I certainly would give her a peerage.’ The Tory leadership contender blasted those ‘oddballs and bad people’ who campaigned against sex-based rights, before lauding the work of Baroness Cass, who conducted the review into gender services in England – amid much controversy among trans rights activists…

Badenoch’s endorsement of Rowling comes after the writer’s high-profile disillusion with Sir Keir Starmer’s lot. Rowling has been a staunch defender of former Labour politician Rosie Duffield who has complained about her party leader’s lack of support on women’s rights, after the now-PM failed to support her over the row.