Mhairi Black’s drag queen stunt has backfired spectacularly

Sometimes a politician displays such spectacularly bad judgement their only option is to lash out at their critics. This appears to explain how the SNP’s Mhairi Black has spent much of the past 24 hours. Black has never knowingly shied away from publicity. Perhaps then we shouldn’t be too surprised at her decision to pop along to a primary school for a reading session with a drag queen in tow. And not just any old drag queen but one with a penchant for sharing sexually explicit posts on social media.

Children have always loved story time. Throwing drag queens into the mix is a far more recent development. Drag queen story hour took off in the US as anxious parents sought to tick off both a visit to the local library and lessons in gender fluidity in one trip. Such sessions are slowly becoming more popular in the UK, with teachers and librarians seeing them as a way to challenge the homophobia and transphobia they perhaps envisage to be lurking deep in the heart of every toddler.