Is Stella Creasy the worst politician in Britain?

For all my adult life I have been an advocate of the 'Jenkins' Law', a guide to public policy based on the writings of the commentator Sir Simon Jenkins. Jenkins' Law is simple, useful and infallible: whatever he writes, the opposite is correct. In recent years, however, a variant of this law has emerged.
Not so much a variant as a complementary alternative: Creasy's Law. The principle is similar. Whatever Stella Creasy, the Labour MP for Walthamstow since 2010, says or writes, the opposite is correct.
This week Creasy's Law has, once again, proved its utility. Ms Creasy is behind an amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill which would remove all legal prohibitions on abortion up to and including during birth, even if the baby is fully capable of surviving outside the womb.
It is widely accepted that the law surrounding abortion requires modernisation, not least because of advances in medical technology; and, from the other perspective, what many see as the unjust prosecution of women such as Nicola Packer, who was cleared by a jury last month of illegally terminating a pregnancy after taking abortion pills during lockdown.
But Creasy's amendment goes far beyond modernisation; it is about removing any bar to abortion, no matter how near to birth – or even during birth – by scrapping the crime of intentional destruction of a child 'capable of being born alive', as well as removing all other legal bars on late-term abortions.
Creasy says all she wants to do is remove criminal sanctions, but in reality her amendments would simply remove the current 24-week limit with no replacement. In addition, she wants abortion to be classed as a 'basic human right'.
The usefulness of Creasy's Law is especially clear here. Even amongst the country's abortion clinics her proposals are regarded as wrong-headed. Rachael Clarke of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service told BBC Radio 4's Today programme last week that Creasy's plan 'is not the right way' to overhaul abortion laws.
'We are not supporting NC20 [Creasy's amendments], and neither are any of the abortion providers in the country,' Clarke said. Nor does it seem the public supports Creasy. A ComRes poll from several years ago found only 1 per cent of women supporting abortion up to birth – a clear example of Creasy's Law in action.
Creasy is such a useful figure to have in public life because her interests roam over many areas, and she is thus able to help the rest of us pinpoint immediately what to think by thinking the exact opposite. Probably her most notorious comment was in 2022, when she weighed in on one of her favourite issues: 'Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes'.
Creasy has been a long-term advocate of ignoring biology and allowing men who pretend to be women to claim all the rights under law that they would have if they were actually women. It's a shame so much time – and money – was spent clarifying the law around sex. There need never have been a Supreme Court ruling.
A few years ago Creasy wrote: 'As I walk past everyone going to Christmas parties and drinks on my way to get the kids from nursery, yet again acutely aware the motherhood penalty is just a gift that keeps giving…. Not just flexible working we need but flexible networking too.' For Creasy, it seems, having children should not impact one's life. Creasy's Law is helpful here, too, showing that parenting involves a trade-off between the freedom to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and the needs arising from being a parent.
Creasy has advocated for aggravated criminal sentences as a hate crime for men who hold what she considers to be 'misogynistic' beliefs. No need to go through a debate on this or look at the ideas underlying it; just apply Creasy's Law to know it would be wrong.
It's easy to look disapprovingly at Stella Creasy, who is not only wrong about everything, but compounds that with a patronising manner which seems to treat anyone who disagrees with her as some kind of bigoted fool. Instead, we should see how useful she really is and turn more often to Creasy's Law for guidance.

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Opponents of assisted dying vow to fight on as MPs back Bill

North Wales Chronicle

an hour ago

North Wales Chronicle

Opponents of assisted dying vow to fight on as MPs back Bill

Ms Leadbeater's Bill passed what could be its final Commons hurdle by 23 votes, down from the majority of 55 it secured when MPs first voted on it in November. The Spen Valley MP declared 'thank goodness' after the result while Rebecca Wilcox, daughter of campaigner Dame Esther Rantzen, said it was 'wonderful' the result had come ahead of her mother's birthday. But opponents vowed to fight on against what they called a 'deeply flawed Bill'. A group of 27 Labour MPs who voted against the legislation said: 'We were elected to represent both of those groups and are still deeply concerned about the risks in this Bill of coercion of the old and discrimination against the disabled, people with anorexia and black, Asian and minority ethnic people, who we know do not receive equitable health care. 'As the Bill moves to the House of Lords it must receive the scrutiny that it needs. Not about the principles of assisted dying but its application in this deeply flawed Bill.' But Ms Leadbeater told the PA news agency she hoped there would be no 'funny games' in the Lords, as her Bill faces further tough hurdles in the upper chamber. She added: 'I would be upset to think that anybody was playing games with such an important and such an emotional issue.' Meanwhile, one of the leading opponents of the Bill, Conservative Danny Kruger, described its supporters as 'enemies', saying he felt 'like Evelyn Waugh at the time of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in 1939'. In a series of tweets on Friday night, the East Wiltshire MP accused assisted dying campaigners of being 'militant anti-Christians' who had failed to 'engage with the detail of the Bill'. He added: 'It's the revenge of the middle-aged against their dependents.' Ms Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End Of Life) Bill will now proceed to the House of Lords, where it will undergo further scrutiny before becoming law, should peers decide to back the legislation. But some peers have already spoken out against the legislation, with the Bishop of London, Dame Sarah Mullally, saying they 'must oppose' the Bill as 'unworkable and unsafe'.