The surreal state of Scottish politics and the UK Lib Dem leader who can't define a woman

A round up of the weekend's debate on women's rights and gender ideology

I am in France, but before I left, I filed this for The Critic magazine, which summarises the political debate in Scotland around gender recognition, and the political pressure that Nicola Sturgeon now faces.

Perhaps the defining issue of her career will not, after all, be Scottish independence, but whether biological sex is real. Such is the surreal state of politics in Scotland today.

This blistering piece by Mandy Rhodes @holyroodmandy, editor of Holyrood magazine, encapsulates the anger felt by many - and hints at deep divisions in Sturgeon’s government.

Scottish Government ministers will tell me, privately, that this is the most toxic issue they have ever experienced but won’t speak up for fear of reprisal. And it’s led us to a place where some have said to me it could become decision time for them. Not about a bill, but about their political future.

And on the eve of the Labour Party’s conference in Brighton, I have to mention the wonderful Rosie Duffield. The MP for Canterbury has been forced to stay away from the event through fears for her security. Labour’s leader Keir Starmer is silent on the issue, which shows an astonishing lack of leadership and courage. But at least one of her colleagues, Pat McFadden, has spoken out.

"I want Rosie to be able to go to conference but, more broadly here, I think there is an important cultural point about how we discuss things…

"We cannot have this kind of factionalism, we can't have this kind of intolerance.”

A message the Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has clearly not heard. He seems so intolerant of women that he cannot even bring himself to define what one is. For the record Mr Davey, a women is an adult human female.

Thanks to the team at Women’s Place UK @Womans_Place_UK for transcribing his mealy mouthed argument against women on Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show.