Tory leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch has called for Harry Potter author JK Rowling to be given a seat in the House of Lords.
The shadow communities secretary praised Rowling’s stance on sex-based rights, telling Talk TV: “I would give her a peerage.”
The former equalities minister hit out at “oddballs and bad people” who have campaigned against women’s rights.
Badenoch also heaped praise on Baroness Cass, who led a review of children’s gender services, calling her “a strong voice in parliament” for women’s protection.
Defending her leadership campaign approach, Badenoch said: “I’m not getting involved in the people who are playing silly politics. They got us into this mess.
“They started the psychodrama that the party members are sick of seeing all this petty squabbling. It has to end. I am aclean slate. I am the bold choice. I am not more of the same.”
Badenoch later claimed she was running a "grassroots campaign" rather than a “media campaign” in an apparent dig at her rival Robert Jenrick.
Jenrick, meanwhile, proposed a 2p cut in the basic rate of income tax and criticised officials for “medicalising normal human stress” by signing people off work unnecessarily.
Tory members will receive ballots this week, with voting closing on October 31 and the new leader announced on November 2.
It comes after Rowling joined almost 3,000 others in using the census to protest against the Scottish Government allowing people to self-identify their sex in the survey earlier this month.
National Records of Scotland say 2,883 people recorded “believer in biology” or similar to answer 21 of the 2022 census amid controversy over SNP plans to introduce controversial gender reforms.
The question asked: “What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to? None, Church of Scotland, Roman Catholic, other.”
Gender critical supporters were urged to record their protest by filling in the voluntary question about religion with “believer in biology” and to request paper copies of the census to ensure the preservation of historical records.
Sarah Pedersen, professor of communication and media at Aberdeen's Robert Gordon, posted on X: “Fascinating to see from Scottish census data published today that nearly 3,000 people identified their religion as ‘believer in biology’ in a coordinated protest led by @ForWomenScot.”
To which Edinburgh-based author Rowling replied: “I was one of those people.”
