Mick Hartley

Janice Turner in the Times:

You run the flagship BBC radio show for women and — wow! — two Scottish women, their arms raised in victory, are pictured outside the Supreme Court on the front page of every national newspaper. They’ve made history! Everyone is talking about their seven-year battle for this landmark ruling on what the hell is a woman.

If you were the Woman’s Hour editor Karen Dalziel, wouldn’t your journalistic instincts tell you to rip up your running order, (maybe cut your 4,000th item on the menopause) and rush these women to the studio? Er, no. Next day, hilariously, WH had a man, Joshua Rozenberg, explain the ruling.

Apart from a brief appearance on World at One, Radio 4 ignored the women: they weren’t interviewed on the Today programme, nor PM, whose presenter Evan Davis sounded delighted to find in Lord Sumption a man to trivialise and misrepresent the judgment (while failing to name the Equality Act correctly), with no balancing voice.

Finally yesterday, after substantial social media pressure, Susan Smith of For Women Scotland appeared on Woman’s Hour. A whole week late. Hey, Karen, what a scoop!