Troubled awards
grown to engulf others. In a subsequent development, one of the judges in the same category hit out at a different Times columnist, Janice Turner.
Helen Belcher, the judge in question and a Lib-Dem candidate, wrote on her blog: “Since The Times started printing such pieces [on trans issues], starting with one by Turner in September 2017, I have heard of more trans suicides than at any point since 2012.”
It is not just the equation of deaths with Turner’s columns that has angered The Times, but the fact that Belcher’s name is still associated with the Comment Awards. Julia Hobsbawm, who runs the awards, criticised Belcher’s blog post in a private email to judges, calling it a “very nasty and unsubstantiated attack” on Turner, but she refused to allow Belcher to quit. “She judged and she’s a judge,” Hobsbawm told us earlier this week. Times writers nominated, other than Janice Turner, include Jenni Russell, Matthew Parris and Hugo Rifkind. Some were even quietly told that they had won prizes, but they will now no longer be able to claim them.
We called The Times and Hobsbawm this morning but they are yet to comment.