We need to protect breastfeeding women from voyeurs – so why did the debate get so weird? | Arwa Mahdawi

British MPs are trying to make it illegal to photograph nursing mothers without their consent. But they're facing some very strange arguments

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new contender in the 2021 edition of Britain's Most Embarrassing Politician! Lord Wolfson of Tredegar, an unelected life peer, recently graced us with his unfiltered thoughts on a proposed amendment to the Voyeurism Act that would criminalise taking non-consensual pictures of a woman breastfeeding.

A change in the law, Wolfson warned, could hurt innocent people. Take, for example, the case of a man photographing his bikini-clad wife on a beach, intending to use that image for his own sexual gratification". What would happen if the photographer accidentally caught a breastfeeding woman in the background? Would the law consider him a pervert?

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist