Several people, including me, have referred to a remark that Brooke Magnanti supposedly made about maternity leave. I first became aware of it through a piece published in The Observer in April 2011.

Magnanti is quoted as saying the following:

"I genuinely do not get the third-wave bluestocking professional feminists in this country. Genuinely. I've tried to give a shit about maternity leave and who does the housework, and all I can come up with is, if your job doesn't give you as much time off as you want, suck it up or get another job. If your partner doesn't do the washing-up, same."

Hmm. I vehemently disagree, but if that was her opinion at the time then fair enough. Fast forward to the present day, and a man named Gavin Deichen tweeted her to ask whether she still holds these view:.

The second tweet seems pretty accurate - the piece was clearly constructed from second-hand quotes, although to be fair it doesn't claim to be an interview. But was any of it actually 'made up'? Are the quotes real?

So Magnanti holds different views today. Fine - I've said plenty of things in the past that I wouldn't agree with now or would find downright embarrassing, and changing your mind is a healthy thing. But this still doesn't answer the question.

This is as close as Magnanti gets in the exchange to explicitly stating that the quotes are made up, although it's still a little ambiguous. This is important, because if McVeigh were guilty of manufacturing quotes, then - as with Johann Hari - it would be a serious issue. It isn't a trivial accusation to level at a professional journalist.

I did a bit of Googling, and soon discovered that The Observer article wasn't the earliest appearance of these quotes. In March 2010, the blogger 'Sexhibition' copy-pasted the entire text of an entry that Brooke Magnanti had apparently posted on her blog a few days before.

The full paragraph referring to maternity leave is as follows. It is slightly longer than the edited Observer version, and adds a bit of extra context, but it's also clear (in my opinion) that the meaning has not been altered in Tracy McVeigh's piece a year later. I've highlighted the Observer edit in bold so you can judge for yourselves:

"I genuinely do not get the third-wave bluestocking Professional Feminists in this country. Genuinely. Do. Not. I've tried to give a shit about maternity leave and who does the housework, and all I can come up with is, if your job doesn't give you as much time off as you want, suck it up or get another job. If your partner doesn't do the washing up, same. Why this need to publish endless tomes on the subject? It seems a pretty lame preoccupation when there are still eight countries in the world where a woman can legally be put to death for adultery."

Unfortunately, posts on Magnanti's blog before 2011 are no longer online. It therefore remains possible that this blogger made up a 1,200 word article for some obscure reason, though it seems to me highly unlikely. To satisfy his own curiosity, Gavin Deichen put the blog post to her for comment:

I'll leave people to draw their own conclusions from this exchange. I don't particularly care if Magnanti thought this in 2010 and then changed her mind. She seems to have taken the opportunity to clarify that she doesn't hold these views now, and that's fair enough. It doesn't even particularly bother me if she said it, but is too embarrassed to admit to it now - Lord knows I've said and done enough things I'm embarrassed about.

What does concern me are the serious almost-allegations directed at a journalist. While Magnanti doesn't clearly state that McVeigh manufactured quotes, her tweets certainly seem - to me at least - to imply it very strongly. I don't particularly like McVeigh's piece - I think it's presented in a very confusing style, and her failure to make it clearer that the quotes are from Magnanti's blog is problematic imho (though it is referenced early on) - but that's very different to suggesting she may be guilty of outright fabrication.

Allegations have been directed at others too, most notably Helen Lewis, deputy editor at New Statesman (declaration of interest: I blog there). The following exchange took place alongside the tweets above above: