I’ve been called far worse in my time!
Widdecombe
OH, DO stop squabbling, you silly children! John Bercow is reported to have made a comment under his breath to the effect that Andrea Leadsom is a stupid, useless woman. She is said to be “stunned” and her friends warbled for an apology.
Frankly, if that is all it takes to stun her then she really must be pretty feeble. I was called a lot worse in my time. Sadly it is all part of a pattern. This is the woman who flaked out of the leadership campaign, letting down all her supporters (who in those days included me), having spent the weekend in tears when the press got too hot for her. Then she jumped on to the bandwagon when Michael Fallon was under pressure, complaining in true #MeToo-ish tones that he zhad cracked an off-colour joke heaven knows how many years earlier.
To be sure if the Speaker mutters then he should make darn sure nobody can see it or hear it. He broke the 11th commandment (thou shalt not be found out) but had I been there I might just have covered my mouth and whispered sotto voce “Hear! Hear!”
IAM afraid I giggled as well when a bank boss called our economy “menopausal”. It was an amusing metaphor but it gravely offended the usually sensible Baroness Altmann, who said: “As a mature woman, I found the comments offensive and demeaning.”
My dear, there is nothing mature about that response. Indeed all this offence-taking demeans women.
We spent years protesting that we could handle anything as well as the men and that we really were not poor little dears who needed protection because we had a tendency to get upset about things. And now Altmann and her ilk want to convince everybody that we are just that. Not in my name, your Ladyship. OLIVIA BOLAND, a lady of Chinese origin, runs a petting farm but her life has been made hell for two long years by travellers who wanted to buy the land. In the course of that time she reported some 30 crimes to the police. No prizes for guessing what they did: nothing. Yet when EFFORTLESS: Cressida Bonas hit just the right note
WHY DID POLICE TURN A BLIND EYE TO RACIST ABUSE OF THIS WOMAN?
she was attacked on her own land by a female member of the traveller encampment the police could not wait to rush into action and charged her because she defended herself instead of “walking away”.
Thank heavens for the common sense of magistrates who dismissed the case. Among the intimidation Mrs Boland suffered was racist abuse.
Mobile phone footage of the fracas was handed to police in which a traveller can clearly be heard shouting “Chinese pigs” and “get the f*** out of my country”. The boys in blue ignored it but you can bet your last penny that if it had been Mrs Boland who had shouted “gypsy pigs” they would have added racial abuse to the charge sheet.
So much for proud and free Britons being equal under the law.