Stop British lav going down pan

I’VE WATCHED Baby Reindeer, the Netflix hit about the comic, both downtrodden and stand-up, who finds himself stalked by a crazy woman because he made the mistake of feeling sorry for her when she came into the pub where he worked.

You wouldn’t know it from the feverish publicity this series has received, but there have been other films about deranged female stalkers, notably Clint Eastwood’s Play

Misty for Me, made 53 years ago.

It was Eastwood’s first film as a director and the studio was unsure about the wisdom of making the villain a woman.

“Why should men have all the fun playing disturbed characters?” replied Eastwood.

And he was right. Jessica Walter as Evelyn (right) is one of cinema’s scariest villains. While Jessica Gunning as Martha in Baby Reindeer (below) is every bit her equal.

GOOD tidings on the loo front. From now on newly built restaurants, offices, schools and hospitals in England will be required to have separate male and female toilets. A few years ago this would not have been the slightest bit newsworthy. But it is now – and that’s because the trans lobby wants gender-neutral lavs for all, though as far as I can see this tiny percentage of the population (0.5 per cent) is the only group that does.

Predictably the Mermaids charity sensed Tory transphobia and complained: “We hear that trans, non-binary and gender-diverse people are too often not made to feel welcome, or even safe, when using toilet facilities.”

How “welcome” does anyone need to feel in a public lavatory? I don’t want a round of applause on arrival. I’d settle for clean surfaces, loo paper, flushes that work and easily lockable doors. (I hate those ones on trains that sometimes slide open revealing the occupant like a prize in a TV gameshow).

I’m happy to be ignored and to ignore others and have no problem with a trans woman using the

Ladies as long as the basic proprieties are observed.

And as a bonus I’d like signage that doesn’t include baffling gender symbols

(the hermaphroditic one looks like a particularly dangerous roundabout).

The real problem isn’t a lack of gender-neutral, trans-welcoming lavatories. It’s the lack of public lavatories of any kind.

According to the British Toilet Association we have lost nearly 60 per cent of our loos in the last decade.

This lack of conveniences may sound nothing more than a mild inconvenience.

But for so many – disabled people, parents with young children, older people – it is a nightmare.

Ten million people over 55 suffer from some condition that requires them to find a toilet urgently.

So you don’t leave your home because you do not want the humiliation of being caught short.and even if you do venture out there is constant anxiety.

Local authority spending on public loos has halved since 2010 and they are often the first thing to go when budget cuts need to be made. British WCS used to be a matter of pride and we happily made jokes about funny foreign loos. Now our loos (if you can find one) are a national embarrassment.

So it is good to know that toilets in public buildings must henceforth retain separate male and female loos but – as usual – the preposterous fuss from the trans lobby obscures a much more important issue.

Which is that, as a civilised society, we need decent lavatories on our streets and in public buildings that are clean, open at all hours and properly maintained.

‘We’ve lost nearly 60% of toilets in the last decade’