How the killjoys stole Christmas
First they came for our fairytale princesses. Now it’s mistletoe. On Saturday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland really got into the festive spirit, tweeting: “If you bump into that special someone under the mistletoe tonight, remember that without consent it is rape #Seasonsgreetings.”
Does a serving police officer really think that persuading someone to snog you under a berry-laden bough – “Go onnn, it’s Christmas” – is equivalent to one of the most heinous crimes on the statute book? Is mistletoe – the silliest and flirtiest of yuletide traditions, jolly icebreaker, seasonal boon for the shy, the tonguetied and the tipsy lovelorn, last-chance lurch for Uncle Alf – now officially a prelude to rape?
The only sensible reaction to such idiocy is: “Go and catch some bloody criminals, you sad, politically correct numpty!” Unfortunately, sensible reactions are in short supply as we continue to be buffeted by the aftershocks from the Harvey Weinstein allegations.
I honestly thought things could not get any dafter after Sarah Hall, a mother from Tyneside, demanded that
Sleeping Beauty be removed from her six-year-old son’s curriculum because the fairytale was giving an “inappropriate message” about sexual consent. I mean, if you’re a lovely young girl who’s been put to sleep for a hundred years by a wicked old fairy, how bothered are you if the guy who broke the spell didn’t get permission before kissing you? Not very, I reckon, particularly when said rescuer turns out to be a handsome prince.
Help me here, dear reader. Are we even allowed to say “wicked old fairy” any more? Or should it be senior, wing-based, gender-fluid citizen with malevolence issues?
Sleeping Beauty was an orally transmitted story, dating from between 1330 and 1344, and collected by the Brothers Grimm. Thanks to Weinstein and the sexual reformation of 2017, we now have the Sisters Grimmer. Under the #Metoo hashtag, they share their stories. Some are extremely serious, revealing despicable abuses of powers. Others should simply be filed under “Mistletoe Mischief ” or “Get a Life, Love”. Shamefully abusing the #Metoo hashtag, Sarah Hall objected to
Sleeping Beauty. “In today’s society, it isn’t appropriate – my son is only six, he absorbs everything he sees.”
Of the tens of millions of little boys who have read or seen
Sleeping Beauty, I wonder how many have gone on to interfere with a comatose royal. About the same as the percentage of little girls with a red coat whose grandmother has been eaten by a wolf, would be my guess.
There is definitely a conversation to be had about young children still being fed too many passive images of girls, but that’s not what Ms Hall means. She and her witchfinder ilk want to expunge anything from literature or history that is no longer “appropriate”.
That pretty much rules out all the great stories and beloved traditions.
A humourless mother from Tyneside need not concern us unduly. It’s a different matter entirely when a police force burnishes its right-on credentials by sending out legally inaccurate messages about the previously innocent joy of mistletoe. The PSNI swiftly withdrew the offending tweet.
It was encouraging to see hundreds of people retweeting that po-faced warning in furious disbelief. Rightly accused of “trivialising sexual assault”, Northern Irish police claimed the mistletoe caution had been “taken out of context”.
No, it hadn’t. I’m afraid it was part of a disturbing pattern in which perfectly normal behaviour by or between consenting adults is criminalised by a nosy, censorious state with views far to the left of the silent majority.
Just look at the way that Damian Green has been hounded as a dangerous criminal when the worst – the very worst – that the First Secretary of State has reportedly done is brush a hand against the knee of a highly educated journalist who is more than capable of handling herself. Oh, and possibly having some legal pornography on his office computer; an allegation he flatly denies.
As broadcaster Jeremy Vine put it on Twitter over the weekend: “Here’s how democracy works: you are elected. You can watch as much porn as you like. You cannot be ‘sacked’ because you are elected. That’s our system. You can be removed by electors at the next election if they don’t like porn. Anything else is not democracy.”
Not Democracy is alarming. Not Democracy is when our police feel they can warp and twist the law to suit their own agenda – kissing someone under the mistletoe without consent is “rape” – and when material which should have remained confidential is used to try to bring down a politician.
It was most welcome yesterday to see Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick warn leaky police officers that they might be prosecuted, and that such behaviour could be damaging to public trust in the police service. Sorry, we’re already there, Cressida.
Another timely warning came from Sheryl Sandberg. The chief operating officer of Facebook said there was a potential backlash against women in the workplace following recent sexual harassment scandals. Ms Sandberg has already heard “rumblings” that male bosses may be reluctant to hire female employees: “The percentage of men who will be afraid to be alone with a female colleague has to be sky high right now.”
Is that really what we want? For men to regard women with mistrust and suspicion, as sneaks and informers not colleagues and lovers? For that blameless mistletoe hanging in your hall to be a potential trap instead of a sneaky chance to spread the festive love?
Perhaps Cressida Dick could have a sharp word with that jackass in Belfast who thinks that mistletoe is a daterape plant? We don’t want a PC Christmas, officer.
The old song got it about right. “The simple facts of life are such, they cannot be removed. You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply as time goes by.”