Cheap sleaze a modern disease

POOR Nicola Sturgeon.

There’s nothing our current First Minister likes more on Twitter than to point out casual sexism.

Only a few days ago she was criticising a shoe company after they named their girls’ footwear Dolly Babe, and the boys’ shoes Leader.

Well done, Nicola – you’ve had enough of girls being put down and it’s quite right you should speak up about it.

Then up pops Alex Salmond, her old mentor, to make a gag that belongs in the past to such a degree that scientists are trying to clone it and put it in Jurassic Park.

Through gritted teeth, Nicola had to come out to defend her old boss.

Her well- meaning criticism of girly shoes was forgotten as she was forced to defend the mentor who joked about sleeping with her.

It was just a gag, said his defenders, as if that magically makes it immune from being a bit sleazy and creepy.

Don’t get me wrong – if anyone asks me for an innuendo then I’m happy to give them one, hurr hurr hurr.

But to stand up on stage and crack vulgar about a female colleague 15 years your junior? Stay classy, Eck.

That’s the thing with jokes – you have to be careful who the target is, otherwise you look like that boy in your class who’d pick on the least deserving kid.

Not that the three ladies Alex included in his joke are downtrodden and defenceless, it’s more that it told women everywhere they’ll always be sex objects no matter how successful they are.

Besides, these quips, and frankly sex in general, have become rather mainstream.

Yes, I know it’s a British tradition to cackle like Sid James at Bake Off’s innuendos or when someone mentions that they always enjoy a nice pear after lunch.

But you know things have gone too far when the nation’s new favourite reality show is Love Island.

This is a show which consists of mostly nude himbos and bimbos trying to rut with each other to win money.

While it’s not outright pornography it still manages to make Benny Hill look like Anne of Green Gables.

You may like gazing at beach babes in bikinis – or muscled men in trunks if you’d prefer – for a few episodes but it doesn’t take long to tune out that much flesh.

It’s a bit like instead of making yourself a nice, boring, sensible dinner every night, you baked a dirty big chocolate cake.

It’s brilliant at first but soon you’ve ceased to enjoy cake, plus you might have Type 2 diabetes.

Not only that but you’ll have to put up with an awful lot of soggy bottom quips.