This article is probably unpopular. The point of this blog is not to make you agree, but to make you think; if I did not express views which are not the view of the majority, there would be no point in writing at all. This is not an applause seeking echo chamber of popular sentiment.
Boris Johnson has no more ardent political opponent than I. But some of the hysteria about him is overblown.
As a teenage delegate to a Liberal Party conference in 1976 (I think in Llandudno), I had to fend off the amorous advances of a politician who persisted even after I plainly told him I was not gay, and I ended up stabbing his wandering hand with the pin of my delegate’s badge, after which he went away. I regarded his behaviour as over drunken and over randy, but took the attitude then and now that humans are not perfect and inclined occasionally to fall prey to their basic instincts, especially when drinking. If we expected everyone to be perfect, we would live our entire lives in a state of disappointment. I expect a majority of sexually active adults have similar experiences at some time. I do not believe it healthy or sensible to elevate them to serious crimes.
(For the sake of clarity, I should add that I have never personally been accused of an unwanted physical advance).
I really do not care whether Boris Johnson squeezed Charlotte Edwards’ leg 20 years ago. I firmly believe women are every bit the equal of men, and I do not understand why it is somehow reckoned that Ms Edwards, and others in the same position, were unable to stab his hand with a fork, throw a drink in his face, or embarrass him by telling him clearly to stop. I do not accept the notion that difference of age and status between full adults makes firm rejection impossible – that thought did not cross my mind with the politician in Llandudno, who was a good deal older, more famous and wealthy than I, and in a position to further my political ambitions. Ms Edwards saying nothing at the time, saving it up for twenty years and then attempting to use the claim to cause major damage, appears to me behaviour as bad as the original.
I do realise that in this I have outlived the mores of the times. But no matter how fiercely I oppose a no deal Brexit – and I think it would be disastrous for every one but a few nasty financial speculators – I do not think the approach of throwing the kitchen sink of accusations against Boris Johnson is good for the long term health of politics. It also obscures with chaff the allegations of real wrongdoing, like directing public funds and assistance to the company of a woman with whom he was in a sexual relationship. That should be investigated. That is real wrongdoing.
Johnson’s arrogance before the Commons in refusing to apologise for the prorogation of parliament was deeply unpleasant, but I do not approve of the effort to delegitimise his use of language. Words like “surrender”, “betrayal” and “traitor” have centuries of political use behind them. Boris Johnson is as entitled to free speech as anyone else. It is perfectly legitimate for opponents to argue that his language is deliberately divisive and thus people ought to vote against him in the interests of harmony. The electorate can pay heed or not to such argument, as they see fit. But it is quite another thing to argue that such language should be excised from public life. Robust debate is an important aspect of free speech. Controlling the language of your opponents is the antithesis of democracy. I am firmly with John Stuart Mill on this one.
People were offended by Galileo and Darwin, by Gandhi, by Jesus and Mohammed. Causing offence is important to human development. Everyone is entitled to do it, even Boris Johnson.
Finally I had the misfortune to see Jess Phillips on BBC Breakfast TV yesterday morning and she gave, as an example of abuse of MPs the fact that every time she speaks about anti-semitism in the Labour Party she receives emails stating that she is exaggerating, or is a puppet of Israel. A great deal of what MPs plainly see as abusive online activity looks to me simply like people expressing their disagreement. People can be entirely right or entirely wrong in their views, but they still have a right to express them to Members of Parliament. I found Ms Phillips objection to people expressing disagreement deeply worrying.
I have no doubt MPs do receive death threats – I do myself sometimes, generally originating in Florida for some strange reason. But I do wonder how much exaggeration there is of this.
The Laura Kuenssberg case is seminal here. You may recall that 35,000 people signed a 38 Degrees petition calling for her removal for pro-Tory bias and after a major headline news campaign headed by the Guardian and BBC, claiming that the petition was full of abusive and misogynistic comments, 38 Degrees deleted the petition. However I went through all the comments personally and could only find one comment and a single related tweet which was in any way abusive or misogynistic. When I challenge 38 Degrees to produce the evidence of abuse, there was none. That was a very worrying example of the limiting of perfectly legitimate protest against Kuenssberg, on an excuse of “abusive social media” which was a lie.
There is insufficient plain speaking already in politics and the attempt to further contain and constrain, and limit political thought to acceptable channels and vocabulary, is worrying. Let Johnson say what he wills, and let the electorate judge that.
As for behaviour, I do not wish to see any further correspondence of the Overton window with sex negative feminism. I can personally think of one mutually fulfilling physical relationship in my own history, where the crossing of that difficult line from friendship to physical intimacy did indeed start with the squeeze of a leg under the table. The initiation of more intimate physical contact is the most critical point in the complex courtship rituals of developed human societies. To insist that verbal agreement must always be sought before a move to kiss or an exploratory caress of a leg or a shoulder, is a fundamental change in culture which I am not at all sure is desirable. The essential qualifier is of course that, if the other person either verbally or by action does not welcome the tentative first move, then the initiator must desist immediately. It is my own belief that sex-negative feminism seeks quite deliberately to invalidate perfectly normal heterosexual courtship and that the chattering classes have far too readily adopted this, in the interests of identity politics.
I am perfectly aware that what I have written will offend some pleasant people and is against current fashionable thinking. I am also well aware that less pleasant people will utterly misrepresent what I have written as a justification of sexual assault. I deplore entirely any non-consensual sexual activity forced on anyone, and I believe that the slightest indication of disapproval should lead to an instant stop. But to deny the existence of non-verbal communication, and make an issue of non-violent initiation of contact outside an erogenous zone, is to me not legitimate. I would also refer you to my last post, and the extraordinary difference in the treatment in these matters by the media and political classes purveying identity politics of those within the neo-liberal “centrist” consensus, like Bill Clinton and Brendan Cox, and those outside it, like Boris Johnson, Alex Salmond or Julian Assange. This is a misguided and an extraordinarily selective outrage.
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On the leg-touching – I agree to a point. The issue is this, that the status quo is that sexual assault (and I use that term advisedly – I would not call this Johnson accusation assault per se) is not taken seriously enough. Too many men get away with it, and too often punishments are too lenient.
In addressing this historic imbalance, we are seeing some over-compensation. I get it, and I understand the desire to err on the side of zero tolerance. The difference however is between those who are taking a position on principle, and those who are cynically abusing the cause to abet a political end. Many (most?) of those attacking Johnson on this are the latter.
On language, the issue is context. Boris Johnson the PM should be held to a different standard to Boris Johnson the journalist. I don’t how this is controversial. His incendiary language from the ballot box is bad. But any political or legal maneouvre attempting to curtail his choice of words would be worse. The condemnation is justified, but clearly, the appropriate remedy in the end is to vote him out of office when the opportunity arises.
You mean the despatch box, not the ballot box.
Your concept of liberal propriety isn’t neutral as you appear to think it is.
Karl Turner, Jess Phillips, and Angela Rayner (target of civil war threat by a serving soldier) aren’t being cynical when they’ve spoken of the threats they’ve received.
Nor are the police being cynical when they identify the far right as the fastest growing terror threat in Britain. Here is Nigel Farage in 2017 threatening an armed uprising if the Brexit he wants doesn’t materalise. And here is a much larger meeting of his new party in Blackpool 2019 where the crowd bay for lynchings and for civil war.
Is EU membership some kind of problem for these people? I doubt many of them know Schengen or the European Central Bank from their own colons, but they sure seem angry about something. Whatever could it be? Who are they envisaging a civil war against? Shall we read John Stuart Mill or shall we notice there’s not a single non-white face in that audience?
This is Britain, the most schizo culture in the world, so things get said in ways that mean the opposite on the surface from what they mean underneath, and in the event that something actually is said directly (e.g. a threat of civil war) and the utterer is called out on it then they scoff that it was just a wind-up and if you complain you must be thick or you must be aiming to turn the country into a copy of North Korea.
I’m not suggesting those criticizing Johnson’s language are doing so cynically. I also think that criticism of him is justified.
I actually disagree with Craig here, the attempt to “delegitimise” his choice of language is fair. Because he is Prime Minister and should be held to a higher standard than your average bloke on the street. Absent some kind of extraordinarily draconian law, you couldn’t actually stop him from using specific words, but you can sure as hell chastise him for incendiary behavior.
Apologies – I misunderstood your post somewhat. I agree with you. As far as the incendiary language goes, I’d put the accent on condemning how he and others are using it, with a short-term aim of isolating and reviling them politically until they can be whacked for six in an election. This requires an educational effort towards people who have been conditioned to think in buzzphrases and is not easy. The problem is that the nasty side seems to be rising. The Opposition need to act fast. Leaving it to the second half of October is misguided. The situation is a tinderbox and we may soon be well beyond parliamentary politics and Supreme Court rulings.
@eddie-g – “I would not call this Johnson accusation assault per se”
The accusation is that he touched her without good reason to believe
* he had her consent (i.e. as shown by her prior signalling she wouldn’t mind if he felt her up) or
* he would have her retrospective consent (e.g. he was trying to remove a tarantula, or she would fall for his unusual charms) or
* he was acting in self-defence (e.g. he thought she had a handgun in a thigh holster and was about to kill him).
Of course the allegation if true amounts to an assault. He’s a dirty old lecherous b*stard who felt up the woman sitting next to him without her consent. Men aren’t allowed to do that.
Touching a person without their consent or other good reason constitutes an assault. Because you like the feel of their flesh isn’t a good reason.
I understand this to go to Craig’s point. That not all contact of the sort Johnson has been accused of merits the label sexual assault. (Was it a light brush? Was it a proper grope? Somewhere in between? Probably matters in the final evaluation.)
I hope in the fullness of time we will reach a point where we distinguish between egregiously bad behaviour and stuff that ought to be written off as an annoyance. But I do accept that for now, with where we are and what needs to be addressed to change our culture, it is appropriate to take a hard line against all forms of sexual harrassment.
“Ms Edwards saying nothing at the time, saving it up for twenty years and then attempting to use the claim to cause major damage, appears to me behaviour as bad as the original”
Saving it to when it becomes politically expeditious to mention it.
This is actually a remarkably very fair, balanced and more than reasonable commentary Craig and thank you for writing it. Any radical leftists in the room may squirm a little, but, that may be good for them to do for a moment; a spoonful of critical thinking will help in its digestion.
The lurch to the very far left, particularly evident and worryingly so in the educational institutions, should give pause for thought particularly as it relates to compelling speech; political correctness gone most frighteningly wild. These are dangerous times for those of us who uphold the rights to freedom of speech and expression no matter whether one may agree with (whomever the author/orator) its sentiment and content.
One of the most unsavoury and even poisonous of ideologies that seems all too pervasive in these times, and not just limited to radical feminism and the demonisation of the ‘male’ – sometimes, and appallingly referred to as ‘toxic masculinity’, a really most terrible idea – is the gathering storm – a REAL climate crisis if you like – of gender blurring accompanied by more than a mere drop of transgenderisation presenting itself benignly, yet in reality is the hungry fox guarding the proverbial coop.
And any form of speech compelling, whatever its window dressing, if embraced with too much enthusiasm leads to the limitation of imagination and creativity – it is the enemy of the free individual who wishes to contribute to their community in a collaborative and unique way, and yet remain personally empowered. Thoreau best captured that idea, thus: “…because [that individual] he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” And I think, and know from personal experience, that being reasonable, fair and respectful come quite naturally to people, in the main.
The very notion that one may possibly become, in time, even legally compelled to seek clear permission before making ANY form of advance, at all, acceptable is a sign that our beautiful yet sometimes flawed species is – or quite possibly has – reached a crisis point that may be impossible to reverse away from.
I remain optimistic though: I imagine that harmless flirtation and the subtle sexual overtures that all of us at any time exhibit will remain healthily appreciated for what they respectfully mean. After all, an appreciative glance and smile from a beautiful woman, can gladden a heart and just about make a day.
Simply, be kind to one another, fancy one another if you will, and the universe may respond similarly.
I don’t think that the ascent/descent into identity politics has anything to do with the far left at all. It’s a divide and rule technique used to divert our attention away from a real understanding of the basic fact that the rich and powerful have to manufacture our consent to be governed and ripped off. The overthrow of capitalism might ensue if we all became aware of that fact. Now see? THAT’S far left……
Well exactly. I see this nonsense all the time:
“… radical leftists…The lurch to the very far left…. worryingly so in the educational institutions…. political correctness gone most frighteningly wild…dangerous times for those of us who uphold the rights to freedom of speech…”
And on and on. The dreary litany of the “sensible conservative” soaking up the rubbish from the reactionary press that so eagerly conflates “Left” with indentity politics.
George: absolutely. And the identity politic, the divide and rule to which you allude, is embodied wholeheartedly within the theatre. Jean-Pierre Faye posited the ‘horseshoe theory’ (sic) a nomenclature which I have since found out has probably come most close to my personal view.
I have romanticised the idea that the Palace of Westminster may one day become a museum; there was this idea of democracy that never really happened and here is a memorial to that very good idea. Alas, it never came to pass, but, someone somewhere remembered that “I have an idea. If we worked together collaboratively, in communities, perhaps we could make something magical happen” after the Iroquois tradition.
But, perhaps, this is all veering a little off-topic. Respectfully…..mea culpa
Far anything is a descent into totalitarianism. And one may need to define capitalism (we aren’t actually living in a capitalist society).
The great obligation that we all have is to reinforce, remember – reinvent, if you like – the freedom that you have.
Politics, by definition, is the great obstruct to freedom.
Urging politicians to act on the basis of reason and in the prursuit of truth is a waste of time. They are not offended by language, they pretend to be so in order to advance some personal or group interest or other.
The good thing is that what you call the “sex-negative feminism” will stop them breeding.
Mr.Murray, with all my respect. There are normal civilized ways of ‘non-violent initiation of contact outside an erogenous zone’.
You may choose to kiss the woman’s hand instead of simple handshake greeting (do you still use it in Britain?). You may hold the hand a bit longer, when passing objects, to indicate your interest in further contact.
And, you may invite a woman for a dance, like tango, for ‘exploratory caress’ 🙂
These are obvious traditional examples of proper behaviour.
Women feel safe in these situations, because the ‘request for further more intimate contact’ is done openly in presence of other human beings, and this lets a woman to either accept or to decline such a ‘request’.
Unlike squeezing legs under the table or other sorts of touching.
As to squeezing legs under the table, when it comes from a stranger. I can imagine 2 options when such behaviour could be successful.
1. Me MYSELF am interested in this person as a sexual partner
2. I’m interested in any sexual partner, today 🙂
Because women too may be ‘sexually hungry’ and may not mind being treated like a sexual object at the moment. But normally we try to know the man we are going to bed with.
Perhaps it is some instinct of pre-contraception epoch?
The notion that attempts to divide public opinion should be resisted on the grounds that they may lead to violence are ancient.
The truth is that nothing is better than for there to be clear and robust divisions in debate where those divisions exist in life. The prissy neo-Victorianism of those who object to recognising divisions in society is contemptible. In reality the same politicians who blush and call for smelling salts at the mention of warlike words are notoriously those who yawn as they nod war resolutions through the House. They cannot stand strong language but they are undisturbed by the implications of ordering bombers to attack Belgrade, Baghdad, Tripoli or Damascus. It makes them angry to listen to verbal attacks on Zionism but it takes a lot more than the bombing of a hospital in Sa’ana to disturb their complacent support for imperialism.
Few developments are more sinister than attempts to censor opinions on the grounds that they might offend people, for example the family and friends of snipers killing children in Gaza. Or, as in the case of Ms Phillips, politicians who act as apologists for the employer of the said snipers.
The aim is clearly to neutralise the power of public opinion in order to facilitate the commission of offences against humanity.
Yeah, heard it all before, have you? The National Front never reached anything like the level of support that the Brexit Party received in the EU election a few months ago. “Public opinion” is created. Dominic Cummings has done very well with this one, basically saying if you’ve got any problems with Boris Johnson whipping up an orgy of fascist blood-letting then you’re a politically correct person of the kind who thinks any man who raises an eyebrow lasciviously in a woman’s direction must be Jack the Ripper.
Brexit party is doing well because it is defending a simple issue – implement the referendum vote. UKIP which strayed from that into racist islamophobia has tanked electorally. The Brexit Party is not the National Front. They have electoral success because they have behind them a majority vote that the two main parties have failed to implement.
[ MOD: Caught in spam-filter, timestamp updated ]
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Entitlement is a product of parental indulgence, being ‘special’ and applies to all classes, although being ‘upper class’ reinforces and empowers the miscreant. Their specialness and privilege are transmitted privately and unchallenged. In puberty and adulthood it can only be stopped by a public confrontation and it is essential that bad behaviour is challenged at the time difficult as that is for most of us. ‘In your face’ rather than ‘respect’ could be the motto of our times. The best, and brave, bubble bursters I have met have tended to be black, gay and lesbians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droit_du_seigneur
Err no. Just no.
I love you Craig but this is a load of ole horseshit.
Yes there are bigger problems we should be focusing on with regards to the Johnson wrecking ball, but that doesn’t mean his entitled behaviour towards women is a non issue. And the fact that male entitlement has infested our culture for thousands of years does not mitigate its existence. Just because you had the chutzpah to fight back when a lecherous perv tried it on, doesn’t mean everyone will have the same self assurance in such a situation. You’ve badly misjudged the issue here imo.
It’s not that the article is unpopular, it’s that it has massive blind spots.
How Eugenics Cummings must be laughing at the success of the effort to associate public opposition to the push towards an explosion of far-right violence with “political correctness”.
I dunno. Call me old-fashioned, but I’ve never touched a woman in a sexual way without it being absolutely clear that I was being encouraged to touch her. There are, I think, certain parts of the female body that one shouldn’t start touching, without permission. especially if one does it furtively and hopes to ‘get away’ with something that one doesn’t want others to see. Men, really aren’t as fucking stupid and lacking in basic sexual skills as some of them like to pretend.
Boris Johnson is an upper-class ‘toff’ who’s always acted like he could get away with almost anything because of his social status and wealth. Why couldn’t he just be satisfied with his charm and charisma, his humour and silver tongue? Personally I’ve always found that talking to women like they were interesting and making them smile and laugh, worked like a charm for me, that and being a rather good guitar player. It’s a bit odd that the very shape of the guitar and the sounds one can coax out of the instrument is full of sexual symbolism similar to touching a woman’s body. Really, only a fucking retard or an oaf needs to grab some bird’s thigh. Johnson’s just a bit of a pig.
Oh God. I’d rather someone groped my spleen than started guitaring at me.
writeon, do you usually insist on written permission or is verbal sufficient ? And even more interesting do you continue to check either verbally or in writing as things progress ?
“like they were interesting”?
.
“some bird”?
Writeon
When I was in my formative childhood years and took an interest in my younger sister’ s friends my mum and sisters told me in no uncertain terms that gits did not have any of those nasty male desries and in fact were totally disinterested in men.
I spent 12 years in male only schools where there were no opportunities to contradict them.
I then married a woman who was brought up to believe that men and women shagged more or less indiscriminately starting with her being raped at 11.
It took a long time to realise that our mind sets were totally incompatible but I’m totally convinced that she I’d honest to other people while being totally dishonest with me. Why would I not understand that she would be bonking anything and everything as Bullingdon boys and girls do all the time?
By contrast why would Bullingdon bots and girls not be able to begin to comprehend the concept of shame. I cannot judge others because it hurts one’s own brain, but I can totally agree with Craig if I want about Bullingdon boys and girls being dishonest in politics.
I do not believe that anybody who is sexually liberated can also understand the concept of Christian or Muslim political morality.
Obviously many Muslim men are polygamous but there is no cheating in Islamic polygamy.
Cheating in bed to my mind is the same as cheating politically. It’s lying.
Absolutely no word the Prime Minister has ever insinuated or said is imho to be believed.
I won’t pray behind an imam who has lied to me. Why would I believe a cheating Bullingdon?
Disagree not agree.
Most smart people will agree with all this and, being incredibly smart, I agree a lot.
It’s playing out the way it played out with Trump. People see that one section of the establishment is so desperate to stop Boris that they are throwing everything at him. When they did that to Trump, it just made his supporters more determined and resolute in their support and the same thing is happening with Boris.
On a certain level it’s ‘the boy who cried wolf’ syndrome; nobody trusts the MSM or anyone any more. They’re making a living martyr of Boris with this stuff. And they’re distracting from much more serious issues.
If what I’m saying is true, Boris’s popularity ratings will go up in response to these sort of attacks, not down, just as Trump’s did.
People are complicated, even the thick ones.
To play it safe: do not touch, make eye contact or talk about sexual matters with any person unless in public with unbiased observers. Before making advances of a sexual nature to any person have a lawyer with three witnesses notarizing the acceptability of such a move defining clearly how far such advances are permitted to proceed and if eventual intercourse and of which kind is agreed upon by both parties.
As a young woman working in an almost exclusively male field, I was regularly “propositioned” by male colleagues. So long as it was done politely, with no physical contact, I declined politely. No harm done, in my view. The only time it was a problem when I was working for a very conservative American oil company. They recruited an IT specialist whose conversation with his female colleagues was always filled with unpleasant sexual innuendos and off colour remarks.
He couldn’t keep his hands to himself either. Nothing explicit like squeezing a thigh but always a tap on the back of the waist in passing or leaning in a bit too close to look at some work on your desk, that sort of thing. Eventually the female staff had enough and the MD’s secretary complained on their behalf to the very straight- laced god- fearing American MD. The MD himself turned out to be unwilling or unable to take any action. This was because our foul mouthed colleague behaved differently around his male colleagues when he instead presented the image of a god fearing Roman Catholic family man, father of a large family. The MD and other senior men in the office thought him an amiable chap and felt the women must have just misinterpreted a couple of playful remarks. Of course he would not get off so lightly now but I imagine this is how Jo Cox’s husband and others like him operated and got away with it. I doubt this is how Boris operates. I can’t see it myself.
My problem with Boris is not him bonking venal and willing American interns, although it must have been awful for his wife, but rather taking them on trade missions at public expense. I cannot help wondering too if the larger grants were issued to her because his public endorsement of her fledging companies gave them greater credence than they might otherwise have had.
For some reason, the “liberals” in the US have been remarkably forgiving of “Creepy Uncle Joe” Biden’s history of inappropriately touching and standing too close to women. Biden also tries to portray an image of being a devout Catholic and family man. There are so many double standards.
https://www.vox.com/2019/6/13/18663399/joe-biden-10-year-old-hyde-women
If the Pussy-grabber Of The United States (I presume that is what POTUS stands for?) didn’t have all the same sexual proclivities as Uncle Joe, he wouldn’t have landed himself in likely impeachment proceedings by appealing to foreign governments to dig the dirt on the Bidens.
Very sensible comment again Mrs Pau! Your hypocritical God fearing Catholic sex pest of an ex boss sounds like the real thing in terms of sexual predation. Boris is somewhere on the spectrum but nowhere near your ex boss’s (or even Trump’s ) level. He’s a privileged product of a sophisticated globe trotting family, and has acquired some undesirable traits from being reared in such privilege- as has his sister BTW (I have it on personal testimony from someone who has worked with her that she is an outrageous flirt, and when younger was happy to use her charms, such as they were, for career advancement.)
The conjunction of Bojo being doorstepped at the party conference over his ‘attitude to women’ and the pieties shown at Ste.Sulpice yesterday to that serial afternoon shagger of ‘researchers’ and ‘party workers, Jacques Chirac demonstrates more than anything else can that there is no common political culture in ‘Europe’ – and all efforts to construct one looked doomed- hence I want out of it but (unlike the retarded Maybot) FFS lets keep the good bit ie the single market.
”Ms Edwards saying nothing at the time, saving it up for twenty years and then attempting to use the claim to cause major damage, appears to me behaviour as bad as the original. ”
It isn’t meant to cause major damage though, is it? Its simple reverse psychology.
Its a dead cat story, created and perpetuated by Johnsons friends in the media to deflect. A story to enrage his supporters. And useful idiots. Breaking the law etc has been moved off the news cycle. Merkels 30 days to come up with a solution has now passed. Will a leg squeeze have any effect on his reputation. No. Because he has done far worse and is still leading the UK.
Craig should ask himself why he engages in this theater manufactured in the news editor rooms. Naive stuff.
That is an interesting suggestion . You think the upper thigh grabbing story by Peston’s partner has been put about to assist Boris ? I hadn’t thought of that.
Agree, the story may actually be true but it has almost certainly been made public in order to aid him.
Peston is old Labour to his dad’s bootstraps; his blindly pro EU outlook took a helluva beating post the Referendum (hence his pained book on the subject) but there is no way he’s a closet Johnson groupie.
Old Mark
Peston’s a shallow ambitious slimebag like the rest of the MSN.
I don’t have a telly so I’m pretty much allergic to all of them
Peston’s wife?
Is she married to the glasses or the man?
If the glasses, yes, a more cynical mind than mine could see some fake rivalry , Westminster tittle tattle, emanating from Msm ageing yarn spinners.
More general Brexit piffle serving the neo liberal establishment to make a smokescreen of lewdness over a deadly serious Tory hijacking of our legal rights and freedoms . The Tories intend to scrub most of the under vicious Henry VIII powers through brexit.
The dishonourableness of Oaf Johnson in sexual matters is trivial compared to his political dishonour. They want us to waste time Whitehousing him, to camouflage a deadly political dishonesty.
Could not agree more, Millerd, most of what was passed as political news during the last year can be described as an empty can full of beans, it encouraged everyone to fart loudly and say very little of substance at all. Dancing around a hot pie screaming for a spoon seems relative.
This is the wacky left weaponizing injustice. Mostly, it just discredits the left. It think that’s the intent.
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“All victims must be believed” ==> All accusations are valid? Controlled demolition of the #MeToo Movement.
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“Open Borders!” ==> The end of Constitutional democracy.
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“Anyone that supports Brexit or Trump is a racist” ==> Excellent way to nudges independents to the right.
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“Corbyn is anti-semetic!” ==> Abusive policing.
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I won’t belabor the point.
you are talking about the wrong country jack rabbit, though it is hardly noticeable when one listens to the MSM gushing about a country that is divided, which, thanks to their presidents rhetoric, hates Mexicans for becoming the majority, wonders where the jobs in the mid west Towns and Cities will come from.
I shot a lot of jack rabbits in El Paso, but they also took their own life’s by staring mesmerised at car headlights. Welcome to UKistan.
wrong country?
The #MeToo Movement is international. Sexually-charged, politically motivated accusations are now ‘a thing’ on both sides of the pond.
Immigration is a divisive issue in Europe as well as USA with some taking extreme positions on each side of the issue.
I’ve seen comments that call pro-Brexit people racist.
Corbyn is accused of being anti-semetic; is he not?
No he is not.
And migrants are not criminals
The pond has dried up to a stagnat puddle and soon migrants will flee drought and floodconditions, which begs the question, what should we plannig for in this country? Should we not go full steam ahead? and i don, t mean like mr.Dysons attempts to throw 15 millions at Gresham school, teaching his own engineers for the future, whilst lording it in a Singapore taxhaven, I mean tackling multiple unsustainable lifestyle issues, overconsumption? Grossly polluting transport technologies, short haul flying and the egreous pursuits of plastic pushers such as Jim Ratcliffe.
Thats were our emotions should be focused on, not fiddle farting around hoping that those who presented us with this panoptikum, 50 years of poisoning our best assets, once sustainably farmed land , has diminished our ability to survive.
We have to have this battle or else
Well said. I can remember being subjected to undesired sexual advances when I was a young man. They all came from women; since I was bigger, stronger, and faster than the advancers I was never subject to physical fear. On the other hand I did have to work out a way of saying “no” that would not crush them in public. (I suppose that modern feminists would object to such consideration?)
It can be quite different for women; but at a dinner party they don’t have to worry about fear, and – by convention – needn’t avoid crushing a male in public. A loud “keep your hands to yourself, Boris” would probably do the trick. Or, as was used by a female acquaintance of mine when being badgered by an unwelcome male, “I don’t go out with anyone under six feet.” That reply can be modified to suit almost any circumstance.
What would be my own response to the claim “Boris touched my knee twenty years ago”? Might I have suggested that only someone who was rather unattractive could have had so few unwelcome advances that she could remember one particular one? Would It have settled for “don’t worry, you’re too old now for him to try it on again”. Or, perhaps “are you confusing Boris with Justice Kavanaugh?”
Why does Johnson have a problem with his..? Here is an explanation: “Boris Johnson has apologised and taken full responsibility for allegedly groping a journalist’s inner thigh at a dinner in 1999, by blaming it entirely on an older world leader who said it was cool and that people let you do it when you’re famous.”
http://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2019/10/01/johnson-led-astray-by-older-world-leader-who-said-groping-women-was-okay/
The problem with “surrender” and “traitor” is that he’s using those words while his lieutenants are all but threatening to unleash the mob.
I agree.
And would refer readers to the great scene in “Our Man in Havana” @ 2:23 or so…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obFPAXXeFos
The lady puts the suave ladies’ man cop (and fascist) in his place with skill and daring-do.
My wife can do the same stuff. Any lady knows how…
Agreed on Johnson.
Guardian, BBC have long benefited from a reputation for fairness and balance not deserved. 38Degrees casually throws away its reputation.
I’ve been in the company of a group of people and a gay guy was sitting next to me. He was telling a funny story and was being quite animated and people were laughing and he was getting quite into it, so he gets to the bit of the story which could have been ‘And then they….’ and he just automatically just sort of slapped my thigh and carried on with his tale.
My point is, there was nothing sexual or otherwise about it, it was just an instinctive touch like you’d give someone a pat on the shoulder whilst telling a funny story. We’ve all seen that happen many a time.
The problem is that for people who are ‘enemies of the state’, this behaviour can be seized upon as we’ve seen with Johnson and can and will be used against them, even though it was originally a harmless gesture. It’s dispicable that it’s been turned into a witch hunt but that’s the price they pay.
I’ve opposed Joe Biden politically for 40 years, but I thought the stories that came out when he began his campaign to be rather unfair. Politicians especially tend to be touchy-feely type of people. I’ve always thought that they must take a training class in it or something. Shaking hands of people along a barricade, and most politicians will touch you higher up the arm while they shake your hand. They tend to hug. Put an arm around the shoulders. That was always Politician 101. And I doubt it was sexual, at least not with me. Or maybe all politicians are turned on by a 300 lb guy who just spent the last three days in campaign hq without a shower? Maybe I was missing my chance that was being signaled by an arm around the shoulders as a politician thanks the volunteers? Silly me.
Tom Payne, your comment brings to mind a corollary or complementary opinion:
There is a regular commenter at another site, R., with whom I am simpatico. She’s an octogenarian socialist who consistently rejects the US duopoly– i.e., “never vote Republican or Democrat” is her mantra. Also, like many older leftists (I’m 64) she’s come to reject and even despise the neo-puritanical identity-politics ideology that has metastasized and now dominates much of government (including electoral politics), academia, and popular culture.
R. is generally excoriated in comments threads when she criticizes identity-politics (IdPol) excesses, e.g. opposing the “#metoo” principle of automatically accepting any woman’s allegation of past sexual misconduct or abuse as credible.
That said, R. asserts that Joe Biden’s (inter)personal habits reflect his origins: both Biden and R. grew up in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania “coal country”. R. credibly insists that when she grew up, “touchy-feely” greetings were commonplace. During the course of a day, adults who were “out and about” typically exchanged handshakes or hugs.
R. is of Polish heritage, and reasonably suggests that the Polish influence (many miners were immigrants from Poland) surely contributed to this local predilection for making polite physical contact. She’s joked that Polish weddings in the area were hugfests; one couldn’t cross the room without mutual “consensual” hugging, shoulder-patting, etc. regardless of the party’s gender, age, or other personal attributes.
So R. is justifiably exasperated at the vicious “progressive” condemnation of Biden as an obvious pervert or even a protected pedophile. She’s generally set upon when she does so– either by incredulous IdPol devotees howling, “But Biden sniffs women’s hair, how is that not obvious creepy perversion?” or simply by antagonists insisting that she is obviously a Biden supporter or defender.
R.’s binary-thinking detractors can’t understand that she’s not supporting Biden politically, just objecting to his being another victim of an IdPol auto-da-fé.
I went to hear Tulsi Gabbard speak last spring, and afterward I went up to speak with her. We shook hands, but she held my hand in both of hers for most of the time I was speaking to her. I was surprised, but not bothered: as an old heterosexual guy, I welcome any young, smart, and beautiful women holding my hand as long as possible! What she did is right in line with Joe Biden’s touchy-feelyness, and what I’ve experienced from other pols, but a little more intense because she captured my hand.
The DNC will probably want to trot me out when they finally need to put her down, but I won’t cooperate.
I’m waiting for the hundreds of celebs who appeared on ‘Wogan’ in the 80s to start claiming that they were sexually assaulted by the host.
I don’t know whether you picked Wogan at random or are privy to some information, but there are several actors and entertainers of the opinion that Wogan run a close second to Saville. Do a Google search on it and you will be presented with ‘Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe’.
Compelling evidence you present there, Spencer.
I’m waiting for the hundreds of celebs who appeared on ‘Wogan’ in the 80s to start claiming that they were sexually assaulted by the host.
I assume that is a droll reference to TW’s habit of gently touching the knee of many of his guests, male and female. There would always be at least one guest on each of his Wogan chat shows to whom this happened- usually the funniest contributor.
I take it you’ve never been to Florida? Otherwise, you would not find death threats from those precincts to be strange behavior. 🙂 Welcome to Gator Country. Could be anyone from rednecks who consume too much Rupert Murdoch to Batista regime remnants or just about anyone else since Florida is a favorite landing place for those fleeing charges of crimes against humanity or just the rage of the peoples they used to rob and abuse.
Craig,
I think your stance on sexual harassment should be axiomatic for normal adults possessing a sane and rational disposition.
Is there a single person on the planet, that is or has been sexually active, that does not posses some unflattering tale of amorous misadventure; both as recipient and perpetrator?
It seems, therefore, that only attention seeking loud-mouths with hidden agendas could construe bad (but completely normal) behavior as a news worthy topic upon which to denigrate politicians. Johnson should be held to account for his serial lies, opportunism, and corruption (if proven); but his personal life is his own business. It does however seem that the irrational loud-mouths are in the ascendancy.
Well done and well said. You and I are of a similar vintage and when we were young we never believed that the word and concept of libertarianism could ever apply to the far right. Alas they have been – to the extent that the majority of left leaning young people now believe that to be authortitarian is the correct left response to all matters moral. To hold liberal/libertarian views is seen as betrayal and to express them met with opprobrium – comedian Jonathan Pie has a similar problem. However I agree with you that these things need to be said and thank you for saying them. (Mind you as a young man I wouldn’t have been seen dead at Liberal Party AGM, anarchist meetings in smokey pubs were much more my thing!)
Craig,
I agree with you absolutely on this (and I disagree with you on some other things, but I still support you in saying them).
The concept of explicit consent before any sexual advance is just absurdly out of line with reality.
Having said that, there is a line somewhere, and it’s a bit fuzzy, which shouldn’t be crossed:
– dinner with a person that you are attracted to and who appears to be attraced to you leading to an exploratory hand on the knee is surely fine
– developing an attitude towards woman that legitimises “grabbing them by the pussy” probably isn’t.
Keep up the good work!
As an aside, whilst recently reading Craig’s book ‘Murder in Samarkand’ what stuck out like a sore thumb was the frequent libidinous referencing of women. Other than that, a jolly good read.
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”…George Orwell.
Bravo!
“(For the sake of clarity, I should add that I have never personally been accused of an unwanted physical advance).”
Gillian Anderson?
In my 20s, (now aged 76), I was told by an elderly senior partner at the stockbroking firm for which I worked in the 60s that he wanted to “have me” as he put it. A particularly crude expression I thought from an otherwise pleasant and helpful chap. I said nothing to anyone, I simply walked out of his office. If he had squeezed my thigh at an event, I probably still would have said nothing and walked or moved away, but this man, this Johnson creature has a certain penchant for taking things he has no right to take and for saying things he has no right to say and he should be called out on it, whenever and wherever it occurs / has occurred. It is another example which simply backs up, if backing up were ever necessary and it appears that it still is, the appalling behaviour of which Johnson and others like him have been accused and Charlottte Edwardes was quite right to bring it up. Craig, I respect your views and mostly eveything you write, but what we do and how we react as young women really bears no resemblance to how young men behave, young men who have always believed that they are more important in the scheme of things than young women. Nothing much changes really as the decades pass by and women gain more respect. Or do they, really?