Pink passport anyone ? weird political logic

A Home Office minister has suggested UK travellers can have any colour passport they wish post-Brexit by simply choosing a cover for it.

Baroness Williams of Trafford confirmed at Lords question time that post-Brexit blue UK passports will be introduced from late 2019. But she told those concerned about losing the old burgundy version simply had to choose a cover that allows  “people (t0) have any colour passport that they wish because they just need to buy a passport cover”.  Lady Williams said. “I’ve looked at different coloured passports. There are some rather nice yellow ones and there’s one with a picture of SpongeBob SquarePants on it.”

There are 793 members of the UK Upper Chamber compared with 100 in the US equivalent – that’s nearly 40 times as many per head of population . However, if ever there was a proof that size does not mean better performance, this is it. The Lords is bloated, expensive, pompous and senile.

If, as Baroness Williams asserts on behalf of the government, that you can have any coloured passport by simply buying a cover, then by what perverse and twisted logic was  it necessary to spend a reported £490m on a new blue version?

For the odd few cranks (probably about the same number who might buy a SongeBob cover?) who identified the colour burgundy as a ‘humiliation’ and the old blue one as representing a ‘national identity’, they could be equally satisfied by getting a blue cover from Tesco for £4.90 instead

Who cares what colour the passport is ? It is this sort of out of touch, gesture driven, trashing of tax payers money that anger citizens. Given we have a government readying the populace to announce a false EU exit because of the insolubility of the Irish problem,  it’s simply astounding that this would be anywhere on any priority list of things to do re Brexit.

Simply breath-taking stupidity which insults voters intelligence.

When it itches …

 

you’ve just gotta scratch …

This young woman at the Grand National April 2018 wasn’t factoring in a quick snapper being ready for this shot.

Moral : use a dab of Canesten before spending a long day in a thong.

 

Upskirt – Part 2 (or Maria Miller and unintended consequences)

If a Martian landed on Earth today to study the ways of humans, one aspect which would probably tax him (yes, male Martians make the best space travelers) would be the irrationalities of the male/female relationship.

He would be immediately aware of the current surge of hostility to men who behave in a certain way towards women, by making  advances, comments about appearance, and asking them out on dates, or (worse) attempting or occasioning physical contact, however minor. He might be puzzled because the unfortunate male  cannot know until after any comment or action whether it is welcome or not, because in some cases the women appear to be flattered and respond positively to the approach, especially to drivers of super cars.

He might in fact watch Parliamentary TV and see politician Maria Miller describing taking unwanted photographs of women’s underwear as an being an ‘horrific’ crime and a gross violation of the subject’s privacy. He might conclude from this that women kind regard any public  exposure of their undergarments as  (per Ms. Miller) ‘an act of indecency’.

So far, he’s  clear on the framework. But opening a copy of the Daily Mail (for example), he would be puzzled by multiple photographs of women having their undergarments exposed by means of evidentially  self-engineered ‘wardrobe malfunctions’  freely published in  national newspapers. (see upskirt alert )

However, his puzzlement would be compounded by a visit to a horse race called the Grand National, where a significant proportion of the female attendees (apart from being inebriated)  seem to willingly display an inordinate amount of flesh.  Indeed, as per the photographs in this note from the said Daily Mail, some appear to be only too  happy to pull up their skirts and display their underwear for photographers for general public consumption.

It is the conflation of these behaviours and views that our Martian traveller  might find hard to resolve. He would understand that if such garments are displayed against the wishes of a woman it is such a deeply personal matter that it becomes a horrendous crime.  However, the apparent willingness of many women to freely display their breasts and nether regions in public indicate that the exposure of their underwear is not of itself universally viewed by women as abhorrent. He would therefore have to conclude that the underwear exposure per se is an irrelevance; it is the violation of  a women’s wishes  (whatever they may be) that is the ‘horrific’ crime, whether that be a comment,  a touch, or an unwanted photograph. Maria Miller, therefore, should logically not relate the crime simply to the unwonted photographing of underwear, but to any acts which violate the wishes of a woman, whether  expressed before or after the fact.

More Aintree … is the one on the right an upskirt picture ? If the photographer took this without permission would he be liable under Ms Miller’s planned law? ... and what is it about Horse Racing that spurs women on to lifting their skirts to show their panties ?

Upskirt alert … panties on view

As a 15 year old schoolboy before sex was invented in the 1960’s and the arrival of tights, one of Grumpy’s pleasures on his trip to school was following a young woman up the stairs on a ‘double decker’ bus to be greeted by the sight of the bare flesh gap between stocking tops and (generally) Marks and Spencer  ‘big knickers’. He never thought of this as being particularly perverted, since the thrill seemed to be universally shared with all his  male contemporaries.  Now, in the current febrile feminist atmosphere, this simple youthful pleasure may become a criminal offence, even though it may be argued that there are existing laws which may be broken by those more threatening  and overt acts with mobile phones.

Maria Miller, acting as moral guardian, called up-skirting ‘horrific’, with the current penchant for labelling all crimes with extreme labels [No, Maria, beheading recorded by some Jihadi on a mobile, or FGM perpetrated on innocent young girls,  is ‘horrific’,  so find a lesser word for this admittedly anti-social act.]

However, like much of the current focus on matters sexual, there is an odd counterpoint. A quick scan of the celeb loving Daily Mail, shows multiple up-skirt pictures, along with a variety of other ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ for example

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4191096/Jessica-Cunningham-suffers-wardrobe-malfunction.html or  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2621229/Zo-Kravitz-flashes-pink-knickers-suffers-wardrobe-malfunction-vintage-themed-Met-Gala.html or  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5065629/Olivia-Culpo-reveals-daring-outfit.html or http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3117257/Emmauelle-Chriqui-puts-leggy-display-thigh-split-white-dress-Entourage-London-premiere.html

The accompanying text in one of these incidents reads  “The former Miss Universe looked ready to board a pirate ship in her Burberry ensemble which was saucily unbuttoned to show off more than she bargained for” .

This is plain disingenuous moonshine.  Of course she bargained, nay, planned, for it. If a female dons a dress  split to the navel, common sense would dictate that there is a high probability of revealing underwear – or worse if she goes commando –  (of which there are many examples, but which Grumpy has omitted for the sake of decorum).

The simple, real world, fact is that these actresses / celebs / reality stars “suffer”  these malfunctions either through rank stupidity or precisely because they know that the flash of panty or crotch will put their picture in the press.

So, does Maria Miller envisage that the Daily Mail will be prosecuted for having their photographers taking the red carpet  up-skirt photographs?  And how is the conflict to be resolved between a man taking a mobile phone picture of a woman accidentally flashing her panties in the park at lunchtime, and the Daily Mail doing exactly  the same thing on the red carpet ?

Or is it part of growing philosophy that womankind may tease, flash, flaunt and titillate mankind to any extent for monetary gain by exploiting hapless, libidinous males – what has been called ‘erotic capital’ –  whilst demanding ever more severe sanctions for any response, however minimal, to same ?

Builders beware … wolf whistling a passing girl with a skirt chosen to be above her butt may  in the future be rewarded by jail time.

 

 

How remoaners distort rationality and truth

Grumpy has never been a fan of The Guardian newspaper, but columnist Polly Toynbee encapsulates everything that is bad about its editorial content. In  her column of 12.02.2018, she offer a litany of ills which will befall the country in the event of a ‘hard’ (or even ‘mild’) Brexit, and  in doing so displays an astounding level of disingenuous  illogicality.

Citing a news piece on which Grumpy has already commented (see ‘Out of work ? Ask a farmer for a job’),  she notes  “we have learned of fruit and vegetables being left to rot in the fields for lack of foreign EU labour”. Conflating the reason for rotting foodstuffs  and EU  labour is both illogical and disingenuous.

The carrots are rotting because of insufficient manpower to pick them. There is absolutely nothing intrinsic in the harvesting of carrots (or whatever) which mandates that it can only be done by Bulgarians, or that Romanians are exclusively genetically gifted with the capability to pluck apples. It’s a shortage of manpower with the ability to perform the task, regardless of the origin of same.

Indeed, Toynbee’s analysis (if one can call it such) taken as written, implies that either (a) the Eastern Europeans are indeed generically gifted with  such skills, or alternatively (b) that  the 1.4 million unemployed Britons are too stupid or lazy to be able to do this. She is deliberately (or ignorantly, take your pick) seeking to establish cause (lack of EU labour) with effect (rotting vegetables) in a manner which lacks any logical credibility.

Instead, Toynbee should be focusing on how it is that of those 1.4 million people getting tax payers funds to sit and watch daytime TV, not even a mere 2.5%  of them  (to make up the stated 4,000 shortfall of foreign workers) can be persuaded to perform these tasks. The question she should be addressing is the reason for the  imbalances in a system which makes it attractive for a Romanian to up sticks and travel from Bucharest for a job, but not for an out of work person from Chatham.

Tony Blair relinquishes sovereignty at the point of a gun

Bishopsgate bomb 1993

Tony Blair warned during the EU referendum that  leaving the EU in a manner which would create a physical border  in Northern Ireland could disrupt peace on the island, but it appeared that people were willing to “sacrifice peace on the altar of Brexit”.

George Hamilton, the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland  has said that any physical border “would becomes a target for violent dissident republicans”. He noted that the threat from  “hard line factions still engaged in violence, such as the New IRA”, was severe. He pointed out that last year there were five serious attempts by dissident republicans to kill his officers, including a gun attack in north Belfast that left two policemen wounded.

This is an acknowledgement that twenty years after the ‘peace agreement’ terrorist groups prepared to usurp the state still exist, and moreover, that governments of various political persuasions have been prepared to  accept this position for more than two decades.  He also noted that many of these groups  used the political aims as a “protective cloak” to engage in drug dealing, loan sharking and prostitution i.e. major organised crime.

Blair’s argument for avoiding a border appears to be a response to the threat that unless the democratically elected government of the UK as a whole arranges its affairs in a manner which satisfies a small number of terrorists then the latter will resort to force of arms to murder citizens and destroy infrastructure of the land.

His approach appears to be to capitulate to this threat of murderous violence, rather than suggesting policies which eradicate such threats from armed terrorist groups on our soil. This is in accord  with the line taken in the original ‘peace agreement’ process.  The Epistle to the Galatians 6,7 comes to mind “whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”, with Blair having largely originally cast the  grain – no wonder he wishes to obscure the source of this dilemma.

 

 

Swiss libido

I’ve never really thought of the Swiss as a race with a tendency to indulge in the sort of spontaneous naughties one might imagine of the French and Italians, but a sign spotted in Interlaken, Switzerland might give lie to that opinion. The Jungfrau is a mountain which is one of the several located close to the town, and there is a railway which goes to the summit.

It’s hard to envisage someone being caught short of toys, lube  or prophylactics (as the case may be) on the relatively short trip up the 13,000 foot peak, unless some amorous couple saw it as an opportunity to join the 2.5 mile high club in a toilet at the summit. The words ‘Alpine horn’ come to mind here.

Band wagons and paranoia; men only clubs

Social media has created an environment in which some single topic encapsulated in a hashtag gains disproportionate news coverage by the ‘band waggon’ effect, and results in ill-considered shifts in societal norms.

The #MeToo tag, which does have valid elements in seeking to bring attention to male abuse,  has resulted in the extrapolation of the febrile dialogue to an ‘anti-man’ polemic driven by mostly feminist pedagogues to a range of unrelated issues.

Amelia Gentleman (yes, such an oddly inappropriate name!)  – see https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jan/25/men-only-clubs-and-menace-how-the-establishment-maintains-male-power – rages against the ‘pay gap’ and demonstrates not only a poor grasp of logic, but an even weaker understanding of basic statistics. However, she reserves  her principle invective against ‘men only’ clubs; space precludes listing the ills she concludes they bring to all aspects of society.

This theme is taken up by  her Guardian colleague, Robert Verkaik, who even argues – bizarrely – that such clubs are a threat to the very democratic fabric of the country – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/27/to-drain-the-swamp-of-men-only-clubs-there-must-be-a-public-register . Clearly, the environment of the Guardian ferments paranoia.

Clearly, the move is to condemn single gender clubs as being irredeemably bad, and such a threat that regulation and legislation is required to control them. If they do represent a threat to democracy, they are singularly feeble in attempts to usurp it, since (for example) White’s has been operating in this mode since 1693, since when it would seem democracy has flourished – this month is the 100th anniversary of  the Representation of the People Act 1918.

But wait; less visible in the news is the rapid growth of female only clubs, whose goals are remarkably similar to those of the men’s clubs; as just a sample thereof

http://kitkatclub.co.uk/about  http://londonladiesclub.com/   http://www.theallbright.com/

Where is MP ‘gobby’ Jess Phillips ? Where is Amelia Gentleperson (note grumpy’s PC credentials here) or Robert Ver-whoever who doesn’t even warrant an entry in Wikipedia, but seeks to pontificate on threats to the very fabric of the country and society ? Why are they not condemning the existence of these single gender clubs ?

Grumpy feels that the real threat to society driven by the followers of #MeToo is a transition to a culture in which due process is abandoned. Some Twitter subscriber accuses a prominent person of some often vague ‘abuse’ (many of which such incidents would have simply no chance of legal redress, not being crimes per se), whereupon trial by social media hysteria forces their dismissal and public humiliation. Meanwhile,  those more rational pillars of the establishment, who should insist on proper procedures, capitulate to avoid being labelled as complicit.

The real threat to society is the return to a sort of 21st Century version of the collective madness of the Salem Witch Trials, with the pitchfork of Twitter and the stocks of Facebook.

When women are assaulted, the law provides a framework for the trial and if relevant the punishment of the offender. If the law is inadequate to address some scenarios, then the it is the role of Jess Phillips and her ilk to push for change, and not to join (or lead, in the case of prissy Yvette Cooper) the mob.