Longrider

AA Gill and the Thunderer are in trouble with Clare Balding over comments he made regarding her sexuality.

The BBC presenter Clare Balding is embroiled in a furious row over a newspaper columnist’s “homophobic” remarks about her sexuality. The 39-year-old sports journalist has lodged a complaint with the Press Complaints Commission following a review of her new programme, Britain by Bike, by the Sunday Times‘s TV and restaurant critic, AA Gill.

So what did he say that was so heinous?

Gill had written: “Some time ago, I made a cheap and frankly unnecessary joke about Clare Balding looking like a big lesbian. And afterwards somebody tugged my sleeve to point out that she is a big lesbian.”

After a mock apology, he continued: “Now back to the dyke on a bike, puffing up the nooks and crannies at the bottom end of the nation.”

Okay, one might argue that it is in poor taste, but if poor taste was a crime, the gaols would be overflowing more than they already are. All I see here is a rather silly comment that is intended to be amusing – if that sort of thing amuses you. But, then, I don’t find Gill funny anyway, so I’m biased. However, it is just a silly comment in poor taste, nothing more.

Balding was very much unamused and complained to the paper concerned and was appalled by the response form the editor.

Balding complained to Witherow. She was then “appalled” to receive a reply stating: “In my view some members of the gay community need to stop regarding themselves as having a special victim status and behave like any other sensible group that is accepted by society.”

“Not having a privileged status means, of course, one must accept occasionally being the butt of jokes. A person’s sexuality should not give them a protected status.”

“Jeremy Clarkson, perhaps the epitome of the heterosexual male, is constantly jeered at for his dress sense (lack of), adolescent mindset and hairstyle. He puts up with it as a presenter’s lot and in this context I hardly think that AA Gill’s remarks were particularly cruel, especially as he ended by so warmly endorsing you as a presenter.”

Witherow’s response is on the button as far as I am concerned. Being homosexual should not mean that you have special status or that you should be protected from being offended. Also, let’s stop all this “homophobia” bollocks. A comment made in poor taste is not evidence of an irrational fear or loathing. We have all, at some point in our lives, been the butt of jokes made in poor taste. What we do is get over ourselves and we don’t play the victimhood poker card.

Balding responded: “When the day comes that people stop resigning from high office, being disowned by their families, getting beaten up and in some instances committing suicide because of their sexuality, you may have a point.”

Irrelevant, frankly.

“This is not about me putting up with having the piss taken out of me, something I have been quite able to withstand, it is about you legitimising name calling. ‘Dyke’ is not shouted out in school playgrounds (or as I’ve had it at an airport) as a compliment, believe me.”

That’s precisely what it is. I don’t care about peoples’ sexuality. It is none of my business and I don’t want to know. However, when people parade it in the public sphere, they shouldn’t be too surprised if some people take the piss. Get used to it and grow up.

There is a little principle here that is more important than Clare Balding and her sensitivity; freedom of speech. That means that we allow people to say things that others find unpleasant, tasteless and repugnant. John Witherow appears to get it. Clare Balding does not.

I see that the issue of presumed consent for organ donation rumbles on. An article in CiF tells us about the process of “soft” opt-out being proposed in Wales.

The argument about organ donation and whether it is ethical to “presume consent” is not a new one, but its relevance has returned since Wales recently made steps towards adopting a “soft” opt-out system. The plan will mean that organ donations no longer require confirmed consent by an individual, though it being “soft” means relatives will continue to be consulted on and subsequently will have the final word on the matter. Welsh ministers insist that it has popular appeal, but plans in England to adopt the same were shelved, even after Gordon Brown and about 90 other MPs across the political spectrum gave their support to it in 2008.

I don’t care how many MPs support the idea. They have no place deciding a matter that is a personal one. I’ve made my position plain on this one before, but I’ll make it again; what happens to our organs is nothing whatsoever to do with the state. If people wish to give their organs, that is their choice. If they choose not to, that, too, is their choice. Presumed consent is no consent and is therefore immoral and deeply repugnant. I’ll also make a brief comment about the right to life. There is no such thing. The gift of an organ is just that, a gift. It is not a right.

The article goes on to cover religious objections to donation. I don’t care what people believe and this, too, is no business of the state. The matter of why people choose not to donate is a matter for them and them alone, not the state. They should not have to give a reason or justify themselves, nor should they suffer a guilt trip because they choose not to donate.

Presumed consent is presumptuous. It is not the place of the state to presume anything, nor should people be forced to opt-out. The only ethical position is opt-in and encourage people to do so.

The BBC magazine visits the issue of women who choose not to have children. Apparently, there is a problem with others making assumptions and asking impertinent questions about when they plan to procreate. This is a fairly common meme as I’ve noticed it before.

Once this was considered insane or unnatural. Even today, it is viewed with suspicion – women with no desire to procreate say they sometimes face awkward questions and disapproval.

“A woman at work was recently quite shocked by my saying I didn’t want children. She said: ‘You’re a woman, you were born with a womb, God gave a womb so we could procreate’,” Jenny Woolfson, aged 25, told BBC Radio 4′s Woman’s Hour.

As I’ve mentioned previously, Mrs L has never wanted children, which is just as well, I have never wanted them either. Occasionally we are asked in conversation if we have children, but on replying in the negative, the matter ends there. No one has made the kind of comments mentioned in the article. When we first married there were a couple of comments along the lines of when we could expect to see junior LRs, but we made it clear that there weren’t going to be any and that was that.

No one has told us – to our faces at least – that we are selfish. If they did, they would receive a sharp retort and told to mind their own business. So, is the BBC agonising over a non issue? Are other couples who decide not to have children suffering the opprobrium of the breeding majority? Or, like us, do they occasionally answer a casual question in the negative and no more is said?

It seems there is a little boy telling us that the emperor is in the nuddy.

Their mantelpieces might creak under the collective weight of literary gongs but, according to one leading academic, leading contemporary British authors such as Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes are unworthy of the accolades they receive.

In an outspoken attack, Gabriel Josipovici, the former Weidenfeld professor of comparative literature at Oxford University, condemned the work of the giants of the modern English novel as hollow. He said they were like “prep-school boys showing off” and virtually indistinguishable from one another in scope and ambition.

I haven’t read two of those mentioned. I have read Rushdie and really wish I hadn’t bothered. It was in the wake of the fuss over The Satanic Verses. I had to read it to find out what that fuss was all about. That was several hours of my life I will never get back – and I was none the wiser. Rushdie’s writing is pretentious, dense and mind-numbingly tedious. An utter, utter waste of time and massively overrated. If the other two are of a similar ilk, then I’ll pass, thanks. Indeed, whenever I see what the Booker Prize throws up each year and discover that it is oh, so worthy “literary” fiction, I mentally consign it to my don’t read at any cost list. I read to be entertained, not bored into submission my unreadable guff that spends thousands of words going nowhere fast.

This, of course, brings me to those literary critics who complain about plot driven novels, rather than character driven. Good writing will keep the pace and plot moving while still sparing time for character development – but, there must be a discernible plot that nips along at a brisk pace or the reader will lose interest. I lost interest in Rushdie’s protagonists very early on, but persevered in the hope of learning something. I learned nothing.

The literati complain about the likes of Dan Brown because they write populist nonsense. I have read The Da Vinci Code – again, in part to find out what all the fuss was about. Of course it is bunkum. But is it fun bunkum. Entertaining novels frequently are. It is a page turner. This is why Brown sells so well, despite the worthy of the literary world pouring scorn on his output. The proles read him, like him and buy the novels. That, of course, will never do… It isn’t ‘art’.

The fact that such writers had won so many awards was “a mystery”, Josipovici told the Guardian. He added: “It’s an ill-educated public being fed by the media – ‘This is what great art is’ – and they lap it up.”

I don’t. But, then, I am capable of making up my own mind.

I don’t often agree with Sunny Hundal, but his latest piece in the Groan is spot on – and for the right reasons. Sunny doesn’t much like the EDL, in the same way that I intensely dislike Greenpeace. But both must be allowed to demonstrate lawfully in a liberal democracy. Free speech is more important than either or both. And Sunny rightly opposes calls for the march in Bradford to be banned.

Sunny also comments on the policing aspect.

In recent years the police have repeatedly unlawfully stopped protests or brutally intimidated environmentalists.

The problem isn’t just the police, it’s our political culture. The Conservatives and New Labour have never been particularly enamoured of protecting civil liberties (though the influence of the Lib Dems on the coalition may change this) and have fallen over themselves in the past to give the police carte blanche.

Again, we are in agreement. The police have become not merely politicised by successive governments in recent years, but have lost sight of their raison d’etre; policing by consent. They have become thuggish bullies who will think nothing of making up laws on the hoof to harass citizens doing nothing more than taking photographs. Their abuse of anti-terror legislation has become out of hand; and, frankly, the subtle shift over time from the bobby on the beat to the storm trooper in menacing black uniforms toting automatic weaponry is an unpleasant symptom of all that is wrong with the modern police force.

So, agreement all round on this one. Is it a full moon, perchance?

While I detest the thugs posing as concerned activists calling themselves Greenpeace, I am happy enough that they should be allowed to exercise legitimate protest. I don’t care what the protest is about – even if it is to reduce our liberties. I want what they have to say to be out there in the open. Let us all see it. Let us have the ability to recognise the misanthropy for ourselves and soundly reject the argument. That is, after all, the fundamental strength of free speech.

What happened today, though, was not free speech.

BP filling stations across London have been shut down by activists.

Environmental group Greenpeace said it had cut fuel supplies to all 50 BP stations in the city. The oil firm said 35 had been shut but 18 have now reopened.

The protesters stopped the fuel by removing safety switches on forecourts.

Protesting outside the forecourt is fine. Go ahead. Let us see you and laugh at you. Cutting the supplies by messing with the equipment is not fine.

Greenpeace demonstrate[sic] yet again, that they are nothing more than thugs and hooligans. If they wanted to get their message across, they are making a fair job of alienating the very people they want to influence.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; be never so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks that fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

William Shakespeare

Things have been a bit quiet here for the past few days. I’ve been in Azincourt, watching the annual reenactment. Surprisingly, the French enjoy celebrating the battle and it is a curious mix of French, English and Germanic languages that one hears during the day. Still, the outcome was predictable. Again…

Well, we get the announcement today, that Cameron’s national service for teenagers is going ahead.

David Cameron is to outline details of the government’s planned national citizen service, aimed at getting 16-year-olds to work in the community.

I’m not so old that I cannot remember what it was like being sixteen. And at that age, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near this scheme. I was happy enough being a member of the scouts and as this organisation still exists, there is probably no need for another voluntary organisation.

After all, it is voluntary:

The prime minister launched plans for a voluntary national citizen service during the election campaign, sharing a platform with the actor Michael Caine.

Well, that’s all okay then, apart from the little matter of who is paying.

Oh:

Ultimately it is the government’s aim to give every 16-year-old the opportunity to participate in an eight-week residential and home-based programme of events.

So it’s the New Labour definition of voluntary that we are using here; voluntary as in compulsory. There is a word for compulsory servitude. It’s an ugly word, that describes an ugly concept. That word is “slavery”.

So this big society thing is launched. Funny how it’s the same old stuff. Gordon Brown wanted to steal dormant bank accounts and damn me if iDave wants to, too. I do have a dormant bank account. Looks like I’ll have to draw out the few quid I have lurking there. It is, after all, my money, not society’s and my need is greater.

Also announcing plans to use dormant bank accounts to fund projects, Mr Cameron said the concept would be a “big advance for people power”.

Whereas I prefer to call it by its real name; theft.

“There are the things you do because it’s your passion,” he said.

“Things that fire you up in the morning, that drive you, that you truly believe will make a real difference to the country you love, and my great passion is building the big society.”

I call that going to work and earning a living. I have no interest in becoming part of iDave’s big society. When I get home of an evening, I’m knackered and want to chill. So that’s what I do.

I have no problem with the concept of localising power and removing it from the centre, but I get the feeling that this is all just for show; flimflam.

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Tessa Jowell called Mr Cameron’s speech “a brass-necked rebranding of programmes already put in place by a Labour government”.

Indeed. Which is worrying, but not unexpected.

The Groan has more:

Cameron also outlined three strands of what he called the “Big Society” agenda:

• Social action: “Government … must foster and support a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action.”

• Public service reform: “We’ve got to get rid of the centralised bureaucracy that wastes money and undermines morale.”

• Community empowerment: “We need to create communities with oomph – neighbourhoods who are in charge of their own destiny, who feel if they club together and get involved they can shape the world around them.”

The point about philanthropy is that it comes form the individual, independently of government. The government cannot create it, just as it cannot create “oomph” in neighbourhoods. The best thing it can do, is leave people alone to make their own decisions. So, yes, please, do get rid of that centralised bureaucracy, but forget all the other stuff, including sequestering our dormant bank accounts.

The BBC asks how we should help.

Would you join a voluntary group? Would this help you or your community take more control of your life? How can society be made better?

Er, no, no and by keeping politicians out of our lives, thank-you very much.

How long before he revives his slavery national service idea?

Diane Abbott accuses her rivals of being geeky young men.

Mrs Abbott said her four opponents were either close to Tony Blair or Gordon Brown but were now distancing themselves from infighting and key policies like the Iraq invasion.

She branded the four former cabinet ministers “geeky young men in suits”.

She also told the BBC a “wealth tax” was needed to tackle the deficit.

With Abbott at the helm, Labour will be unelectable. So, all you Labour members, cast your vote for Abbott. You know it makes sense.