The sky has fallen in...

... or it must have, because I agree with something that Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett has written in the Grauniad!

When it comes to stumbling blocks, women’s experiences vary. Perhaps the pharmacist has invoked the right to refuse you the morning-after pill, on “moral” grounds. The fact that religious beliefs continue to trump a woman’s reproductive rights in this country is an outrage, though hardly surprising.

Personally, I do find it surprising.

So, let me spell this out for any hard-of-thinking, sky-fairy-worshipping morons out there: the morning after pill prevents conception—it does not induce abortion.

Are we sorted? Do you understand this basic biological fact? Excellent.

Warning: by all accounts, the morning after pill does, however, make you feel like absolute shit.

Universities are not the fucking police (pun intended)

Apparently, universities are not keeping records of "sexual" crimes.

Fewer than half of elite universities in Britain are monitoring the extent of sexual violence against students.

And why should they?

Universities are not the police, and we do not insist that they should keep statistics about any crimes.

As far as I am concerned, it isn't a crime until it has been reported to the police. That's certainly the attitude that insurance companies take.

And any allegation of a crime—sexual or otherwise—against a anyone (including other students) is, as far as I am concerned, a libel unless the accuser takes it to court.

If the accuser is not prepared to take their allegation to court then it is simply an accusation: and until the accuser is prepared to substantiate that allegation in court and the substance is proven beyond all reasonable doubt, in court, it is a libel.

And if the accuser continues to repeat the allegation, without doing any of those things, it is a libel. And in that case, the accused should be able to sue their accuser until the cows come home.

And since universities are not courts, I don't see why they should be keeping any records of such allegations.

We have a justice system. So, o students, if you are too much of a precious little flower to use the channels of justice that exist, then that's just tough.

UPDATE: Timmy says something similar.

The sex pay gap

According to Gaby Hinchcliffe in The Grauniad, we have managed to solve the pay gap between women and men.

According to official statistics released last week, the pay gap between men and women—that barometer of shifting power between the sexes—has quietly shrunk to a record low and among younger women has shot clearly into reverse. Women in their 20s now earn a solid 3.6% more on average than men their age, after narrowly overtaking them for the first time last year. The rise of the female breadwinner, it seems, was no blip, but the beginning perhaps of a social and sexual sea change.

Of course, Timmy has been banging on about this for some time now. And, as he says, there are two main reasons for any existing gap.

Overall it is in favour of men but that’s down to two things.

1. Overall is comparing women in their 50s etc, people who did not receive the same education or career opportunities as the men of their age group. This is a problem that will be solved simply by time.


2. Motherhood. The pay gap appears at the average age of primagravidae. We don’t actually have a gender pay gap any more. We have a motherhood pay gap. To change this you’re going to have to change biology and good luck with that in a mammalian species.

So, can we please declare this problem over and get on with solving some of the others that plague us?

All of which makes Jerry Hayes's article at Dale & Co. (a pretty site full of high-profile writers who know bugger all about anything) look like precisely what it is—a pathetic whinge backed up by no evidence whatsoever.

So how does Cameron woo the women back to the ballot paper? Simple. Show that they are being treated equally and fairly and that means, shock horror, that they should get paid the same rate for the same job that men do. It is hard to believe that in 2011 Britain the pay gender gap can still be up to 20%. It is a national disgrace.

Jerry Hayes is, apparently, "a former Conservative MP and leading barrister defending and prosecuting high profile cases", so it's no wonder that he is a clueless twit.

Unfortunately, his article is typical of that site—a mess of anecdote and personal opinion with not a single link to any evidence whatsoever. And whilst Jerry might be right that the law, as a profession, is full of useless, bigoted arseholes, this is hardly news, is it?

Equality for some

A few weeks back, the LibDems stated that they would provide a compromise on plans to raise the pensionable age for women.

Changes in retirement rules will not unfairly penalise women in their fifties, Steve Webb, the pensions minister, said yesterday.

Mr Webb told the Liberal Democrat conference that he would compromise on changes in the retirement rules to equalise the pension age for men and women.

Campaigners say the proposals for a universal state pension age of 66 by 2020—six years earlier than was planned—mean many women face an unfairly sharp rise in their retirement age.

Currently, women can claim their state pension at 60, whilst men must wait until 65.

What possible justification—given the plethora of equality laws now in the workplace—can the government have for this situation still existing?

It's very simple: if women want to take their pension five years before men, they should get a reduced payout (since they have paid less in). Or the pension ages should be equalised now.

Oh, and before anyone starts up with "but, Devil, but you can't break contract law", please remember that there is no contract with the state—did you sign anything? No. Were you given a mandatory "cooling-off" period? No—which is why the bastard government can keep changing the tax rates.

If draconian equality laws is the way that we are going to go, I demand total equality of pension rights: raise the pension age for women right now, or pay them less.

We will then be one step closer to A Fair And Just Society*.

* A.K.A. "Utopia", "The Progressive's Dream", or "Hell".

Marred by his own hypocrisy

Andrew Marr: a face only a mother and two desperate, lackwit MSM slappers could love (occasionally).

You would have to have the sense of humour of a socialist not to laugh at the recent travails of Andrew "arsehole" Marr.

BBC presenter Andrew Marr has revealed he took out a super-injunction to protect his family's privacy - but says he will not pursue it any further.

Mr Marr told the Daily Mail he was "embarrassed" about the gagging order he took out in 2008 to suppress reports of an affair with a fellow journalist.

"I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists," he said.

Really? Then why did you do it—is it because you are a disgusting hypocrite?

Yes.

After all, this is a journalist who questioned and harried MPs (as long as they weren't NuLabour ministers) over stupidity, corruption and hypocrisy—and yet who tried to gag his fellow hacks from reporting on his own faithless behaviour.

After all, it wasn't as though Guido hadn't let us all know some time ago.

At the time he believed he had fathered a child with the woman, but later found out through a DNA test this was not the case.

Yes, Andrew Marr spent seven years allegedly paying child support to Alice Miles—only to find out that she was, apparently, quite as unable to keep her genitals in her knickers as he was.

That alone made me laugh for nearly half an hour. I wonder if Marr will be asking for his money back...?

Lest we forget, of course, this is the same Andrew Marr who decided to have a go at "socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed" bloggers.

As such, I thought it worthwhile digging around The Kitchen archives (not least because some 6,000 people seem to have had the same idea) in order to dig out my encomium to this "nightmarish Fraggle".

Andrew Marr, however, is a bald, jug-eared, media whore whose pathetic and slavish devotion to NuLabour may or may not be influenced by his employment by the extortion-funded BBC and his marriage to Jackie Ashley, the raddled-looking harridan daughter of a life peer who writes for both The New Statesman and The Grauniad.

But, Andrew Marr is at least correct when he accuses bloggers of ranting. After all, whilst many of us are very angry about how our country has been systematically destroyed and our futures mortgaged by his favourite party, we are—alas—unable to use taxpayers' cash to get our points across. This leads to a certain amount of frustration and, inevitably, more than a soupcon of cathartic ranting.

But, as Anna Raccoon shows, we in the blogosphere can do some genuine good by providing crowd-sourcing and expertise to those oppressed by Andrew Marr's favourite little technocrats.

Furthermore, many blogs provide an invaluable insight into certain professions because they are written by people at the sharp end—people who genuinely know what is happening on the ground, or have a specialist knowledge of the subjects that they write about.

Which, for me, provide far more useful information about the true state of affairs than Andrew Marr reading some generalised crap—written by some underpaid graduate with a 2:2 in English Literature—off a fucking autocue. No amount of ridiculous arm-waving, Andrew, can substitute for a coherent piece written by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Still, I suppose that Andrew can write with some authority about super-injunctions, eh? It's just a pity that the same does not apply to honesty, truth, faithfulness, straight-dealing and not being a cunt.

A Hodge podge of stupidity (and a smattering of evil)

Via Counting Cats, I see that this farcical government is getting exercised about kiddies playing online games.

Online computer games like Second Life and World of Warcraft face cinema-style age classifications under new Government plans.

Margaret Hodge, the culture minister, said ministers want to see new rules put in place to cover children's access to games. She spoke as she published a consultation document setting out the options for a new system of age classifications.

Ah, now, your humble Devil might take all of this slightly more seriously—though, frankly, I doubt it—were it not for the involvement of Margaret Hodge.

"For children under 12 who cannot make the distinction between fantasy and reality, we need tough regulation," Mrs Hodge said. Under the current rules, the BBFC's legally-enforceable age limits only have to applied to games containing violent or sexual content.

Mrs Hodge knows all about fantasy and reality, you see, as long-time readers of Private Eye and The Kitchen will remember.

Because when Margaret Hodge was leader of Islington Council, the reality was that children in care homes under her control were being ritually and systematically raped and abused; when two care home staff blew the whistle on these activities, Mrs Hodge dismissed their concerns as fantasy.

So yes, here is a woman who can most definitely discern the difference between fantasy and reality. Whilst Mrs Hodge lives in a fantasy world, the reality is that she condemned scores of children to abuse and torture.

And then—unbelievably—she was appointed Minister for Children.

The Culture Committee of MPs this week raised fears that paedophiles are making growing use of virtual worlds for activities including simulated sex with children. Mrs Hodge told BBC Radio Four that the growing popularity of online games required new rules.

We've all seen how Mrs Hodge protects children. Let's face it: her solution to kids possibly being exposed to sex acts in a fantasy world would probably be to send paedophiles into children's homes to fuck a lesson into them in the real one.

So you'll forgive me if I ignore any protestations of probity from this woman: the only bunch of fuckers less adept at protecting children than Margaret Hodge and her cronies are the pimps of the UN.

Sensible women and fucking stupid women

Emily Thornberry MP: a very stupid and thoroughly unpleasant person who should be severely punched in the cunt, and then thrown into the sea.

Via Samizdata, I see that some lassie called Nichola Pease has warned that maternity pay—and other benefits—risk making women effectively unemployable.

Nichola Pease, a top City executive, caused a stir last week when she said that state-enforced maternity leave "rights" for women - and for that matter, paternity leave - was a cost that had a bad consequence. If you tell a company that it must pay a woman her full salary for a year while she is not working and raising her child, say, then, other things being equal, fewer women will be employed in the first place, however hard one tries to enforce so-called equal opportunity hiring practices.

This is a simple fact. If you raise the cost to a company of employing a person or increase the risk that employing a woman will be more expensive than employing a man, say, then fewer women will be employed. It is a fact as undeniable as a the laws of gravity.

Quite. Here's more from the original article...

Nichola Pease, deputy chairman of JO Hambro capital management and a mother of three, said excessive maternity leave and eye-watering sex discrimination payouts could backfire on women.

She denied allegations of sexism in the City, claiming most women did not rise through the ranks because of their own choices rather than any prejudice against them.

And she suggested bosses were reluctant to employ women for fear they could go on to have lots of children supported by Britain's over-generous maternity leave system.

'We have got to be realistic and make sure the protection around women doesn't end up backfiring,' she told a parliamentary hearing into sexism in the financial sector. 'That is actually one of my greatest worries.'

Mrs Pease, 48, said women were 'a really capable, practical and driven bunch of multi-taskers'.

But their contribution to the workforce risked being overshadowed by a nightmare of 'legislation and protection'.

'I think we have got too long maternity,' she told MPs.

'A year is too long and sex discrimination cases that run into the tens of millions are ridiculous.'

Women in Britain currently have the right to 52 weeks maternity leave.

One gets tired of repeating the same old mantra—incentives matter, you morons—but it seems that these idiot socialists just don't get it. It is one of the things that make me so angry with these stupid bastards: they seem to think that—if you just wish (or legislate) hard enough—then you can change both human nature and reality.

Here's news for you, you fucking socialist morons—you cannot change human nature. All of your fucking around just creates perverse incentives and your legislation has unintended consequences.

And then these nitwits pass more and more legislation which tries to compensate for the previous screwy laws. For instance, socialists enable maternity pay for women; then they realise that this makes women less employable, so they then have to pass laws making it illegal to discriminate; but these laws don't fucking work because no business person is going to risk crippling their company. And so we wait for the next round of stupid legislation—usually auteured by that disgraceful, lawless bitch, Harpy Harmperson.

Mrs Pease, who is said to earn around £3.5million, enraged equal rights campaigners who warned that maternity leave was vital if women are to compete on equal footing with men.

That sentence actually makes no fucking sense at all. None. As Mrs Pease points out, maternity leave and other bonuses make women less employable: they most certainly do not allow them to "compete on equal footing with men"—not least because companies aren't forced to pay for men to take a year off whilst being compelled to keep their job open.

Mrs Pease is obviously one of those women who absolutely understand that incentives matter; Emily Thornberry MP, however, does not.

Labour MP Emily Thornberry said: 'I am absolutely horrified to hear such an old-fashioned view expressed by someone who should know better.

Is that the extent of your argument, Emily—this piss-weak attempt to talk down to a woman far more successful and intelligent than yourself? Do you have any logical, economic argument to present?

No? Well, what a fucking surprise, Emily. You see, just another socialist moron attempting to change the world to fit her own deluded mindset and without even the slightest grip on the reality of humanity.

'The rights that Labour have given to women are extremely important - especially to women who do not have a £10million cushion to sit on.'

And this, of course, is typical NuLabour: if you don't have any reasonable counter-argument, just sneer at your opponent, smear them and demonise them.

Look, Emily, Mrs Pease may have a lot of cash but she fucking well earned it; you, on the other hand, get your salary through picking other people's pockets, and then last year you managed to steal an extra £132,390 from the taxpayer. So, why don't you shut your fucking face, you repulsive parasite?

Of course, Emily Thornberry is the kind of person who would support this piece of crap (found via Timmy).

Women without children should be allowed maternity leave, survey says

Women who do not have children should be allowed to take maternity leave, allowing them time off from the workplace, according to a study.

It found that 74 per cent of women would be in favour of being allowed to take a six-month break, or even longer, as mothers are allowed to do when they give birth. More than two-thirds of those in favour were mothers themselves.

All that this survey shows is that 74% of the people surveyed are absolute fucking morons. Well, either that or they are absolutely determined to ensure that no woman gets a job ever again. This is an devastatingly stupid idea—indicated, I think, by the fact that it is referred to as "maternity leave" when there is no maternity. But I bet Emily Thornberry supports it. Because she's a thick bitch.

I increasingly think that the world is going absolutely insane: we are seeing more and more people coming out with ideas that are, quite simply, unworkable. Has everyone gone completely batshit mad?

Nope: they're just socialists.

Raping the stats

One of the constant background moans of feminists is that the conviction rate for rape is so very low—numerous articles will quote it at 5%–10%. Despite the difficulty of convicting in many rape trials—often one has only the word of the accuser and accused to go on, especially in the expanded definitions of rape that NuLabour has introduced—your humble Devil has always been slightly sceptical of these figures.

Via Timmy, it seems that my scepticism was justified because the conviction rate is nowhere near that low. [Emphasis mine.]

For years the Home Office and the former Lord Chancellor’s Department have misled the media about rape statistics—and allowed the media to misinform the public.
...

Since 1999 the Home Office has known that its methods for calculating rape convictions are wrong. The real conviction rate is not the publicly broadcast 10 per cent but closer to 50 per cent (it varies slightly from year to year). In a Minority Report which I wrote for a Home Office committee in 2000 but which advisers refused to forward to ministers who were then actively considering new rape legislation, the HO were told that they were confusing ‘attrition’ rates with ‘conviction’ rates.

The attrition rate refers to the number of convictions secured compared with the number of that particular crime reported to the police (it must be noted that a crime that is ‘reported’ does not automatically imply that the crime actually took place). The conviction rate refers to the number of convictions secured against the number of persons brought to trial for that given offence.

Rape is the only crime judged by the attrition rate. All others—murder, assault, robbery, and so on—are assessed by their conviction rates. Why?

That's a very good question. Whiston believes that it was...

... a deliberate policy choice (beginning somewhere around 1988) to ensure that no matter what the cost, rape and sex crimes would climb remorselessly up the political agenda.

What the reason for this should be can only be speculated upon. However, the figures that Whiston produces show that—for both attrition and conviction rates—rape is comparable to other reported crimes. This is extremely worrying.

"What?!" I hear you cry. "This isn't worrying—it's extremely good news. It means that women aren't being unfairly victimised and that rapists aren't getting away with it."

But it is worrying. Because the government is using the excuse of low conviction rates to bring in some terrible affronts to our system of justice. It has been suggested, for instance, that rape trials be heard by "specialist jurors", i.e. those appointed by those with an axe to grind. It has also been posited that accused rapists should—in defiance of all other criminal cases heard under British law—be assumed guilty until they can prove their innocence.

These are not minor changes—these fundamentally undermine our entire rule of law. And the inevitable increased rates of conviction will, no doubt, be trumpeted by the government, and then the principles transferred to the trial conducts in other crimes.

The method is reminiscent of the weekly alcohol unit limits: one of the scientists involved in that report admitted that these limits were plucked out of the air, and yet they—and other lies—have been leveraged in order to justify ever more draconian legislation.

Whilst the drinking laws "just" make everyone's lives a little bit more expensive and considerably less fun, the proposals surrounding the conduct of trials—which, we now know, are based on equally spurious figures—will lead to more innocent people being jailed.

The central travesty of justice is the same though: the innocent are punished for the crimes of the guilty.

Beyond the fucking pale

"If an Ohio punk has the right to have her genitalia operated on, why has not the Somali woman the same right?" Germaine Greer explaining why cutting off the clitoris and labia of eight-year-old girls is fine and dandy in her book.

As regular readers will know, your humble Devil is not a raging feminist: apart from anything else, he thinks that the law should apply equally to all citizens and that all discrimination—positive or negative—is A Bad Thing. Not only that, but he feels that—in most parts of this country—a cultural evolution is taking place that is moving broadly in the right direction.

What does enrage him is the disgusting treatment of women—or, rather, individuals who happen to be women—in certain parts of the world. As long-time readers will know, your humble Devil considers female circumcision, for instance, to be absolutely one of the most evil things on the face of the planet. In that linked post, I attacked yet another one of these filthy cultural relativists...

What it actually is is a product of colonial, Western guilt; it is a morally bankrupt and cowardly position that allows people to turn away from condemning the barbaric practices of others. There are, as I said previously, some things for which there are no excuse: FGM is one of them.
...

And being civilised means recognising and defending those who have no autonomy. I would consider that young girls of under 10 (to whom FGM is most likely to be applied) do not have autonomy; they are held down and cut. As civilised people, it behoves us to help the helpless.

It seems that this kind of crap is still continuing in this country—this filthy cultural relativism that says that it is OK for a woman to be treated like shit, beaten, cut, viewed as property and killed for doing something that their family dislikes. It certainly seems that Germaine Greer—the author of The Female Eunuch—has no problem with the castration of women, for instance (the above quote is entirely genuine, by the way).

What has prompted this? It was the reading of this Prodicus post and the subsequent perusal of the articles recommended.

In the current edition of Standpoint magazine, Clive James has published an article he hoped never to have to write. It is a blazing rebuke to the left-liberal intellectual establishment for its contemptible complicity (my words) in the terrorising of millions of women in the name of Islam.

James is backed up by Nick Cohen who, in another powerful article in the same issue, rails at, specifically, Western feminist apologists who, from the comfort of their Hampstead apartments and in the name of cultural relativism, volunteer as apologists for the genital mutilation of women in third world societies and are therefore, de facto, accessories, in their silence, to the terrorising and oppression of even brown-skinned women who live in the less appealing parts of their own, British, cities.

Both writers express their contempt for those who would accord moral equivalence with Christianity and Western moral sensibilities in general, to principles and authorities which permit, condone or encourage the oppression, terrorising, rape, imprisonment, torture and murder of women in the name of Islam and other oriental religions.

Both writers condemn the veneer of post-colonialist remorse which masks the Left's and Western feminists' cowardice, hypocrisy and self-evident hatred of their own society, and the alacrity with which they leap to champion almost anything which affronts it.

Cohen will make you seethe. James will make you seethe and laugh out loud, as serious as the subject is and as nauseatingly contemptible the hypocrisy of their targets.

When leading men formerly (?) of the liberal consensus finally clamber to their feet to accuse their sisters of complicity in crimes against half of humanity, you know the tide is turning.

Do go and read the articles and—if you do not seethe at the inhumanity of people, as well as the cowardly stance of the liberal intelligentsia—then you are a calmer person that I.

I want to be quite, quite clear about this: these things highlighted in the magazine have absolutely no place in a libertarian state—no libertarian could possibly condone the enslavement or use of force against women or men. Equally, these things should have no place in a liberal Western culture—libertarian or otherwise.

Your humble Devil has absolutely no time for religion at all. I certainly have no time for religions pleading that they should have special exemptions from the law of this country. And I most especially have no time for any culture that insists on treating any person as nothing more than a possession—and a poorly-valued one at that.

No, we cannot go and invade all of those theocratic states that persecute women, but we can fucking well do our damndest stop it happening here.

Yet at the same time, the Archbishop of Canterbury can call for Sharia law to be imposed on British Muslim women, safe in the knowledge that his own women priests will nod their approval. Similarly, the former Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips can call for Sharia at the East London Mosque and women lawyers will not remind him that the mosque is a centre for Jamaat-i-Islami, which in India insists that husbands who throw out their wives have no duty to pay them maintenance.

We should be burning effigies of the Sharia-endorsing bearded goat-botherer and Lord Phillips in the street. They should be relieved of their posts and stripped of all titles, honours and privileges. These people are cheer-leaders for mutilation, rape, slavery and oppression. Instead, they are allowed to carry on peddling their filthy, relativist views from positions of power and influence.

All religious exemptions from laws—Christian, Muslim, Sihk, Jewish, whatever—must be overturned. Now. This country must remove the Church of England from its privileged position (which will probably consign it to the dustbin of history, where it belongs). This country must stop being a refuge for religious zealots of all stripes. There should be one law for all and everyone—everyone—should be equal under the law.

And, quite seriously, if you don't want to live in society in which enforced slavery, mutilation and murder are absolutely against the law in all circumstances and when practised against all citizens, then you can fuck off.

I am, frankly, fed to the back teeth of people justifying their sickening behaviour towards other human beings on the grounds of a belief in a totally fictional sky-fairy which, if it existed, would in any case be imprisoned and excoriated as one of the worst beings ever known in creation.

To sum up, I shall use the same quote from Does God Hate Women? that Nick Cohen does.

Well, what can one say. Religious authorities and conservative clerics worship a wretchedly cruel unjust vindictive executioner of a God. They worship a God of 10-year-old boys, a God of playground bullies, a God of rapists, of gangs, of pimps. They worship—despite rhetoric about justice and compassion—a God who sides with the strong against the weak, a God who cheers for privilege and punishes egalitarianism. They worship a God who is a male and who gangs up with other males against women. They worship a thug. They worship a God who thinks little girls should be married to grown men. They worship a God who looks on in approval when a grown man rapes a child because he is "married" to her. They worship a God who thinks a woman should receive 80 lashes with a whip because her hair wasn't completely covered. They worship a God who is pleased when three brothers hack their sisters to death with axes because one of them married without their father's permission.

And whilst I acknowledge that many decent people are followers of one religion or another, perhaps it is worth contemplating the fact that they might actually be decent people even if they did not believe in some sky-fairy? I think that the answer is "yes".

To be sure, the flip-side is that many of the evil scum who currently justify their behaviour with religion would still be evil scum—but at least we could treat them as such, rather than providing exemptions and special case pleading.

Equality in action

Perhaps Harridan Harperson has a point: maybe our society is not equal enough. How fortunate, then, that JuliaM has picked up this rather delicious little gem—yes, today England is a little more equal.

Supporters of a women's refuge were 'shocked and stunned' to be told it is being closed—because it does not cater for men.

Hey, left-wingers! Didn’t this sort of thing occur to you when you pushed forward all that ‘gender neutral’ legislation?

Did you think, when you pushed your agenda of ‘non-discrimination’, and celebrated when men-only golf clubs and social clubs had to change their rules or close, that it wouldn’t apply to any of your sacred causes?

Well, think again:

But council officials have now ruled that, because it does not serve both sexes equally, the money used to run the home would be better spent on an 'outreach service' to help battered husbands as well as wives in their own homes.

Heh! I do like seeing the left hoist by their own petard…

Don't we all: especially when they start squealing.

A domestic violence outreach worker, who asked not to be named, said she was shocked and added: 'If there was a need for this 20 years ago then I see why not now. They are always full and there are women constantly trying to get in. I just don't understand it.'

It’s called ‘equality’ and ‘gender neutral service provision’, love…

Don't get me wrong: men do nasty things and I tend to think that women's refuges do serve a genuine need. But, all the same, I can't help but laugh.

I wonder if Harridan has a comment? Harridan: over to you...

Harriet Harperson—bigoted and wrong

A few days ago, Harridan Harperson—the Worst Person on the Planet™—decided that the whole banking crisis had been caused by too many men in the banking system.

Asked whether the financial crisis would have arisen if more women had been in senior positions, Ms Harman referred to the US bank that collapsed and prompted international turmoil.

"Somebody did say... that if it had been Lehman sisters rather than Lehman Brothers then there may not have been as much," she told GMTV.

Riiiight. So, can I look forward to this fucking evil little witch eating her own words?

"What?" I hear you cry.

As you may know, one of the very dodgy financial instruments that brought the whole banking system crashing down was the Credit Default Swap (and these have made it particularly difficult for the banks to assess precisely how much debt they are holding, and the quality of that debt).

And now, via @gareth_e_clark, it seems that it was a woman who invented these jolly little bundles of fun.

You won't find her on Fortune's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business but Blythe Masters may go down in history as the woman who is responsible for the 2008 collapse of global financial markets. You can't get more powerful than that.

When I started researching credit default swaps --the financial vehicle that Blythe Masters is credited/blamed for inventing and which Warren Buffet described in 2003 in his annual letter to shareholders as "financial weapons of mass destruction", my image of its originator was definitely not pink.

So sure was I that the culprits were testosterone-driven venture capital types that before I had the facts I had already begun my mental argument of why a woman would never have come up with a scheme that could bring global markets to their knees.

So much for fact-less based arguments.
...

As recently as September, Ms. Masters was defending the credit default swaps in an email exchange with The Guardian.

"I do believe CDSs [credit default swaps] have been miscast, much as poor workmen tend to blame their tools."

NC Painter has a short article written by Blythe Masters in 1997 where she describes how the credit default swaps will revolutionize banking. NC Painter added the bold italics.

By enhancing liquidity, credit derivatives achieve the financial equivalent of a free lunch, whereby both buyers and sellers of risk benefit from the associated efficiency gains."

Ms. Masters obviously isn't a devotee of TANSTAAL—"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch,"—an acronym made popular in the 1966 novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, which, according to Wikipedia, discusses the problems caused by not considering the eventual outcome of an unbalanced economy.

Oh dear. It looks like Harridan Harperson needs to shut the fuck up and crawl under a rock somewhere and die. I mean, obviously I thought that was the case before I stumbled across this little gem, but this has merely strengthened that feeling.

Bugger off, Harperson, you bigoted, sodding loon.

P.S. HowStuffWorks has a rather interesting way of describing how Credit Default Swaps work. Or, rather, what happens when they don't.

Imagine that you could purchase your friend Jimmy's health insurance policy from the company that issued it. Everything's going smoothly; you're raking in the dough as Jimmy makes his monthly payments. But things take a sudden turn for the worse after Jimmy's legs are crushed in a car wreck. Jimmy can't afford the healthcare costs, but luckily he's insured—by you.

You find nothing but cobwebs in your savings account and realize that you can't pay for Jimmy's health care. Jimmy's still insured (he's faithfully made his premium payments), so who pays the hospital bills? The insurance company sold the policy to you, and you owned it when Jimmy's accident happened. You were caught with the hot potato.

Jimmy's hospital realizes his insurer won't cover his costs and releases him, but he still requires care. So Jimmy sues you to pay up, but you just blew all of your money completing your collection of Pat Boone albums, which suddenly doesn't seem like such a good investment. Even worse, a trove of Boone's albums was discovered in the estates of some recently deceased collectors, and the market value of your collection plummets. You sell the collection for half of what you paid for it and put it toward Jimmy's health care costs, but it's a drop in the bucket. Ultimately, you're forced to declare bankruptcy.

Yup, that's as clear an explanation as I've seen.

Piles of fresh, stinking bullshit

There are times when you read an article that is so simplistic and pathetic that it just makes you want to tear all of your hair out. This is one such article...

Girls have a greater fear of failure than boys despite outperforming them at all stages of school, a report said.

And these worries could seriously affect their chances of succeeding in school and work, the Equality and Human Rights Commission study claimed.

Tough tits. Seriously, what are you going to do? Let's look at ways in which we could equalise these fears.

Perhaps you would like to start brain-washing the girls to make them braver? Or perhaps you could take them to see the Wizard of fucking Oz, who will grant them a great, brave heart? Or perhaps you could just make them not give a shit (much like the boys, I imagine)?

Or perhaps you could make the boys more scared of failure by publically kicking the shit out of any that fail? Or perhaps you should tell them that, if they do fail, their families will be tortured to death?

Fuck me, I mean, seriously: where to fucking start?

It also suggested girls often aim for careers reinforcing gender stereotypes, such as teaching, childcare and beauty.

Perhaps they want to go into these professions? Perhaps women tend to be more interested in childcare? Or teaching? Or beauty? Could it be that there is a gender difference in the things that people tend to be interested in?

Oh, wait: that's probably just a fucking imposition of the patriarchy, isn't it? I forgot, there is absolutely no difference in the parenting instinct between males and females of this species (despite this being the case in just about every other mammal), is there?

The Commission's report suggested a fifth of young people had not received one-to-one careers advice, and did not understand how to achieve their desired goal.

Or, to put it another way, some 80% of young people had received one-to-one careers advice and did understand how to achieve their desired goals.

But sometimes those goals change; sometimes "young people" change their minds, or just can't actually achieve their goals.

Your humble Devil, for instance, wanted to be a mediaeval knight or a train driver when he was very young; then he wanted to be a doctor; when he bollocksed up Chemistry A Level, he went into nursing; then he went to study Microbiology; then he went into graphic design, and thence into a job doing print design; six years after that he went into web design and these days, after a stint in project management, he is now a Head of Marketing.

Do you see? Goals change: some goals become unobtainable, and then others open up.

It said despite girls' success at GCSE, three quarters of women still ended up in the "five Cs" of employment - cleaning, catering, caring, cashiering and clerical.

This would rather imply that maybe—and I might be sticking my neck out here—that women (and men) make certain choices about their lives and about what they are interested in; that men and women tend to make different choices about the relative merits of work and leisure, about competition and caring.

Is that a bad thing? I think not.

Of course, unlike the Equality and Human Rights Commission, I do not have an axe to grind (except that of personal freedom)—nor a massive fucking budget to protect. This QUANGO thrives on people being placed into stereotypical pigeonholes: if it did not, it would have no need to exist.

UKIP: homophobic shit-for-brains fuckwits

As long-time readers of The Kitchen will know, your humble Devil used to be a member of UKIP. Unusually for those who leave that party, I liked the leadership who were—in the main—rather libertarian.

Unfortunately, the membership are, in general, the absolute fucking pits: reactionary, stupid, bigoted and, as we are about to find out, extraordinarily homophobic.

Earlier today, Gawain Towler—the author of the excellent England Expects—wrote a post about Dolly Draper allegedly attempting to get into Gawain's pants.

[Dolly Draper]: Wouldn't it be fun if sometime in the future you were over on your side of the despatch box and I was on my side and we both knew that we had fucked?"

But the crucial bit is the following sentence...

I pointed out that just because I was bi this didn't mean I was prepared to go to bed with any man who asked.

So, Gawain admits that he is bi-sexual? Yeah. And. So. What? Most of us, I imagine, actually couldn't give a flying fuck. However, a blogger called Junius, whose tagline is...

A critical look at UKIP through the eyes of a long-standing member

... then published Gawain's post, in full, under the headline...

The blog entry that Gawain Towler did not want you to see: Towler admits he is bisexual

Oh my god, Junius? Gawain admits he is bi-sexual? Who would have thunk it? And he didn't want UKIP members to see it because...?

Well, the obvious answer is that Junius, being a colossal homophobe, thinks that bi-sexuality is eeeevil—in fact, this little shit would probably wheel out Deuteronomy 23. And, obviously, Junius reckons that the majority of UKIP members are also massive fucking homophobes.

Your humble Devil reckons that it is Junius who is the unpleasant fucking cunt here, not Gawain. And it is people like Junius—reactionary, homophobic, fucking cunts—who settled my mind about leaving UKIP.

Junius also points to the blog of Greg Lance-Watkins—first-class shitbag and screaming cunt (whom I have mentioned before). I had heard that Greg had cancer but, alas, it seems that the tedious little shit—who has included numerous libellous comments about your humble Devil in his irregular newletters—is not yet dead. Pity.

Anyway, his take it this... [Emphasis mine.]

#425* - EUkip MUST BE SO PROUD IN THE SOUTH WEST

But let us face it Gawain Towler is just the latest in the low grade expectations of EUkip
...

Here is the tasteless and demeaning filth Gawain Towler posted on his Blog besmirching and befouling the claim of England Expects and the words of Admiral Lord Nelson in so doing.

Greg Lance-Watkins is not a UKIP member: he is one of those who attempts to undermine the party and who concentrates his ire on Nigel Farage and his associates. Greg is an illiterate shit-burger who should keel over and die just as soon as possible. And, it seems, he is also a gay-hating cunt—what should they do, Greg, sew pink triangles on their clothes?

So, what is the upshot of all of this? Gawain has posted an amusing story about Dolly Draper trying to sleep with him; Gawain has admitted, in the process, that he is bi-sexual; a UKIP member has outed himself as a gay-hating bastard, and Greg Lance-Watkins is still a Grade A cunt (and homophobe).

Situation normal then.

UPDATE: obviously, this could have been more balanced. One way of doing so, at the very least, would have been to point out that I have no proof that Junius is, in fact, a member of UKIP. I would say though, that member or not, Junius is, undoubtedly, a total fucking cunt.

I come not to bury Tom Harris, but to praise him

No, no: hear me out!

It starts with this really rather excellent post by Bella Gerens on the recent law about inciting hatred of homosexuals (I'd better not call them anything other than that because I might be arrested for inciting hatred).

But to outlaw speech that incites hatred is equivalent to outlawing speech that incites boredom, or frustration, or joy - these are states of mind, and those who hold them can never be proven guilty of doing so, for how does one prove the possession of an emotion or state of mind except through the actions that betray it? And the action of initiating force against another person’s bodily integrity is already illegal.

It was already a crime to incite violence, regardless of whether the speaker participated in the violence himself; now it is a crime to incite an emotion, regardless of whether the speaker holds it himself. These laws make the speaker, regardless of intent or participation, responsible for the feelings and actions of others.
...

And so we shut our mouths and keep our opinions to ourselves, not because we dislike the idea of going to prison for our own actions, but because we fear the prospect of going to prison for the actions of others.

How is this justice? How is this freedom? How is it possible that, in a civilised society, we are answerable at law for the opinions and behaviours of individuals not ourselves, over whom we have no provable influence and certainly no control?
...

Who knows what our stray remarks may lead others to do? And while most of us recognise the justice of being imprisoned for our own behaviour, very few of us see it in being punished for someone else’s. Therefore we remain silent.

But ministers said if the “free speech” amendment was accepted it could provide a loophole for people wishing to incite hatred.

Free speech is a loophole in the minds of our ministers. Rather than being a right which the government must not infringe, it is a loose end to be sewn up. We are only free to speak that which is not prohibited at the whim of each successive Parliament. We are made criminals not only by what others do, but by what others might do.

It is a disgusting, authoritarian law and, like the law against incitement to religious hatred, should be struck down by the Tories at the first opportunity. It won't be, of course, because they fear being tagged as "the nasty, anti-homo party".

But the fact is that just because you oppose this law does not mean that you are a hater of gays. And this is precisely the point that Tom Harris made when he voted against it (or, rather, voted against removing the amendment).

The subject was incitement to homophobic hatred.

Last year the government was forced, through lack of parliamentary time, to accept an amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill moved by Lord Waddington, the former Tory Home Secretary. This is what the amendment says:

For the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred.

Tonight, the government asked the Commons to vote to remove it.

And they duly did so, the disgusting little shits; every person who voted for that amendment to be removed is a hideous cunt and should be strung up be the nether regions and have cockroaches forced into their urethra.

Tom was going to make a rather long speech (that had, in the end, to be cut down) but here is the meat of it.

If it is not the government’s intention that people of faith who criticise homosexual practice should be prosecuted for doing so, why are they insisting on the removal of this phrase?

Does my Rt. Hon. Friend realise the harm done to the government’s excellent record in socially progressive policy by the actions of people like Patrick Harvie? Or indeed by the police officers who arrested and held a student in the cells overnight for calling a police horse gay?

I guarantee my RHF that if he is successful, if this phrase is removed from the Act tonight, it will be seen as a green light to all those who believe they can silence anyone who disagrees with them
...

It would be wrong to assume that every gay man and woman in the land supports what the government is doing this evening. I have many gay friends, and those with whom I’ve raised this matter have, frankly, more important things to worry about. They are more than capable of defending themselves against criticism from either Archbishop Conti or anyone else.

I dread the day when, in response to any kind of criticism, we in this country feel that it should become a police matter. No-one has the right not to be offended and we should steer well clear of establishing such a right now.

It is the first time that Tom Harris has voted against the government; that is pathetic enough in itself, but that he decided to do so on this issue of principle shows that he does, in fact, have some principles—something all too rare amongst MPs in general, and Labour ones in particular.

Anyone who voted for this law, however, should burn in hell as yet another of our hard-won freedoms is sacrificed upon the altar of political vanity.

I hope that they all die in extreme pain.

Jacqui Smith: more troughing

Benefit frauds get a prison sentence: expenses frauds get a ministry.
How do you like them apples?

Guess who has been caught claiming more fraudulent expenses? Yes, it's the Home Secretary claiming porno on her husband's behalf.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s political future was in jeopardy this morning after it was revealed that her husband used her Commons expenses allowance to pay to watch pornographic films.

Richard Timney, who works as Ms Smith’s Commons adviser, used part of the Minister’s second-homes allowance to pay for the blue movies he watched on a subscription television channel.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Now, I can understand the reason why Richard Timney watched porn movies in April: I would imagine that they performed the function of allowing him to get it up in order to do his yearly duty with his god-awful, ugly, old boot of a wife.

The relationship between Ms Smith and her husband was said by Government insiders to be ‘very difficult,’ but stressed that the couple were still together.

It is understood that Mr Timney had been watching explicit adult movies on channels broadcast on the Virgin Media cable TV service.

Ms Smith was said to be 'mortified' today after she was forced to offer a humiliating apology over the expenses claim.

The Home Secretary said she 'mistakenly' submitted an expenses claim which included five pay-per-view films, including two adult movies which were viewed at her family home in her Redditch constituency.

A friend said the Home Secretary knew there was 'no excuse' for the error but added: 'To say she's angry with her husband is an understatement.
'Jacqui was not there when these films were watched.

'She's furious and mortified.'

Ms Smith said in a statement: 'I am sorry that in claiming for my internet connection, I mistakenly claimed for a television package alongside it.

But what I do not understand is why we are paying for Jacqui Smith's home internet connection, nor why it is apparently costing her some £67 per month.

'As soon as the matter was brought to my attention, I took immediate steps to contact the relevant parliamentary authorities and rectify the situation.

'All money claimed for the television package will be paid back in full.'

You will be paying back the television package for the entire time that you have been claiming it, will you? How long have you been watching movies paid for by the taxpayer? How long has the taxpayer been paying for your television extras? And will you be paying back every single penny of it, you thieving harpy? I fucking hope so.

Seriously, I can actually see how this might, just possibly, be a mistake. But the only reason that this could have happened is because we allow MPs these ridiculous perks. There is absolutely no reason, at all, why we should pay for Jacqui Smith's home internet connection—absolutely none. And I'd love to know—are we also paying for her sister's internet connection?

Oh, and lest we forget...

Just three months ago, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Timney – who is paid £40,000 of public money a year as Ms Smith’s to run her Redditch constituency office – was behind a letter-writing campaign defending the Government in her local paper.

Yes, that's right folks: we also pay her husband £40,000 a year so that Richard can be Jacqui's parliamentary advisor. And we are asked to take it on faith that he is doing his job even though their relationship is said to be "very difficult".

Let us just look at this objectively. Jacqui Smith is a minister, and so pulling in a salary of about £120,000 £141,866; she is also paying her husband a further £40,000: this is a grand total of £160,000 £181,000 in salaries alone.

On top of that, Jacqui Smith claimed £152,683 in expenses last year; minus her husband's £40,000, that is an extra £113,000. Some £24,000 a year, as we know, goes to pay the mortgage on her Redditch "second home" (even though it has been established that she spends most of her time there, and not in her sister's flat).

So the obvious question—and it actually applies to all MPs—what the fuck is she actually spending her salary on? She isn't, as most of us do, using it to pay her bills, because we pay those. So, where the fuck is that, frankly, huge sum of money going, exactly?

After all, the Smith household is pulling in a combined salary of over six and a half seven times the median wage and yet the taxpayer is also stumping up for all of her bills. So, what the fuck does she spend it on?

Guido has the rest of the Sunday sleaze roundup: I am just too wearied, all of a sudden, to give a shit.

I am fed to the back teeth of paying for these dishonest bastards: I am tired of them preaching at me whilst they have their hands in our fucking till; I am fucking tired of documenting their lies and their thieving and their incompetence.

Why do we put up with it? And is it really true that the majority of the people in this country just don't care? How can that be the case?

The only way to stop these cunts from constantly picking our pockets is to prosecute them: as I have said before, we should bring a private prosecution against one or two of them—Jacqui would be an excellent target—and jail them for fraud.

Because—and I want to be absolutely clear about this—it is fraud: it is not a "mistake", it is not "minor infraction", it is not a "misreading of the rules". It. Is. Fraud. And they should be prosecuted as such.

As pater Devil used to say, it's the only thing these teddy-boys understand.

Just a standard leg-over this time

Nigel Griffiths: cheats on his wife, fucks you up the arse.

It seems that Nigel Griffiths, who we have met before, has been caught with his trousers down and his cigar out by the News of the Screws.

A SENIOR Labour MP cheated on his wife in a midnight sex romp INSIDE the House of Commons.

Former minister Nigel Griffiths, a close friend of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, cavorted with a naked brunette in his Parliamentary office on Remembrance Day.

Then the shamed MP, 53, LIED about the shock breach of Commons Rules of Conduct, branding our story “outrageous.” Now he stands accused of bringing the House into disrepute.

Griffiths could not have chosen a more shameful date for his sordid House of Commons sex romp— Remembrance Day.

Whilst MPs fucking people who are not their wives is hardly anything news-worthy these days, there are a few points of interest.

The first is that Gordon Brown was best man at Griffiths' wedding, and young Nigel has been wheeled out to defend the Prime Mentalist (with whom he also used to share a flat) on a number of occasions. As such, this is going to make the Gobblin' King look like a prize cunt—and this can only be a good thing.

But his family and colleagues will be sickened to learn how he CHOSE to stay late at his desk on Tuesday November 11, 2008, just to cheat on his loyal wife—and to capture the scene in pornographic photos.

The pictures, dated by the camera’s digital clock, show Griffiths and the brunette taking part in sex games from 11.35pm to 12.33am, early on Wedenesday November 12.
...

The porno picture session continues until 2.24am. At one point Griffiths is seen naked and smirking as he lies back and puffs on a cigar.

Second, he appears to have shown a breath-taking arrogance when confronted with his misdeeds.

But when asked about his secret sex session astonishingly Griffiths chose to brazen it out by denying everything and storming: “Absolutely groundless!”

We asked if he wanted time to think over his response before committing himself on the record. He replied: “No, I don’t need time to think about it.”

When we pointed out we had incontrovertible evidence, he claimed: “Fabricated evidence! You must have some fabricated evidence! Outrageous! Absolutely outrageous!”

He then said he needed to “take counsel.” But 16 days later we have yet to hear from his lawyer.

In the meantime we have offered Griffiths numerous opportunities to respond to our story but his only reply has been a text message saying: “I have nothing to add to the statement I gave you. NG.”

Still, it is hardly surprising when, despite being another one of those thieving bastards who deliberately defraud the taxpayer, he has managed to become a minister.

It’s not the first time Griffiths has been in trouble.

In 2002 a Commons standards committee found he had been claiming £10,000 a year expenses, since 1997, for rent on an Edinburgh office that he he OWNED outright.

It emerged the money had been paid into a trust fund he set up for his autistic sister Hilary, 56.

Griffiths also failed to disclose the £227,000 fortune left to him by his late father.

But despite the complaint being upheld, and Tory calls for him to resign, no further action was taken after Gordon Brown, Chancellor at the time, waded in on his pal’s behalf.

Third, however, is the behaviour of the News of the Screws; after all, this all occurred back in November and, whilst I suppose the journos might only just have received the photos (presumably from the lady in question) it seems an odd time to publish.

Could there be another motive, I wonder: something that prompted the release of these revelations at this point?

Ironically he is a respected member of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, scrutinising the way government handles its finances.

And Griffiths’ repeated denials of misconduct come as another Commons committee is considering “Press Standards, Privacy and Libel” amid speculation that Parliament might introduce tough new privacy laws.

Such legislation could mean that newspapers who expose errant MPs misbehaving in their private life would be PROSECUTED.

Ah, I see: he wasn't playing ball, was he?

Harridan Harperson is a lying whore

Harriet Harman: is she misinformed, or is she a fucking stinking liar?

It seems that Harridan "harpy" Harperson has been running around, screeching about how more women are losing their jobs than men.

Harriet Harman, the women’s minister, said: “There is a major fear about women being targeted by their employers during the downturn. This is unlawful.”

Given that you are apparently entirely prepared to overturn a legal contract in order to gain petty revenge, Harman, I am really fucking surprised that even you would have the gall to start lecturing us on what is and is not lawful. Shut your fucking face, you hideous bitch.

Another senior minister said women could be set back for “a generation”.

No, you are wrong: it is NuLabour who are setting women back. Because employers look at people such as Harperson, and the Ginger Chipmunk, and Jackboot, and Mrs Ballsack, and Man Kelly, and think, "fucking hell: if that is what an ambitious woman is like, then there is no way on this green earth that I am going to hire such a fiend." Do you see?

The latest official employment statistics show that the number of women in full-time work fell by 53,000 in the last quarter, compared with a fall of 36,000 for men. It means women are losing full-time jobs at twice the rate of men, because men significantly outnumber women in the workplace.

Women MPs are disgruntled that so much emphasis is being placed on helping male-dominated industries, such as finance and motor manufacturing, when many jobs are being lost in “soft” sectors dominated by women, such as retail and catering.

Yeah? Well, in the real world, those who have actually to pay for these insane policies are incredibly fucking "disgruntled" (to put it mildly) that the government is bailing out any sodding industry, frankly.

The campaign to shield women from unfair job losses is being led by Harman and Vera Baird, the solicitor-general, and involves several Whitehall departments.

With all due respect (which is none), why don't you go fuck yourself, Harperson? And you, Vera (whoever the fuck you are).

Harman said: “It is unlawful to make women who work part-time redundant ahead of those who work full-time;

What the hell? Are you saying, Harman, that full-time female workers should lose their jobs before those working part-time? What...?

... and it is unlawful to sack women on maternity leave...

... even if that means that you firm goes bust and everyone loses their jobs...

Firms should be in no doubt that it is discriminatory and we will not accept it.”

A horse, yesterday.

Sorry, love, is this unacceptable in a court of law or in the court of public opinion? I'm so confused about which has the higher priority.

I mean, if I unlawfully sack a bunch of women, that might be against the law. However, if I can lay my case before the court of public opinion and said court disagrees with the court of law, then the public opinion wins, eh?

What do you mean "the court of public opinion doesn't exist", Harry? Of course it does: that's the one that decided that Fred the Shred's pension was "unacceptable", remember?

And besides, are you seriously telling me that a private company is not allowed to decide whether it is going to sack part-time or full-time employees first? Who the hell dreamt up that shitty law? Was it you, Harperson?

In any case, this is a big fuss about nothing frankly. What's that? "Says who"? Says the Office of National Statistics, that's who.

The Office for National Statistics published new data showing that fewer female workers were sacked at the end of last year than male staff, most likely because more of them have jobs in the public sector.

Its figures come just two days after the Government launched a new campaign specifically to help women cope with the effects of the downturn, along with a survey claiming that they are more worried about the economy than men.

Yes, if I were a woman—especially if I had demanded fewer working hours, or a job-share, or been taking the piss with maternity pay—I would be seriously worried about my job.

Because it may be unlawful to sack women on maternity leave, but that doesn't protect them from being sacked upon their return.

So yes, were I a woman, I would be particularly worried. I might even be induced to work far harder than I have been currently in order to try to ensure that I were not one of the redundant...

Harriet Harman, the Women's Minister, said: "We cannot and will not allow women to become the victims of this recession."

Why? What the fuck does that even mean? Men are victims of the recession: why should women not be? Oh yes: because this is not actually about equality, is it, Harry? No. I didn't think so.

The new figures risk another row between the ONS and ministers over the timing and content of its publications.

Personally, I think that the ONS report was spot-on, timing-wise. After all, had they published their report two days before Harridan's announcement, then we would not have been able to catch her, red-handed, lying like the dishonest bitch that she is.

Oh, no: maybe her army of researchers—Harridan spent £92,532 on staff last year and she will also have departmental civil servants at her beck and call—just weren't able to find the correct figures. In which case, she should sack them all (apart from the women, of course).

So, if Harry was uninformed then it is worrying that she would be willing to make law on the back of it, is it not? In fact, if all of our MPs are this ill-informed, it is surely wrong that they should make any laws at all.

Or, of course, she could be a hideous liar.

Anyone care to vote?

[A tip of the horns to Timmy for this one—DK]

Margot leads the women of the world!

Via Timmy, it seems that the ever fragrant Margot Wallstrom has issued a clarion call to women all over the world—sorry, not the world, the EU only. The rest of the world are not wanted in this fantastic European paradise that our Commissioners have build for us—to rise up and follow her into the land of milk and honey! [Isn't that the EU?—Ed.]

Today I leave for Liberia...

Any chance you'll stay there, you dumb bitch...?

... where I will be taking part in an international conference this weekend organised by President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a woman I greatly admire.

Fucking hell: she must be truly awful.

I was very pleased to be able to respond positively to her invitation to contribute...

Why can't you just say that you were happy to accept? Why does everything that you say have to be communicated in management-speak bollocks?

International participants including female heads of state and government, ministers, CEOs, presidents and executive directors, and NGO and community leaders will share best practices on leadership, economic empowerment, security issues and influencing climate change and sustainable development.

Fucking hell, Margot, you are such a pompous cunt. Oh, and tell me: was Lady Thatcher invited?

I think our problems here in the Western world pale into insignificance when compared with the challenges faced by women in the developing world. I count my blessings that I have not had to bring my children up in a war zone, or in a place with sporadic electricity, no clean water or where disease is rampant. Illness associated with dirty water alone kill between 5 and 12 million people a year, mostly women and children.

"Which is why we in the EU do our very best to ensure that those dirty little Africans and other miserable Developing World scum do not have any kind of free access to our vast and (still. Just about) rich markets by benevolently shoving large tariffs on their products in order to shore up our own inefficient producers.

"It then pleases us to use that money to pay for our vaccinations so that when we visit their grubby little countries, to patronise them about their desperate lives, we don't pollute any of our pure Aryan blood with their filthy diseases."

Women simply must be brought more fully into the world’s decision making processes. As Ruth Sunderland said recently in the Observer, women are the single biggest – and least acknowledged – force for economic growth on the planet.

Really. A woman espoused her entirely personal view that women are the biggest force for... Oh, for fuck's sake, why didn't she just pluck up the courage to ask her boss for a fucking pay rise?

Women have contributed more to the expansion of the world economy than either new technology or the emerging markets of China and India.

You fucking what? Women have contributed more to the expansion of the world economy than new technology? Are you insane?

All of the data in this country, as Timmy has argued many times, show that women are more concerned with things other than making money—they are more prevalent in part-time jobs, for instance, because they value the time to do other things over and above the competitive (and narrow) focus on making money.

Which is, of course, relevent to this load of fresh, stinking horseshit...

And women take a much wider, and more sensible, view on security - not just big guns and men in green; look to health, education, jobs, shared wealth and a preserved environment!

Fucking hellski... What kind of bullshit is this? It could be argued that women are more concerned with "shared wealth" but I seriously doubt that they are any more eager to share their own than men are.

A quick straw poll of women in my vicinity right now (just one, as it happens) has brought the considered opinion that I am right and Margot is absolutely fucking wrong.

Besides, Margot, are you seriously arguing that men and women are, in fact, rather different in temperament—you know, biologically and on a genetic level? That's very brave of you.

Personally, I would argue that—but I am not the one imposing "equality" laws (by which we mean "positive discrimination laws" on hundreds of millions of people).

With the global financial and economic crisis looming over us all, and the creeping threat of climate change, how much longer can we go on ignoring the brainpower and experience of half of the population when taking political decisions that affect all of our futures?

Well, have you ever tried not taking said political decisions and just leaving people the fuck alone to get on with their lives, you camel-toed twat?

If I have learned one thing from my years in politics...

... it's that it beats working for a living?

Nope. No chance of the truth from Margot...

... it is that individuals can make a difference and that the world can be changed.

But in whose image, Margot? Who the fuck are you to change my world if I don't desire that change, eh? What makes you morally better than me, you screeching harpy?

Why don't we pull some notable names who changed the world, eh? Names such as Stalin, Pol Pot, Che Guevara, Lenin and Hitler. Or, just for you, toots, Imelda "death by shoes" Marcos or Winnie "fancy a necklace" Mandela?

I call on all the bright young and not so young women out there to get involved.

So, you don't want the stupid women involved, eh? The stupid ones, presumably, should stay at home and shut the fuck up.

So why don't you, Margot? Why don't you stay at home and shut the fuck up, you hideous piece of crap?

For the benefit of all of us, women’s voices must be heard locally, at regional, national and global level and we must have seats at the Cabinet tables and in the boardrooms of the world.

Why the bloody hell would you think that women want to? Perhaps women are better than men in that they don't want to control the lives of everyone else on the planet? Perhaps women, by nature, do not feel the need to dominate people in the manner of the alpha male? Have you ever considered that?

Even if none of that were the case, have you ever considered that you, Margot—a woman who was appointed as a Commissioner after being shit at the job that you were elected to do, and who now spends her time ensuring that those in the Developing World remain grubbing around in the muck of poverty, that the great and inventive minds of all the world are shackled by ruinous regulations and who has grown fat and smug on the backs of the toil of better people—might not be the role model that women would choose for themselves?

Have you ever considered that you might be an aberration—a fascist freak, a disgusting anomaly, a totalitarian grotesque, a monstrous mutant?

Fuck off and die, you pathetic, old cow. Or get yourself a dick.

I don't mind which.

Back to the kitchen, bitches!

[I am not the Devil's Kitchen.]

This morning, having returned from my aborted trek to work through the barren waste that is Britain under four inches of precipitation, I switched on BBC Breakfast just in time to hear some (male) official-looking interviewee claiming that Britain's children are the unhappiest in the developed world, and this is partly due to mothers who go out to work.

Just in time to save me from choking on my indignation, the female host of the program interjected, 'But the survey still shows that more than three-quarters of British children say they are happy, doesn't it?'

Cue relieved sigh.

Then, via Tim Worstall, I came across this melodramatic headline in the Telegraph: Female empowerment has caused family break-up, Church-backed report warns:

'Female empowerment has contributed to the break-up of the traditional family, leaving a generation of children emotionally damaged, according to a controversial report on the state of British childhood.'

Oh, has it indeed? Let's just see how, then, shall we? The article begins:

The study, backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, criticises the parents of young children for spending long hours at work and relying on childminders.

It describes an increase in the number of mothers going back to work when their babies are less than a year old as a "massive" social change and cites the fact that women are now less dependent on their husbands as a cause of family break-up.

Pass over the fact that any study backed by the Ass-Hat is suspect for that very reason (the luxuriantly-be-eyebrowed hoon), and direct your attention instead to the suggestion that women's attempt to escape from the slavery of their biological construction damages children. But, cannily, so far our intrepid reporter has not said anything objectionable; women going back to work after birthing is indeed a massive social change (or at least it was when it became commonplace about 35 years ago) and, indeed, women are now less dependent on their husbands (either because they have suddenly become humans with full personal agency, or because so many of them lack husbands that surviving without one became a necessary skill). How, though, is this a cause of family break-up?

"Compared with a century ago, two changes stand out: first, most women now work outside the home and have careers, as well as being mothers.

"Seventy per cent of mothers of nine-to-12-month-old babies now do some paid work, this compares with only 25 per cent 25 years ago - a massive change in the way of life.

"Meantime, the children are cared for by someone other than their parents.

The comparison, then, is being made with conditions extant in roughly 1909 - an era when, indeed, women mostly remained in the home. However, if one is going to compare women's lifestyle choices now to those prevalent in 1909, must not one also, for the sake of thoroughness if nothing else, compare the happiness-status of the children, too? I wonder how many of the shorties working twelve hours a day down the mines were free of 'emotional damage.'

There is also the fact that (a) economic conditions, even before this recession began, have more or less necessitated a two-income household for most families, and (b) women's entry into the workforce in the middle of the twentieth century was also a necessity, at least for those countries whose economies were trashed by the Second World War.

And whilst doing their duty for king and country, women discovered that they liked working; staying at home all day looking after brats who can't walk or talk is pretty goddamned dull.

They also dared to realise that having an income of their own liberated them from the virtual serfdom under which they had lived in their marriages. For some, whose husbands were abusive/philandering/financially incontinent, the shiny new possibility of leaving without facing starvation or returning to their fathers in disgrace must have appeared as an oasis in the desert.

Life is, therefore, better for children and better for women. Superseding that is going to require some pretty damning evidence. Do we get some?

The article goes on:

"As a result of increased break-up, a third of 16-year-olds in Britain now live apart from their biological father."

Oh really? A third of 16-year-olds living apart from their biological fathers is not due to the fact that their biological fathers are feckless twits? That their mothers are intellectual dullards (how difficult is it to lay hands on a condom in a nation where all contraception is free?) who have no business spawning in the first place? That custody laws in this country are heavily biased in favour of the mother?

Are these not more serious fucking problems than the fact that Mum is out working while the brat is in school so that she can ensure there's enough money at home to keep him nourished, clothed, and entertained?

And then, bizarrely:

[The report] will draw on a Unicef study published in 2007 which showed that children in Scandinavian countries appeared happier than their British counterparts despite similar levels of family separation.

So... in other places, family breakdown does not cause childhood misery. Anybody know how Scandinavian countries compare to Britain in features like paternal absenteeism, teen pregnancy, and nakedly partial custody laws? Some statistics would be nice, but I'm prepared to bet a red dime that Scandinavian countries have less of all three.

Finally, as per journalistic convention, we get a bit of opposition at the end of the piece:

Sue Palmer, the educationalist and author of the book Toxic Childhood, said...

..."Women moved to the workplace on men's terms," women's work that had traditionally been done in the home had never been valued because it was free.

"That is how everybody forgot that rearing children is a time consuming and important project.

"The point that we have got to take for the future isn't that we take women back to the kitchen sink but that we must value what they brought to the social mix in the past."

How relieved women around Britain must feel to have such an incisive mind working so assiduously on their behalf!

Fuck me if she doesn't miss the point by a country mile: female empowerment is not a significant cause of 'emotional damage' in children (as this article shows, almost against its own will), but even if it were, women do not exist to make children happy. Women are human beings too; to fault them for the deterioration of British youthful contentment is to subordinate them, fully-grown individuals with personal agency, to children.

Sex analysis

No, no, don't get excited (or fearful): it's merely a little web widget, discovered via Tom Paine, that analyses your blog to see whether it is written by a man or a woman.

Apparently, the gadget is 61% sure that The Kitchen is written by a bloke. Only 61%?

We think http://devilskitchen.me.uk is written by a man (61%).

Anyone else confused as to your humble Devil's gender?