Let's Hear It, Cath

It was only a joke.

[Labour leadership candidate, Jack] McDonnell said he had once been asked in a warm-up question on the BBC's Any Questions what he would do if he found himself in an Ashes To Ashes situation – a reference to the time-travelling TV series where a policewoman finds herself transported back to the 1980s.

To applause from the audience in Southport, Merseyside, he said that he would have liked to go back to that era and ‘assassinate Thatcher’.

The MP for Hayes and Harlington in West London - who served as Ken Livingstone’s deputy at the Greater London Council - insisted his comments were ‘a joke and it went down as a joke’.

OK, it lacked what one would usually class as a punchline, but if he says it's a joke that should be the end of it, I suppose.

Not sure lefty arch-feminist, Cath Elliott, will find the idea of a politician joking about violence against women funny, though.

I disagreed [...] that in some contexts so-called rape ‘jokes’ can not only be deemed to be acceptable, but they can also in fact be funny.

Because they’re not. Ever. They never have been and they never will be. They’re not funny when Ricky Gervais tells them, and they’re not funny when a Tory Councillor tells them either.

Expect the vitriolic article to appear on Liberal Conspiracy very soon, Jack. Very soon.

Off you go, Cath.

Cath? Err, Cath?

Heads up from Obo