Bikinis And The Bore

It's that time of year again. Hairy is outraged about Ryanair's latest charity calendar, as is her annual wont (click to enlarge the pic and be shocked, no less).

Rolling out the usual nonsense, the virulently anti-enjoyment harpie is again focussing on how the models have been coerced (700 volunteered), that they are in imminent danger of being tracked down and assaulted (it states their first name and town), and that it is a profiteering exercise for Ryanair (all receipts are given to charity). Not to mention that there are many more surefire ways of raising €100,000 quickly (in a lefty's mind) than by offering a product which people wish to buy.

The difference this year is that Woman's Hour gave Hairy's daft little hobby horse the oxygen of publicity in a broadcast debate with Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary, and dead funny it is too. If you have ten minutes spare, please do go and listen to the recording she has posted on her blog, it'll brighten your day no end. Especially since, for some strange reason, it comprises an overdub of someone laughing hysterically at her quite ludicrous logic.

Hairy - who, as a Labour London MEP, costs us a fucking fortune, remember - has been termed "Dreary Mary" in a Ryanair press release. However, Woman's Hour host Jane Garvey disagreed, describing her as "radiant and beaming".

There is a clear difference of opinion there, I think you'll agree, so let's study the evidence.


Oh come now, Michael, can you really not see that smouldering glamorous charm? Why not offer her an invite as Miss December for next year's shoot - perhaps the fact that you haven't done so previously is what all the fuss is about, eh?

Denial, Thy Name Is Hairy

I was truly shocked when I saw this article in the Daily Mail today.

Pronounced Labour Euro trougher, Hairy, on Tuesday ...

It would seem that the pressures people are under to conform to some image of the ideal human being – male or female – is seriously skewing our sense of what is important in our lives.

I think you know what's coming, don't you.

She was reacting to this particular Wail piece.

Experts say that the stigma surrounding being overweight has become so great that it can affect almost every aspect of life.

Shocked, she is. Shocked! And also possessed of breathtaking chutzpah since she is a member of the party which has spent the past 13 years bullying the public into 'conforming to some image of the ideal human being'.

Hairy herself, earlier in the very same article, had even contributed a little bit more abuse herself.

Before I go on, I should add the health warning that the article deals with women who are obese rather than those who are within an acceptable range but still feel fat.

So, being 'obese' is not 'acceptable' anymore?

Hmm, those 'pressures' you talk about, Hairy. You know, the ones you say are 'skewing our sense of what is important in our lives'. D'you reckon it might help if condescending shitsticks like you, and your health-obsessed colleagues, just shut the fuck up about what's 'acceptable' or not, once in a while?

Go on, give it a try.

Hairy Excels Herself

I don't know whether it's that Hairy hasn't been as bonkers of late, or that I've just been too busy to notice.

But she's on top form here on the subject of women in top jobs.

Other firms sadly put prejudice before business sense.

24 percent of FTSE 100 companies have no women on their boards and more than half of the FTSE 200 companies have no women in the boardroom.

Norway has made it mandatory for 40 percent of company boards to ne (sic) made up of women.

It’s high time we in the UK followed these European examples [...]

Business is entirely motivated by profit maximisation and satisfying shareholders. If those who owned businesses felt that it was in their best interests (and in FTSE stocks, we are talking about big bonuses, of which Hairy would no doubt disapprove), they would employ a fucking monkey - or even a dozy chef - if they thought it conducive to a healthy profit and loss account.

Just a brief anecdote from my transport business. Around six months ago, we advertised for a new transport manager through Reed. 46 applied but after the agency had whittled them down for us (part of their service) we were sent just seven CVs, all of them from men**. This wasn't anything to do with prejudice - the Reed recruiter was a twenty-something female, after all - it's just that females don't get turned on much by trucks, trailers, headways and bills of lading ... so don't tend to gravitate towards the transport industry.

Say, for argument's sake, government dictated that 40% of our interviewees were to be female by law - or 40% of our technical staff - where are we to source them? Recruit a few credit controllers, perhaps, give them a crash course in tail-lift regulations, maintenance schedules, the intricacies of European community licensing, international road transport regulations etc, AND then pay them the same wage, remember, as a transport professional with 25 years' experience?

Likewise, if a FTSE company is short of their arbitrary 40% level, are they to over-promote a middle manager - and pay her commensurately - simply because she is female and helps fill the quota?

That's not 'business sense', it's irrational lunacy.

The only 'prejudice' being exhibited here is by those who think that legislation to coerce businesses into recruiting women is somehow preferable to giving the job to the person most able to deliver.

£350k per annum and this London (covering the City, remember) MEP's imaginary prejudice-obsessed brain prevents her from understanding that businesses recruit solely in order to increase profitability. That's the whole point of being in business.

** I did ask if any applicants were women, out of interest. There was one who was described as "woefully underqualified" ... she was a delivery driver for Sainsbury's

Labour: The REALLY Nasty Party

I've been out today treating Mr Puddlecote Sr to his Father's Day sausage and chips. OK, it was a bit more refined than that but he being a South London boy, brought up in a working class heartland, it wasn't difficult to find an eaterie he'd enjoy which wasn't packed to the rafters with arrogant righteous types wittering on about the quality of the re-heated steak and mass-produced (in Swindon) French Chablis. Otherwise known as 21st century pubs (or Harvesters).

We went to an Indian restaurant. A bloody good one of 35 years standing, too, but obviously a bit low-brow for yer average pretentious ladder-climber on such an auspicious day as a fabricated marketing opportunity. Although fairly quiet, with barely a quarter of the 20 tables occupied during our time there, something happened which was both a surprise and emotionally warm.

People from different tables actually talked to one another.

How about that, eh? Social interaction. Remember it? People getting along and genuinely enjoying each other's company. All part of the moment together. Wonderful stuff.

Except that the dead hand of the state was still there stifling the reverie. One group turned up with an old woman who had recently broken her ankle but was determined to carry on regardless. She painfully took an age to reach her table, I mean about 5 minutes, and her beam of satisfaction at finally being able to sit down was a delight. At one point during the two hours we were there, she needed to visit the loo and the staff helped her as all other diners watched supportively while she struggled there in supported pigeon steps. Blessed with a great sense of humour, she returned making jokes about her recent frailty which cracked us all up.

The meal over, she weakly stood to go outside for a postprandial smoke. As we were all getting along nicely, many were calling for the restaurant owners to give her an ashtray to save the evident hassle of going outside where there was nowhere to sit. There were no objections whatsoever, in fact the sentiment was unanimous. Of course, the restaurant were forced to decline. They did so very politely and apologetically, emphasising that there was nothing they'd like more at that moment, but it wasn't their decision to make. As we all now know, it was decided back in 2006 that they, and their customers, are not allowed the choice.

The woman must suffer. Labour said so.

It reminded me of Hairy's hideous pomposity last year, where she attempted to turn generosity of spirit into a party political attack on a Conservative club who tried to accommodate its frail customers.

Some Tories just can’t help themselves. Is it really so difficult to obey the law and not smoke in public places?

The linked article pointed to a report about a club in Wales where pensioners were allowed a modicum of shelter from the February cold.

He said the three people caught smoking were pensioners and had been standing just inside an external door.

As Hairy says. How difficult can it be to throw pensioners out into the bitter late winter weather, eh? How difficult can it be to eject a woman who can barely walk when the entire clientele, and the owners, would rather she wasn't made to do so?

Not difficult at all if you're a Labour politician who isn't hampered by disabilities or age (remember when they used to defend such people?). They love making laws which do exactly that.

Like other Labourites who continue to dub the Tories as the 'nasty party', Hairy nevertheless believes that it is atrocious for anyone to make allowances for the old or infirm if they smoke.

And not only do they believe that, they actively promote it with appalling legislation.

Additionally, our hosts threw in a free post-meal liqueur for our table, and others it seemed to me, which could arguably be in contravention of Labour's ban on drinks promotion.

Because, you see, Labour administered the government which officially banned 'Happy Hour'. How apposite.

Now. Please remind me. Which is the really 'nasty party', again?

Older Actresses Being Cast In Older Roles Shocker!

I really did think I'd seen it all from London's very costly, feminism-obsessed, and quite astonishingly-gullible tick-box-selected MEP, Hairy Moneyball.

But I was wrong.

The film industry was blasted last week by veteran actresses Juliet Stevenson and Bridget Jones’ diary star Gemma Jones who said male executives only cast ‘nubile and beautiful young women’.

Actors of their age are only offered ‘mother roles’, they claimed and it is having a devastating impact on mature female talent.

Now, forgive me if I've got something out of kilter here, but aren't actresses of a motherly age more suited to film roles which portray them as, well, mothers?

Naturally, Hairy is incensed.

I cannot think of another industry that embraces such an ageist attitude or indeed where it is accepted practice to discriminate against older women so overtly.

She's got a bloody point, you know.

I mean, why wasn't Stevenson cast in the Hannah Montana movie, eh? Or Gemma Jones given the role of Hermione in the last Harry Potter offering? Blatant ageism!

The picture is bleak for so many women because the executives are male and looking for young actresses.

Err, probably because the script, or the paying audience, kinda dictates that the story requires one. Doncha think, Hairy?

Being Labour, of course Hairy wants more laws.

Britain is legislated up to the hilt against employers who would consider using ageist policies within their work environment, you are (quite rightly in my view), not even allowed to ask a persons age within an application for a new job. Yet it has become accepted practice in the acting world in a way it wouldn’t be anywhere else.

I can see it now, Judi Dench rocking up and demanding to be given equal chance of playing a teen crack addict in Noel Clarke's next urban drama. And screaming age-related prejudice when she fails the audition.

Did I mention that we pay Hairy £350,000 per year for this execrable guff?

£350,000 Well Spent

I see London Labour MEP, Hairy Moneyball, has been talking of issues vital to all Londoners again.

Last week I read an inspired campaign in my local paper about a group who successfully lobbied Sainsbury’s supermarket to remove sexist labelling from its children’s dressing up clothes. The clothes reinforced the typical gender stereo typing of roles including labelling a nurses outfit as ‘Girl’ and a pilot, soldier and superhero outfit as ‘Boy’.

The kind of stereo typing by a supermarket giant like Sainsbury’s is especially dangerous because the public trust and recognise what they are told by the brand it is therefore a powerful voice and has the ability to reinforce such messages. In this instance the message sexist labelling sends to children and young women is, that their aspirations will always be limited.

No it doesn't, you daft fucking bint, it's simply a reflection of the natural fact that little boys tend to prefer dressing up as a pilot rather than a nurse, and that little girls would much rather don an Elizabeth Swann dress than an Incredible Hulk one.

Isn't it comforting to know that Hairy is using her extra wide seat in Brussels, for which you pay around £350,000 per year, to highlight matters so essential for the prosperity of the capital?

Been There, Done That

I see Hairy was puffing out her porky chest this week. All of a quiver, she was.

This blog is truly coming of age. I have now reached the dizzy heights of a blogger profile in Total Politics.

I am naturally very pleased to see the blog recognised in this way

Ooh look! You're not wrong, Hairy. There you are in Issue 21.

Mine appeared a couple of months ago in Issue 19, but I didn't really think it was that big a deal, to be honest.

Still, seeing as we're willy-waving ... eat Puddlecote dust, bitch.

Every EU Loser Wins

Hairy Moneyball can be very illuminating at times. For example, I wasn't aware that an electorally rejected euro-fanatic had just been effectively promoted.

And finally… it was good to see former Labour MEP Richard Corbett sitting at the top table with President Van Rompuy. Richard is now head of the President’s Cabinet. Congratulatons Richard. You deserve your success and we all know you will do exceptional work for Herman Van Rompuy and, by extension, for all of us involved in the EU.

It is, of course, the same Corbett who was dumped as MEP for Yorkshire and Humber in June last year.

But in the strange incestuous world of the EU, this failure is rewarded with a seat at the top table, at the right hand of the similarly unelected President, and is fully 'deserved', apparently.

Corbett may well have been given the democratic boot by his electorate, but Hairy did only point out that Corbett would be very useful for 'those of us involved in the EU'.

How very nice for them.

More Healthist Fail

As mentioned recently, Danny Finkelstein understands the contradiction between constantly talking about obesity, thereby pointing out that it is normal, whilst simultaneously trying to 'denormalise' it.

He alluded to the same view again today in relation to Michelle Obama's reclassification of obesity as a threat to US national security (?!?).

Others will never get it, though. For example, I give you Lisa Markwell. Yet another arrogant, deluded fuckwit who doesn't recognise failure even when it takes her roughly up the chutney.

So the only difference between our eating habits 10 years ago and today is that now we know we're eating crap. Still doing it, just feeling guilty about it. Possibly.

Yes. All that money spunked up the wall by interfering government for no tangible benefit whatsoever. But at least our lives are more plagued by guilt, so it's not all in vain.

A new survey of the nation's eating habits reveals that, despite relentless government campaigns and draconian food labelling legislation, the numbers who slump into obesity are almost exactly the same. We're eating less wholegrain cereals and milk, and more sausages and fizzy drinks – and just about nobody is managing to get their five a day.

Time for a different strategy then, perhaps?

Of course not.

What are we – and by we I mean the adults who are on nodding terms with avocados, cous cous and blueberries – to do about it? We must do something.

Listen, you daft tart, you don't have to do anything. It's not your life and not your problem, OK?

But banning kids from having fizzy drinks won't work these days – they're on sale in most secondary schools.

Nice throwaway comment, dearie, but if that's true I'd be more than a little fucking gobsmacked. I shall be equally lackadaisical in my research (which is in keeping with the general feel of a Puddlecote red mist-o-meter rant) by stating that I reckon you are talking big hairy ones there.

If memory serves, Scotland were talking about vending machine bans on such things 5 or 6 years ago and that was before mockney fucknut Jamie Oliver got involved. If even a marginal majority of UK secondary schools still sell fizzy drinks to kids, when school meals have been ruthlessly shorn of anything with even a whiff of fat, and Ed Balls is banning fast food businesses within half a mile of a school or park, I'd be forced to consider that Hairy Moneyball isn't actually the most unremitting waste of taxpayer cash the country has ever seen, which of course, she is. Without a doubt.

So what has Lisa got to say about the endemic failure of intervention in the lifestyle choices of others?

Here's the plan. Instead of insisting that our children eat up their greens and reach for the fruit bowl before the Dunkers, we should put a premium on healthy stuff and instil a little mystique and prestige around it.

Oh, I see. More of the same, but from a different angle.

Christ al-fucking-mighty. The simple reason why telling others what to do, however disguised, is a perennial failure, is that people naturally don't respond well to being told what they should be doing. Most especially kids.

But the best is kept till last for Lisa, whose brain wheel is spinning frantically, despite the hamster obviously having long since expired.

It's a high-risk strategy, but the evidence is alarmingly in favour of changing the status quo.

WHAT FUCKING EVIDENCE?

Girls between 11 and 18 always want to appear older than they are, so why not give them the impression that the adults are having all the fun by eating exotic fruit.

No, no, no. Youngsters are shamed by their parents, they certainly don't wish to copy them. It's why the current crop aren't all listening to Duran Duran and wearing Pringle jumbers (girls) or make-up (boys).

You want to stop kids taking up smoking? Tell them their parents think it's cool. Stop them drinking? Get hammered every night and embarrass them, they'll soon get the idea.

Eating cannellini beans and kiwi fruit will have the same effect as watching our parents wolfing down kippers and suet pudding had on my generation.

Telling them what not to eat or drink has no effect because you're an 'oldie'. Just by eating it, without the lecturing, isn't shifting the emphasis one inch, it's still old people with their funny habits. And the vast majority of kids will naturally rebel against it.

It may require more effort than nagging. But we owe it to the next generation to eat more healthily ourselves, then teach them how to do it – even if it means being so uncommonly cunning that they don't realise what we're doing.

Firstly, if you owe the next generation anything, it should be a future free of nagging. Secondly, if you really want to be cunning, as you put it, Lisa, how about a great idea which has worked for thousands of years without any of the expensive fail which you are keen to perpetuate.

Let them make their own decisions in life. Allow them to grow up on their own terms, to enjoy living to the full, making their own mistakes, before they inevitably, as happens with age, turn into a grouchy old hector like you.

Hairy Moneyball Comprehensively Pwned

I suppose with a Labour MEP who sees sexism in kids' cartoons, one shouldn't be surprised at yet more feminist claptrap from Hairy Moneyballs, but bitch slaps corrections don't come much better than this.

I have followed the Susan Greenfield story with a heavy heart. The Royal Institution, for a long time famous for little other than being a stuffy old boys’ club, had appeared with Susan’s appointment to see the light. A top scientist and superb media performer, she hit the spot. The image of the Royal Institution was transformed and science made interesting for ordinary mortals.

Yet she has been removed from her post of Director, made redundant supposedly in order to save money. Susan’s decision to sue for sex discrimination is a brave one. I, and I am sure many other women, are right behind her. I somehow doubt if she would have been treated in such a fashion had she been a man, a member of the stuffy old boys’ club.

Yeah, it's sexism, that's what it is. Err ... well, apart from in Hairy's fevered imagination of racist fairies at the bottom of the garden and the bogey sexist in every wardrobe, not really, no.

I was going to just link, but hey, let's reproduce the entire delicious knockout in full, eh? You know how fond Hairy is of getting rid of unfavourable opinions. This particular delusional-lefty buster deserves to be kept for posterity without fear of deletion.

I am afraid the situation regarding Susan Greenfield and the Royal Institution is more complicated than being an issue of sexism and jealousy. That the Royal Institution has been facing financial problems has been known about for some time. Susan Greenfield has come in for sustained criticism concerning her views on Facebook and other social networking sites. The critical problem has been her unwillingness to submit her ideas in the form of a testable hypothesis to a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Ben Goldacre has documented this here.

This is not the first time that Susan Greenfield has been embroiled in controversy. Her statements on cannabis, and her promotion of a computer program that had not been tested against adequate controls have led to the feeling that as director of the Royal Institution she was failing to fulfil the role of promoting the public understanding of science. The science blogger Gimpy has given excellent historical context to this sorry state of affairs here.

What is lamentable about this is that the now-defunct post of Director of the Royal Institution could have been the perfect platform to promote scientific literacy and a greater understanding of the scientific process among the general public. Instead discussion seems to be more concerned about sexism rather than the extent to which Greenfield satisfied the requirements of her role.

P.S. Many scientists (male and female) would object strongly to your description of the Royal Institution as being “famous for little other than being a stuffy old boys’ club”. Humphrey Davy invented the lamp that saved the lives of miners. Without Michael Faraday’s research and the work of a collective of scientists and engineers you would not be sitting by your computer writing a blogpost criticising the Royal Institution. I haven’t even mentioned the fourteen Nobel laureates that have worked there…

I think that's scientish-speak for 'she was shit, and so are you'.

Hairy (OK to use a pet name, isn't it? I feel we have bonded), if there is anyone and I mean anyone, more deluded and irrelevant than you in Brussels - and I include all 27 member states in that - could you please point them out, because you are one hell of an act to follow.

Wimmins' Rights, But Only For The Approved

Labour's most monumentally ridiculous MEP has been pronouncing on wimmins' rights again. Well, sort of. Compare and contrast the attitude in consecutive articles, because I'm buggered if I can square the two.

Let's start with the latter, a barb at Michael O'Leary of Ryanair fame, with whom Hairy Moneyball is rather pissed off owing to a calendar he produces for charidee.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the history of this tale, last year I criticised the mindless objectification of women in this article for the Guardian’s Comment is Free after he published a calendar for charity which contained his ’sexiest airline stewards’ in which they ’bared all’.

Do I care that O’Leary labels me as anti-fun?

I hear sniggering. Please stop, this is serious.

Not a bit, because there is a serious point to be made here.

See? Told ya'.

My concern is the message that charities, which align themselves with this calendar, are sending to their supporters.

The charity is inadvertently aligning itself with a linear one dimensional idea of beauty that objectifies women in the most nauseating way.

The inference, one presumes, is that they were forced into posing. Because if 800 of them enthusiastically applied to be included, which they did, I would have thought that an advocate of the rights of women would be right behind them. Yet Hairy doesn't like this perfectly cosy relationship between management and staff. Hmmm.

OK. She doesn't like women desperately clawing each other's eyes out to be merely eye candy, however much they would like to be so. I suppose that's consistent with her previous misandrist guff.

What she would really like to see is women trying to better themselves. You know, like instead of being viewed as merely decoration, perhaps doing something more worthwhile. Aspiring to a higher station. That's what Hairy would like to see.

Or, as she illustrated today, perhaps not.

It would appear that Mr. Berlusconi is not choosing these female candidates for their knowledge of and commitment to politics. His selection of women parliamentarians accurately matches his choice of women companions outside his marriage. Although I am sure these young women are fine, upstanding citizens, by no stretch of the imagination are they suited for high political office.

Because they are pretty, you see, and that just won't do. They should stick to their previous jobs as TV actresses and topless models. Oh hold on, Hairy doesn't like objectification of women, she wants them to aspire to higher things, doesn't she? Or, oh I don't know ... Jeez, I'm confused now.

Hairy then goes on to list a few female MEPs she does like. All of whom have done nothing more in their lives than be wedded to politics ... leftist politics at that.

According to Hairy, only professional politicians should be afforded a seat at the EU, even if democratically elected. And her denouement is even more scathing, and a disgrace to the democratic history of not only British politics, but also the roots of her own party.

It is quite simply disgraceful for the likes of Berlusconi to put forward women who have neither the experience or qualifications to be successful in politics. It undermines all women when some, even a very few, female colleagues are not up to the job.

One can imagine the same kind of accusations being directed at early Labour parliamentarians, by Tories and Liberals, at the turn of the 20th century.

But then, Hairy has never been one to promote women at all really. Just those who she, personally, deems worthy.

Official: Political Abuse Is OK

It was abuse, but it wasn't racially-motivated.

An Asian man who was accused of calling Nick Griffin a “white b*****d” as he drove past him has been cleared of racially threatening behaviour.

The defendant, who admitted calling Mr Griffin a “f****** w*****”, smiled in triumph as the jury returned their verdict after deliberating for 45 minutes at the end of a three day trial.

So, the abuse was real. It was vitriolic and offensive to the recipient (allegedly). But, and it is a big 'but', it wasn't racially-motivated.

It was, therefore, personally or politically motivated, as the defendant's own defence testimony admits.

He also told him to “get the f*** out of Burnley” telling him: “You are not welcome here.”

This is very important. Abuse of politicians is now perfectly acceptable as long as you don't stray onto racial lines.

There is now a precedent ... how very convenient.

Right. Now that's sorted, let's talk about a grubby Labour cunt.

Mary Honeyball Glories In UK Subservience

On the one hand we have Iain Dale slavishly falling into line with a quite useless Tory party ...

... on the other, we have Labour MEP, Hairy Moneyball, glorying in the fact that the UK has no say in anything anymore.

Let me remind Mr. Cameron that the UK is fully signed up to the three issues he seeks to get rid of (see the relevant extracts from his speech set out below). Undoing EU agreements once have been concluded by all the member states has no real precedent in the EU and, as Mr Cameron has to admit, his attempts to unpick EU agreements would need the support of all the 26 other EU member states. Does David Cameron really think this is going to happen?

Hairy correctly points out that I, as an employer, am now beholden not to a UK government on employment law, but to an unelected EU commission.

She also highlights that I, as a UK citizen, am now not part of a British justice system, but a Europe-wide one operated from Brussels.

Hairy finds it all quite funny, in a party political kind of way.

I find it rather distasteful that such a situation should be foisted on us at all. I find Moneyball's triumphalism retch-inducing considering her party contrived to mislead the public at the 2005 general election with a number of promises that they had no intention of delivering.

Hairy just thinks it's a bit of a laugh.

For the record, that makes Hairy a disgusting, anti-democratic, treacherous fucking wanker.

Three Strikes And Out?

Oh look. Labour's one-woman MEP stand-up comedy show Hairy Moneyball, having been humiliated by Iain Dale first, then shot to pieces by experts in the sex industry earlier this month, has now been busted for being plain barking a third time on a subject about which she professes to possess knowledge. The latest, deliciously, by the Guardian.

The UK's biggest ever investigation of sex trafficking failed to find a single person who had forced anybody into prostitution in spite of hundreds of raids on sex workers in a six-month campaign by government departments, specialist agencies and every police force in the country.

I suppose we shouldn't be too hard on the dozy bint. She has a track record for believing any old junk shite thrown in her general state-sponsored direction. She is a classic case of the lazy, money-grabbing, intellectually-challenged, confirmation biased politician.

She is costing us in the region of £350,000 pa, but still wasn't alert enough to notice how a figure of 71 was massaged by quangoes, fake charities and the Labour party, into a widely reported 25,000 (I'll use snippets, but read the whole thing, do).

And I think we've seen this kind of artful socialist lying in pursuit of Stalinist idealism before, haven't we?

Prostitution and trafficking – the anatomy of a moral panic

They spoke to specialists, studied news reports and surveyed police, who reported that 71 women had been "trafficked", whether willingly or not, during 1998.

At the very least, they guessed, there could be another 71 trafficked women who had been missed by police, which would double the total, to 142. At the most, they suggested, the true total might be 20 times higher, at 1,420.

"It can be estimated that the true scale of trafficking may be between two and 20 times that which has been confirmed."

Fake charities turned this rough estimate into a base.

Chaste took the work of Kelly and Regan, brought the estimate forward by two years, stripped out all the caution, headed for the maximum end of the range and declared : "An estimated 1,420 women were trafficked into the UK in 2000 for the purposes of constrained prostitution."

Not big enough, it would seem.

Three years after the Kelly/Regan work was published, in 2003, a second team of researchers was commissioned by the Home Office to tackle the same area. They, too, were forced to make a set of highly speculative assumptions: that every single foreign woman in the "walk-up" flats in Soho had been smuggled into the country and forced to work as a prostitute; that the same was true of 75% of foreign women in other flats around the UK and of 10% of foreign women working for escort agencies. Crunching these percentages into estimates of the number of foreign women in the various forms of sex work, they came up with an estimate of 3,812 women working against their will in the UK sex trade.

Enter the Labour Party.

The researchers ringed this figure with warnings. The data, they said, was "very poor" ... [and] "should be regarded as an upper bound".

No chance. In June 2006, before the research had even been published, the then Home Office minister Vernon Coaker ... [declared] to an inquiry into sex trafficking by the Commons joint committee on human rights: "There are an estimated 4,000 women victims."

Misleading? Lies? From a party steeped in integrity and truth? (stop shouting WMDs, Lisbon, and the smoking ban - I can barely hear myself think FFS) Surely not.

The Salvation Army went further: "The Home Office estimated that in 2003 ... there were at least 4,000 trafficked women residing in the UK. This figure is believed to be a massive underestimation of the problem."

Still. It's not like 4,000 is a big exaggeration, perhaps we can let that pass.

In a debate in the Commons in November 2007, [Labour MP for Rotherham and former Foreign Office minister Denis] MacShane announced that "according to Home Office estimates, 25,000 sex slaves currently work in the massage parlours and brothels of Britain."

There is simply no Home Office source for that figure, although it has been reproduced repeatedly in media stories.

Voila!

And Honeyball no doubt nodded in righteous agreement at every stage of the manufactured lie. Hence why she has top-lined a petition against the abolition of the Met Police trafficking unit which was planned to cost £3.7m over two years.

Because that is obviously value for money in a recession according to Moneyball, yes? Just to re-iterate, this is to tackle a problem that the Guardian headline thus ...

Inquiry fails to find single trafficker who forced anybody into prostitution

Give it up, love, you're not helping, as detailed in a damning denouement which shows how very damaging wimmins rights fucknuckles can really be to the women they purport to protect.

Repeatedly, prostitutes groups have argued that [Labour anti-trafficking legislation] is as wrong as the trafficking estimates on which it is based, and that it will aggravate every form of jeopardy which they face in their work, whether by encouraging them to work alone in an attempt to show that they are free of control or by pressurising them to have sex without condoms to hold on to worried customers.

Honeyball, you've been shown up as a tedious, selfish, feminism-obsessed, dictatorial, dogma led moron with no fucking clue even in areas where you choose to specialise.

Three strikes, you are out. Piss off down the local Brussels curry house, dribble cannellini bean korma down your dungarees, and stop wasting our money on your personal prejudices, cunt.

Or, as Obnoxio puts it.

How many people will spend their lives worse off because of your grandstanding?

I hope you all rot, painfully, to death. And that your children burn you in effigy every day thereafter.

And then some.

H/T Tim Worstall


UPDATE: There is a further examination of the falsehoods behind trafficking figures by Dr Belinda Brooks-Gordon, a guest at Charlotte Gore's blog.

A Little Knowledge ... Is The Honeyball Buzz

Picture the scene.

There you are, an 80s throwback lefty feminoid wimmins rights-spouting MEP, merrily posting your usual ill-informed, ideological poppycock about whichever subject you fancy exhibiting your lack of knowledge at the time (in this case, prostitution), before the quick jaunt down to the Empress of Brussels curry house for a Mung Bean Jalfrezi.

Having patted yourself on the back of your dungarees for a good job well done, up pops Belinda Brooks-Gordon, whom I met last month, a psychologist, leading expert on the sex trade and a published author to boot, to explain exactly how you are talking out of your ample, state-sponsored arse.

Yeah, it made me laugh too. She must have eagle eyes that Belinda, I can't {cough} think for the life of me how she found the article so quickly.

It's not the first time Hairy Moneyballs has been found wanting on expertise in her personal crusade against the selling of sex, which she finds distasteful, either.

You see, Hairy is very worried about all those trafficked girls. It's a disgrace, says she, that the Met Police have scrapped their trafficking division.

Perhaps, says Belinda B-G, it could be because the problem is simply not large enough to justify the £3.7m allocated to it. And maybe the reason such a huge sum was directed towards it in the first place is that fake charities and politicians had been hugely exaggerating the actual numbers of trafficked prostitutes. Now, who do you think would do such a thing, Hairy? Eh? Hairy, what say you?

The simple fact is that the problem is almost non-existent. Hairy likes to take this line because, as is customary with Labour bansturbators, if you are angling for bans or restrictions on personal choices, you can't just tell people they mustn't do it. This is a no-no as it's none of your business, a fact of which you are well aware.

Therefore, a scare story must be fabricated to push through your own personal prejudice with the full weight of the law. It's the same with any personal liberties legislation; we have seen it before and we will see it again, and again, and again. It is the political straw man but with more draconian consequences than just winning a theoretical argument with a false premise.

I have written before about how using these tactics is far from beneficial. In fact, it is clearly and logically damaging to those in the sex trade, not to mention being doomed by history to comprehensive failure.

Belinda B-G knows the industry. She spent a year of research living with the girls themselves. Honeyballs, on the other hand, no doubt spent quite a time discussing the issue over a sliver of soap and a communal flannel at Greenham Common.

Fortunately (or unfortunately considering we pay for the dozy cow) Hairy isn't clever enough to hide her true reasoning, even though she attempts a feeble plan B whilst attempting to justify her bigotry.

Prostitution is exploitation of women for fianacial (sic) gain. Few women either enter or stay as prostitutes willingly and most have a drug habit. I want every single woman to have the opportunity for a fulfilling life; prostitution most definitely does not provide this.

See what she did there, with vague and unproven rhetoric, natch? Having had the trafficking rug pulled from under her on two separate occasions, she throws in a completely different concern (that of drug abuse) before, finally, getting to the point.

That being that she doesn't believe prostitution is a life that should be led.

It's that simple.

It's not about what the girls themselves want, it's what Hairy wants. It's not a consensual contract whereby both parties derive consideration after offer and acceptance, it's exploitation.

Just as Gordon Brown is going to single-handedly eradicate cancer in his fourth (pffft) term, Hairy is convinced she will wipe out the sex trade, because she doesn't like it, on the back of fuzzy, decades old, lefty uni feminist ideology.

It really does make me laugh that those who call themselves 'progressive' continually point to discredited approaches such as restrictions, bans and prohibition as the only answer when it's quite clear that a truly progressive approach would be to try something else. Something like inclusivity, understanding, and compromise, for example.

The problem is that self-serving, conceited, holier-than-thou, judgemental bigots, like Hairy, will never so much as begin to see that, when they are so focussed on moulding the world to their own pristine, personal, liking.

An Excel-lent Choice

Virulent anti-smoking harpie, Hairy Moneyball, has been making a case for London to be the scene of Labour's next annual televised disaster.

"Holding Labour Party Conference in London, probably at the Excel centre in East London, would have many benefits"

Indeed it would. You may remember that the Excel centre has a special exemption from the smoking ban, or at least they did at the G20 in April.

I commented on Hairy's blog to congratulate her on her wise choice for smoking Labourites. Don't expect to see my kind words anytime soon, however, as I've been waiting months for my previous submissions to appear there.

Must be a techie glitch.

UPDATE: I really must set my RSS so I don't read everything backwards. From her prior article came this, Friday evening beer-splutteringly hilarious, quote regarding the next general election.

Let’s just consider the fleeting and highly unlikely possibility of the Conservatives with an overall majority

Now to locate the screen wipes.

Hairy Moneyball Advocates Apartheid ...

... for democratically-elected BNP MEPs.

Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons have been having a helluva time getting served in Brussels bars, apparently, and Hairy is very happy about it.

Apparently, local café and bar owners do not want BNP members in their establishments because their presence is driving away customers. At least two places have already banned him: O’Farrell’s Bar and an American sports bar. According to media reports, on one occasion when Griffin and his gang of racists entered O’Farrell’s Bar 18 people put down their drinks and immediately walked out. Griffin was told bluntly that he is not welcome there and asked to leave.

Now, I must admit to being rather amused that private bar owners are reacting to their customers' wishes and excluding these two. Their policies are potentially damaging (mostly left-wing, large state stuff as all except Labour seem to have realised) and highly obectionable in the places which are generally highlighted (yes, they are shits). Additionally, it is the right of the bar owner to exclude or include whichever customer he/she chooses.

Griffin calls it 'apartheid' and Hairy agrees but says that it is perfectly OK. I didn't expect that Hairy would be such a free market ally in this, considering her earlier nonsense. I presume then, on this evidence, that Hairy would be equally happy if a London pub barred muslims on the basis that when they entered a private establishment, 18 people downed their drinks and walked out? It would be the right of the owner to do so, considering they can bar someone for the shape of their nose, should they so wish.

And seeing as she is so fully au fait with bar owners being able to choose who they exclude/include, then she will be quite willing to sign up to the Amend the Smoking Ban campaign. Here's the link, Hairy, off you go.

After all, it's up to the bar owner to choose, isn't it, Hairy? Or is apartheid only OK when directed at people with whom you disagree?

Mary Honeyball In Talking Sense Shock!

There goes the neighbourhood. Hairy Moneyballs posted something on her blog which wasn't total bollocks!

If you are an eBay user, you may already have received the following e-mail. If you have, as a believer that everyone should be able to buy and sell on the internet, I would urge you to sign the eBay petition.

The petition is in regard to attempted protectionism being forced on the auction site by certain 'brand' companies. eBay explain it as follows:

EBay was built on a simple idea – that we could empower people by building a global trading platform where practically anyone could buy or sell practically anything.

Well, actually, eBay was built on the idea of making lots of money on the back of a vital free market (of which they shouldn't feel ashamed), but forget that for a second.

But that idea is now under threat from certain brand owners and manufacturers who are trying to turn back the clock and block the sale of their products on online marketplaces and other websites across the EU.

Ultimately, what is at stake is the right of sellers to compete fairly in the wider online marketplace, and the right of buyers to be able to access the best possible deals from the widest possible selection of goods.

We are therefore calling on European policymakers to amend EU competition law to stop these unfair trade practices.

Hairy is giving her backing to eBay and (no, please. I can't say this, it's not natural) I agree with her.

One of the infallible rules of life was that if ever one was starved of delusional cockwaffle, a quick trip to Hairy's place would fill that void. This principle has now been shaken to its very core. Black is now white, up is now down, chalk is now cheese (Liam Donaldson is still a cunt, though). If she posts more articles like this, I might even be reluctantly forced to go back to reading Paul Flynn for laughs ... yes, it is that worrying.

I'd never viewed Hairy as a free-market advocate before. Perhaps it was all the talk of positive discrimination and interference into such important issues as women being told to stop buying shoes that they wish to wear. Shows how wrong one can be.

Seeing as she is turning a bit libertarian, perhaps she might begin arguing for the abolition of the CAP which enables the EU to impose tariffs on the import of produce from non-member states. Not only that, it artificially creates waste via internal subsidies, thereby leading to dumping of surplus on impoverished nations. Without the CAP, Fairtrade (which, in turn, hypes prices to EU residents), so beloved by Labour, quite possibly wouldn't be necessary, as Dizzy argued in February.

Go on, Hairy, call for an end to it. A referendum on Lisbon would do the trick just as well. Be free, Hairy. Now you have dipped your toe in the water of the free market, embrace freedom from EU oligarchy, the biggest threat to the free market of them all. I dare ya.

One other aspect hits you when reading such lucid thoughts from Labour's second-rated London EU trougher. To receive the e-mail, she must therefore be an eBay member. I wonder what a generously-proportioned 80s throwback feminist buys on there with our taxes? Something like this perhaps?

Censored At The Money Pit

Yesterday, I posted this on Mary Honeyball's blog after she dubbed London Tory Euro candidates, Jean-Paul Floru and Syed Kamall, as racist and/or advocating child pornography.

Hairy, please point out which part of the document you linked to advocated relaxation of laws on child pornography?

You made it up, didn't you. Oh yeah, and Kamall didn't write it. You know this yet you try to slur him on the back of it.

Your argument that Floru is racist relies on the same ridiculous premise. That he knows people you consider racist. But then you consider just about everyone either racist or sexist, so that's no surprise. Do you have quick keys for typing such words?

Congratulations on one of the worst pieces of smear campaigning I have ever seen. And worst possible luck for tomorrow.

It now seems to have disappeared.

Hairy's laughable reasoning for her nasty slurs is detailed here.

I am particularly disturbed at her fabricated 'evidence' that Kamall is implicitly in favour of relaxing laws on child pornography because he talked at a libertarian seminar once. Her warped detective work brought her to the conclusion that this obviously indicates that he agrees with a completely different libertarian who wrote a piece on why banning pornography portraying consenting adults is dangerous. There was no mention of child pornography whatsoever. It was a lie by implication.

So I shall pose the question again.

My last comment seems to have disappeared, Mrs Moneyball.

May I ask you again, please? Which part of the article, to which you linked, advocated the relaxation of laws pertaining to child pornography?

I read the entire piece (twice) and I couldn't find it anywhere.

And why do you find it acceptable to link Syed Kamall with child pornography when it is quite clear that the author of the article, and Mr Kamall, are not remotely of that opinion?

Is this not rather tawdry political campaigning?

I don't reckon she will answer that one either but it's worth a shot. Best post it here for posterity before it is similarly airbrushed - a luxury we bloggers have is that Labour can't shred electronic missives (though given a few more years they may think of a virtual way - Hazel Blears was on the case, but the plans will not have been erased entirely from Labour's desire for complete control).

Are we now at the stage with Labour that lies and spin are the preferred method of attack? That their morals have sunk so low that truthful debate is beyond them? Rather an unsubstantiated smear than tackling head-on the truthful policies of their opponents?

This is gutter politics, pure and simple. Getting a lie out as a press release, or by any other means, is more important than telling the electorate the truth. It is how Labour now operate. They pass laws based on fabricated evidence (they have usually paid for the statistics through their vast network of quangoes and state-funded liars), after pretending to consult the public, whilst ignoring, like Moneyball, those who raise dissenting voices.

It's worrying that if, as the tabloids gorily revelled in today, Brown were to be ousted, many would be tempted back to Labour. It really doesn't matter what colour head you have on a pus-filled zit, it's still the same festering, putrid shit beneath it ...

... like trougher Hairy, for example.

Calling London

It would appear that Hairy Moneyballs is getting a tad worried. How else does one describe the rancid, dog-whistling bullshit she is spouting of late.

Never averse to barking racist and sexist insults on the flimsiest of evidence, she has excelled even herself with an almost obsessive series of articles, cross-referenced and dubbed 'a dossier', about how the Tories are a closet BNP. Seriously, I'm not making this up.

Her sectionable thinking centres on fourth placed Tory choice for London, Jean-Paul Floru. Apparently he's a froth-at-the-mouth racist, sexist, and child molester, according to the most useless shard of fuckwitted, socialist, lunatic excrement ever to suck up our taxes in Brussels.

Honeyball described Floru as "an articulate libertarian" in May after a debate in Wandsworth. Reading between the lines, he must have slaughtered her on the night (probably not difficult judging from the crap she writes) as she has done nothing since but attempt to portray him as Josef Mengele reincarnated.

I want to highlight the real face of David Cameron’s Conservatives. Let’s be clear. Although the Tories will not win four seats in London, if during the next five years one of the Conservative MEPs moves on to take up another job or leaves the European Parliament for some other reason, then the next person on the list who wishes to take up the position becomes an MEP.

That seems to be a tacit acceptance that the Tories will definitely not do worse than the three they managed in 2004. Only a fool would claim otherwise in the current circumstances. Is it entirely 'clear', though, that Labour couldn't be wiped out enough to hand Floru his seat? We shall see, I suppose.

Should he fail to get in this time, Honeyball's reasoning for Floru being co-opted in the future is laughably tenuous, but she has spent a lot of her time (paid for by us) in researching to rubbish him anyway ... he must have given her a right shoe-ing in Wandsworth, that's all I can surmise.

When Theresa Villiers MEP became a MP in 2005 she stood down from the European Parliament and right wing Libertarian supporter Syed Kamall replaced her as an MEP by moving up the list.

Syed Kamall has attended the Libertarian Alliance conference as a key speaker. The views of his Libertarian friends are deeply unpleasant including arguments against restricting abusive and child pornography.

As you can imagine, Kamall's involvement was nothing more subversive than a speech entitled "The Dilemmas of a Free Trade Liberal in the European Parliament", whilst his 'friends' were not arguing against restricting child pornography at all. The document she obviously didn't read before knuckling her keyboard at the behest of her lumpen brain, discussed merely pornography. It was very clear about this, and advocated child pornographers being ostracised by highlighting the difference between the two.

Drive the sellers of dirty pictures and of dirty deeds into the same
market, and those selling dirty deeds will do a lot more business.
But if the law distinguishes sharply between these two trades, the
sellers of dirty deeds will be socially isolated.

Don't take my word for it, read it yourself. It has nothing to do with relaxing restrictions on child pornography at all. And it isn't written by the person she is trying to smear. He probably doesn't even know it exists.

Guilt by association, an association fabricated by lies. It is so very Labour.

Floru's 'racism' is similarly nonsensical. He knows some people in Belgium who Honeyball considers racist. Seeing as Honeyball condemns the immigration policies of the USA, Australia, and Canada as racist incarnate, that's not a lot of racism really.

"The Tories are little better. Their proposed five point system for allowing people into Britain is discriminatory, designed to keep people they see as undesirable out, surely a racist policy if ever there was one."

So why is she spending so much time on this? Could it be that she is worried about her own skin perhaps? To guarantee one seat, London list candidates require 11.11% of the vote. Last time out, Labour managed 24.8% and will surely fall below that after tomorrow.

With Labour polling alongside UKIP, Honeyball must be hoping beyond hope that the Conservatives won't pull in that fourth place candidate. Even her second slot on the Labour list may then become vulnerable.

Every time I read this ridiculous fucktard's blog, it further emphasises that we really shouldn't be in the EU. This vacuous bitch is getting rich on our taxes despite being entirely irrelevant and possessed of a jaw-dropping lack of regard for anyone with whom she disagrees. Her politics consist of throwing indefensible insults around like some naive, psychotic college undergraduate. In short, she is barking, yet she costs us in excess of £350,000 per year.

This is why I am voting UKIP tomorrow, and PLEASE, if you live in London, vote anyone but Labour. Tell your friends too because this woman is fucking embarrassing to our country and an insult to common decency.

A Quick Dip In The Trough

Had a meander over to Hairy Moneyball's site (now renamed The Moneyball Buzz, to do with her showing solidarity with bees or something) to see what the vacuous Labour MEP, whom we pay £350,000pa, has been pontificating about recently. It's been a while.

It all seems a bit dèja vue though, as she's still got a bee in her bonnet (see what I did there?) about women who wear high heels. She didn't like them in October, nor in November, and she still doesn't like them ... except now you women have really pissed her off.

I am as bemused as Ms Freeman. I am also angry. Four, four and a half, five inch heels are ridiculous. Women cannot function to their full capacity if they are not as mobile as men.

Why did you ladies that like to wear high heels not listen to the trougher the first two times? You might love your shoes, and think you look good in them, but it's just men repressing women, don't you get it? She pronounced on the matter last year.

I do wonder if we are seeing another move to “keep women in their place”. Killer heels should be strongly resisted by all women.

The shoes you like aren't something that is alluring, they are instruments of torture forced on you by evil mysogynists! She also told you this in November, why aren't you listening?

I think it’s more to do with incapacitating women. “Sexy” is all too often construed as pliant, malleable and ultimately weak.

Hairy has the solution though, ladies. All you have to do is go against nature.

Sad though it is, we do not seem to be able to break out of the ancient mindset that what we have is not good enough. We always want to be thinner, taller, have better hair, etc.

Hairy has broken out of that mindset. She doesn't seem to care about any of the above. See? It's easy! Simply follow The Moneyball fashion buzz (ie. be fat, short, and have a pudding bowl) and you too can be a strait-laced, tedious, charmless harridan who sucks up a huge sum of taxpayers' cash to spout tripe on your blog about something that is totally fucking irrelevant to what you are paid for.

After two posts on the subject which attracted no support whatsoever, she finished the third with this ...

Sisters, we must stop doing this. We are all OK. I’d like to have your comments.

Nothing yet in the past 4 days. I'm sure the solidarity with comrade Moneyball will soon come flooding in. If not, what does she care? She's still rolling around in the EU trough. Snort.