Saturday, March 14, 2009

Alan and Hatty - Will and Grace

I've just read a rather amsuing post on LabourList titled "Yesterday was the day the Tories said goodbye to the women’s vote" by someone called Seema Malhotra (pictured) who it has to be said is quite a hotty, although I am of course in a relationship and I'm probably far to sexist for her given she's the Director of the Fabian Womens' Network.

Anyhow, the reason I found it an amusing post was not just because of the shrill and hysterically way it was written - she is a woman of course so what should one expect? - but also because of the rather quaint thought that anyone really gives a crap about questions to the Leader of the House about the forthcoming Business of the House.

True, people like me, and possibly you because you read my blog, may have an interest it, but apart from that the post is a classic case of thinking that all the women in the country are glued to the news or BBC Parliament to see what Harriet Harman and Alan Duncan say to each.

Admittedly it is a bit like watching Will and Grace sometimes, a marvellous TV show might I add, although the UK equivalent with James Dreyfuss and Kathy Burke is funnier because it is smuttier - on a point or order if Alan Duncan is reading this it would be hilarious if you could be a tad more queeny in the Commons. Would you do it for me sweetie?

Anyhow, I digress, Seema Malhotra's argument, if one can call it that, is that the whole affair in the Commons was nothing more than rampant sexism of the highest order. This is because Alan Duncan took the piss out of Harriet Harman and her comments about her love for stilettos in the Daily Mirror. Malhotra argues that,
Politics should be about principles and about debate. Not a debate about women’s attire that would be more appropriate for the sort of debate Parliament might have expected 200 years ago. If there is such disrespect for women politicians on the side of the Tories, how can women ever expect that they will be defenders of their needs and rights in Parliament.
Actually politics should be about principles and debate and bloody real life which means, when Alan Duncan follows his alleged sexism with a self-depracrating joke along the lines of "I may be gay girlfriend but I'm not a tranny!" should be fully understood to be (a) funny and (b) devoid of discriminatory malice.

Crucially what we have going on here is that Duncan is exploiting, quite rightly, the absurdity of what leftie equality campaigners like Malhotra argue. He is deliberately choosing stereotypical subject areas about gay men that if a straight guy said would have resulted in a post titled "Yesterday was the day the Tories said goodbye to the gay vote".

The fact is, it is a general truism that women love shoes and fashion. I know my other half does as do many others of my female friends. Likewise it is a sterotypical trusim that all gay men must ergo love shoes and fashion too. Thus Alan Duncan finds himself in the rather lucky position of being able to do a bit of what the Left would call "postmodern irony" if they were saying what he had said.

However, because he's a Tory, a party that in my experience has an awful lot of gay men in it might I add, he must therefore be being a rampant women hating bastard who is probably in favour of locking the wenches in the kitchen and ensuring that they darn his socks from here to eternity.

It is of course complete bollocks. That does not however stop the crazy people who are intolerant of intolerance and lack any semblance of a sense of humopur getting on their high horse to morally chastise and push the predominant orthodoxy that anyone on the Right who makes a joke is really a secret hate mongerer. How they love to hate what they see as hate.

I sincerely hope that Alan Duncan continues to speak and gently rip the piss out of Harriet Harman in the Commons each week. It is a pleasure to watch, listen to, or read because it is so clear that the two of them actually bloody love it. As for losing the womens vote, highly unlikely, the vast majority have much better common sense antennas. It's only the "women in comfortable shoes" that don't.

Alan? You keep at it boyfriend!

DISCLAIMER: All remarks in this post that could be intepreted as sexist or homophobic are not. Its called sarcasm and humour and exists purely to annoy people like Seema Malhotra because I can.

UPDATE: Image changed after commenters pointed out that the one being used from Luke Akehurt's blog is incorrect.

37 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've just checked out her bio. She really does need to get out more, broaden her horizons etc.

Anonymous said...

The same Seema Malhotra who was recently employed by the Government Office for Equality? The same GOE who Hattie Harperson is responsible for?

Dominic Allkins said...

"Alan? You keep at it boyfriend!"

Haha!!

Excellent post that allowed a wry smile on a Saturday morning. Cheers Dizzy.

wv: quetr. Are these related to the subject matter?? ;-)

Plato said...

"comfortable shoes"

Oooooooooooh.

A low blow and so true ;)

lilith said...

They have cut it from the listen again version but "yesterday in parliament" had one lord congratulating another lord (didn't catch who)on the strength of his prostate (on the grounds he hadn't left the chamber for a pee!)

Demetrius said...

The trouble with wearing high heels is that you can end up with a damaged or non functioning back bone. This might explain something although I am not sure what. Watching the present Government is seeing bunch of clowns sent in because the main act has broken down.

Anonymous said...

"Yesterday was the day the Tories said goodbye to the women's vote" Do these people ever read what they have written? Surely someone on LabourList should have changed this to "Yesterday was the day the Tories said goodbye the vote of humourless left-wing feminists who are friends of mine".

Not a particularly significant demographic, I would have thought.

DiscoveredJoys said...

Agree wholeheartedly with the blog.

I suspect there is a large number of people (white, black, brown, yellow, gay, straight, indifferent, men, women, able, disabled, etc) who are fed up to the back teeth of being accused of being an 'oppressor' and an '*ist' by some self nominated worthy. Especially worthies who throw themselves into hyperventilation and synthetic offence.

This also ties in with another large number of people who object to the implicit accusations of criminality arising from CCTV, speed cameras, bin inspectors, police intimidation, self serving charities and politicians.

No wonder people are disaffected.

wv: prant - there has to be a use for a word like this...

Anonymous said...

The trouble with the Fabians is that they think there is a "womens' vote". It's only patronising if you're a Tory.

(Incidentally, who should I be voting for as a straight white man? I'm leaning towards UKIP or LPUK, but I don't want to go for them if they're actually for Welsh lesbian redheads. Nobody ever tells me these things; I usually have to resort to making up my own mind.)

Oldrightie said...

Labour women are every bit as deluded as their "men". They all think Mandy's not a pederast. "Lovely with young boys", they coo!

Bonetired said...

404 Error !!!

Jaz said...

That's NOT Seema Malhotra!

The pic is of a famous Indian actress Juhi Chawla.

Anonymous said...

That's Juhi Chawla.

Bonetired said...

Which seems to have cleared ...

Anonymous said...

Sehr geEhrter Dizzie

I flatter myself that I agree with Mlle Lilith on so many things .... apart of course from whether there should be Wimmin-only Labour-Short-Lists

but

WHILE She may be amused & relaxed about prostrate issues

The more Senior (in Years) of your Erudite Male Visitors can only anxiously marvel at the long-winded Peer's physical good fortune

Your obedient servant etc

G E

wv = halsol

Is that Nipponese

Jon Lishman said...

Quentin Letts (or is that Crisp), I'm sure you know, was pretty witty about Hatty's hissy fits over Duncan's dares in the Daily Male [sic].

Anonymous said...

It may be 'sarcasm' and 'humour' but it's still pathetic sexism. Grow up, Dizzy.

By the way, Guido's site's been suspended (try it if you don't believe me). I hear he's in a bit of legal trouble...

Unknown said...

Hi Dizzy

The pic used is of Juhy Chawla an Indian Film actress not of this odious rubbish spouting Seema Malhotra
There is a pic of her publish over at Derek's Crappy List.

Cheers

Caravaggio's Cat said...

Yeah what's going on with Fawkes? 404!

Anonymous said...

*snicker*

I'm assuming you're being sarcastic because the picture is that of Juhi Chawla - an Indian bollywood actress.

dizzy said...

re: picture, i wasnt sure if it was her but found it at lukes blog so used it.

re: cooper, i thought she was CS to HMT but she still has a page on DCLG would you believe.

re: snooty. you have no sense of humour.

nought.point.zero said...

I love the "tories are tories, therefore they must be sexist" meme. Weren't the old fashioned, trade unionist Labour MPs of the 70s and 80s horribly sexist about Thatcher? Actually, I don't even know why I'm trying to make a serious point, I don't even care.

Anonymous said...

Still no Guido - any ideas why, Dizzy?

and weirdly, wv is 'gones'

Twig said...

This is the last post on Guido's which is S/E:

Blog on the Move
The overnight DNS server shift has not yet completed. Some ISPs will lag behind others but it will propagate across the entire world wide web eventually. It is Sunday, the blog is closed until Monday. There are clear blue skies over Wexford this morning, suspect it may be the same where you are too. Switch off the laptop and get out into the sunshine...

Tags: blogging on blogging
at 3/15/2009 09:22:00 AM 3 comments"

http://5thnovember.blogspot.com/

Craig Ranapia said...

Alan Duncan isn't a tranny? Well, that's the day the Tories said goodbye to the cross-dressers vote. :)

Cate Munro said...

Bravo!

dizzy said...

By the way, Guido's site's been suspended (try it if you don't believe me). I hear he's in a bit of legal trouble...

No it wasn't, it moved to a new platform and the DNS change had not gone through. One look at the site and its obvious its moved - unless your're an idiot of course.

Shaun Austin said...

When I started reading and saw the bit about Seema Malhotra being a bit of a "hottie" then saw the pic I thought you were going a bit bonkers mate!

I don't know which pic of Juhi Chawla you had but she is certainly hot! Our dear Seema is more of a "three bagger" at best!

Anonymous said...

"By the way, Guido's site's been suspended (try it if you don't believe me). I hear he's in a bit of legal trouble...

No it wasn't, it moved to a new platform and the DNS change had not gone through. One look at the site and its obvious its moved - unless your're an idiot of course."

Bit like Draper's Twitter suspension then, that Guido made such a fuss about?

dizzy said...

Well no, because the latter was a switch in DNS which requires a TTL to expire on the various cacheing name servers throughout the Internet. It's by design thanks to the RFC that govern the technical way DNS works.

In the case of the former, the account was suspended by Twitter for breach of service and required action on Draper's part to get it re-enabled.

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/

Anonymous said...

Dizzy

I was just making the point that some minor glitch with Draper's Twitter account was ridiculously blown up by Guido. Your reaction to me doing the same about the glitch with Guido's site just illustrated that absurdity. The exact details of what each glitch was are not really relevant to the point.

dizzy said...

Err actually it was relevant to the point because in the case of Guido it was not a glitch but a reality of how DNS works, in the case of Draper he had his account suspended, however briefly, for breach of conditions.

Anonymous said...

Err if the site doesn't load up properly it's a glitch. And that's what happened with Guido's. In fact, even now it doesn't resolve properly on my home computer (the left hand part of the comment form is off screen).

dizzy said...

Sorry, but a glitch is bug, the problem with DNS is not a bug, it is a by design aspect of DNS.

As for the other thing, that is not a resolution problem but a rendering problem and is a bug probably related to code and your browsers ability to render it.

Anonymous said...

"a glitch is a bug", "the other thing [...] is a bug probably related to code"

So Guido's site does have a glitch, then.

Funnily enough, the only other site I've had this 'rendering problem' with is Alistair Campbell's...

dizzy said...

"So Guido's site does have a glitch, then."

It does now evidently, but it didn't before. I suggest taking a screenshot of the way it looks and then emailing it to me and I will see if I can make sense of it. What browser is it?

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Dizzy. I'm running out to work now but will try and do this when I get back.