Who Laughs Last?

Well this seems to be another one of those little musings I file under ‘Why we got a Conservative government, Brexit, Trump, Le Pen and Wilders’. It’s become an all too frequent foray into the inscrutable world of how London seems to be so at odds with the rest of England and why those who embrace extremes of political correctness will never really comprehend that everybody who isn’t with them is laughing at their hurt and confusion.

The Equality & Diversity industry has been quick to condemn David Moyes, who made a perfectly bland, off the cuff, everyday remark and has now had to abase himself at the feet of the high priestesses of PC. When David Cameron said “Calm down, dear” there was similar outrage but it blew over pretty quickly. With Moyes, however, they sensed blood, a weaker quarry, with little support, so in for the kill they went. His grovelling apology went down in flames too, because the use of the epithet ‘girl’ is apparently a monstrous power play, indicative of his privilege as a male with all the power in the relationship.

I actually heard this said on PM yesterday evening... or was it PMT? (I’m going to hell) Oh yes, the resurgence of the charge of casual sexism and the insistence of the harm it does to all those women who insist on absolute equality. If women are ever going to be able to beat the men at arm wrestling the playing field must be levelled. Given the piss-poor rate at which evolution is equipping females with male musculature it is up to society to emasculate the men instead.

In the multicultural world of the ideologically driven social engineers this doesn’t raise an eyebrow. Elsewhere, in the down-to-earth sensibilities of we cave dwellers, it raises a wry smile. It’s that ‘Emperor’s new clothes’ thing again; instead of actually improving opportunities for women, sensible heads are seeing lots of reasons not to employ them. When Alan Sugar made the perfectly reasonable observation that small business would want to avoid employing women of child-bearing age he was vilified. But he was dead right.

Lest you think I am an unreconstructed male chauvinist pig (a charge I make no effort to refute, by the way) I have a female boss. She is terrifying; she is also bloody good at her job and nobody here would dare to challenge her supremacy. Most of us recognise that she does a far better job than a mere man ever could. Who needs the imaginary, fabricated world of manufactured equality when you can have the real thing? You have to laugh, eh?

Not laughing now?

Oh but, here’s a thing. In the world of comedy the London creed is followed to the letter. Those brave souls who like to believe they subvert and challenge every convention and that no trope goes un-mocked, nevertheless conform to the orthodoxy. But having honed their scalpel to dismember and dissect that horrible, horrible decision by primitive troglodytes to leave the EU they are finding their blade blunted by the unyielding implacability of the non-London audience. It turns out that Brexiteers will only sit for being insulted for just so long and the unrelenting anti-Brit shtick is driving them away. Poor old Marcus Brigstocke; pray for him.