mirror.co.uk WEDNESDAY 04.03.2020 DAILY MIRROR^17
DM1STGuest columnist
6
Because I’m a
mother of a
walking experiment in
biological warfare, I’m
as worried about
coronavirus as the
next person. But I
refuse to take hygiene advice from a
man who not only looks unwashed,
but who has a reputation for
depositing bodily fluids about the
country in a fashion that can only
be described as “willy-nilly”.
I’ll be washing my hands for as
long as it takes to say “Bugger
off Boris” 20 times.X marks spot of
gender silliness
Leicester University is going to mark
something called “International Womxn’s
Day”. Celebrations will be led by the
students’ union’s new women’s officer, a
transgender woman called Dan Orr.
The university’s news letter says: “We
use the term womxn as more inclusive
spelling of woman that includes any
person who identifies as womxn.”
“Woman” comes from the Middle
English word wifmann, which means
female servant or person, and from
which we get the word wife.
In Dutch it’s vrouwmenns, wife or
woman-person, in German Weibsperson,
female-person, in West Frisian it’s
frommes, or woman-human.
The “man” bit indicates species, not
gender.
If those born as women have been
content to have the local equivalent of
“man” at the end of the word since time
immemorial, perhaps those who have
recently decided to join our gender –
welcome, it’s great here – could desist
from farting about with it until they have
read a dictionary.
Being horrible is
Boris’ big appeal
The problem with
Boris Johnson is the
fact that he’s a
horrible human is
built in to his
electoral appeal.
It won’t have
surprised any of his
Red Wall ex-Labour
voters – hello, you! –
that he has got
engaged to his
pregnant fancy
piece, while waiting for the decree
absolute to the woman with whom he
spent almost as many years as his new
bride has been alive.
It doesn’t surprise any of us, either,
that he visited flooded areas in the
General Election but since then hasn’t so
much as lifted an eyebrow, never mind a
mop. What would destroy him? Answers
on a postcard.DREADFUL But
his voters love itWhat do you think?
write to [email protected]SUSIE BONIFACE
6
New research from the
University of the Bleeding
Obvious shows MPs drink four times
a week, and up to 10 units of alcohol
on each of those days.
There are two reasons for this:
1) The bars – and tea rooms – of
Parliament do so much business,
because so much business is done
in them.
2) Prices are half what they are in
the real world.
Now where’s my doctorate?Storming back
to a royal mess
Harry and Meghan
are soon back in the
UK for their final
royal engagements- and massive
attention from a
public who, not two
years ago, lined the
streets of Windsor to
wish them well.
That they
decided to go is
disappointing, and
the lack of time they devoted to riding
out the storms of Meghan’s introduction
to royalty are not indicative of a couple
able to weather the ups and downs of
a long marriage.
The Queen has now reportedly told
Harry they can come back any time. The
chances of Meghan returning are
probably lower than those for Harry, on
his own.
But it is madness to face a row over
their security costs by splitting their
royal cops over two continents. And it’s
simply cruel to deny Archie the chance
for a visit with his great-grandmother,
who at 93 cannot expect to see him grow
up. Do better, you two.
ENgAgEmENts
Meghan and HarryIt’s Priti upsetting that
even today women
are treated so badly
IMAGINE a man who shouts
and swears at work. Someone
who belittles his staff, who
demands to know why everyone
is so useless while trying to
force an organisation of 35,
people to make radical changes
in 10 months.
He’d be called determined.
Ambitious. Fierce. His wife, friends
or boss might refer to him as a shark,
a tough guy in a sharp suit.
And yeah, he’d get some industrial
tribunals flying his way. They’d be
paid off, and he’d keep climbing
the ladder.
Priti Patel is accused of the same.
But she is “awful”, she appears “bad
at running her department” or
“bullying”. She thinks her word
should be law, it is claimed.
Yet her husband calls
her a piranha –
small, combative,
capable of
shredding flesh
from bone.
And we all
find it easier
to list hernegative qualities than use any of
the positive descriptions that would
be commonly used for a man in
her position.
When Theresa May was Home
Secretary, she was labelled
incompetent and mildly
racist with her “Go Home”
vans and the germination
of the Windrush scandal.
It flowered under her
replacement Amber Rudd,
whose political career was
choked as a result.
When Jacqui Smith was
in the same job, her achievements
were lost behind a scandal in which
her husband was found to have
watched pornography while
she was absent.
Those are the only four
women who’ve held this
great office of state, and
they’ve all been labelled as
uniquely feminine failures- not being in charge, not
being able to escape, not being
woman enough for her husband.
Ninety men have held the same post.
One, the Duke of Wellington, built his
fortune from plundering Indian
towns his soldiers attacked.
He supported the troops who
carried out the massacre of Peterloo,
worked against political reform, and
was so unpopular that in 1831 a mob
twice smashed the windows of his
London home, causing him to install
iron shutters.
So they called him the Iron Duke.
Not racist, not a thief, nor loathed,
although he was all those things.
Winston Churchill was also Home
Secretary. In 1910, when the
Government went back on a promise
to give women the vote,
he ordered police to stop
300 female protesters
entering parliament. They
were sexually assaulted for
six hours. Bones were
broken, noses bled.
A suffragette in a wheel-
chair was pushed into an
alleyway and attacked.
Churchill personally intervened
to halt prosecutions, and said efforts
to introduce suffrage were “anti-
democratic”.
And we call him a hero.
No matter what allegations against
Priti Patel are eventually proved or
disproved, the word “bullying” will be
in her obituary.
The safest place for a woman still
is in the home – not the Home Office.‘‘If it were a
man, he’d be
called fierce &
determined...
not a bullyACCUsED
Priti PatelOn June 27 it’s Armed Forces Day – a
chance to celebrate our troops, veterans
and their families.
And this year survivors of our Cold
War nuclear weapons’ tests hope
to be remembered.
Last week, Islwyn MP Chris
Evans told Parliament: “They
suffered a terrible ordeal; many
had illnesses and problems
throughout their entire
life, but... (they) still do not
have justice.
“What better way is
there to celebrate their
contribution than for the
Government to finally
recognise their service
by striking a medal to
thank them for what they
have done?”
Michael Gove, I’m told, is
looking into it.
Fingers crossed.
So deserving
of a medal...
#HETOO IS A Guy
bEST A vOIdEd...
At first sight, Harvey Weinstein’s ex-wife Georgina
Chapman has scored an upgrade by dumping a 400lb
rapist and taking up with Hollywood heartthrob
Adrien brody.
He won an Oscar at just 29. He bought a farm for an
ex-girlfriend, and had it remodelled to look like a castle.
And as America and the uK threw themselves
headlong into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he made an
eloquent speech calling for peace.
but before making that speech, he grabbed actress Halle
berry for a “forced kiss” that, these days, would lead to a
walkout. Screws always turn on the same thread.mOvINg
ON
Georgina
and AdrienALIsON phILLIps Is AWAY