Month: June 2019

Brexit Party MEP and former Westminster MP Ann Widdecombe is in trouble. Or rather we are.

For we all live at a worrying time when a perfectly innocuous remark can be tantamount to a crime if it goes against the grain of a modern cult.

Actually, because her views tend to be informed by her Catholic faith, Miss Widdecombe treads on thin ice even before she says anything our pious secularists see as controversial. And if she ever utters anything consistent with her beliefs, the ice cracks under her feet.

Since she’s a forthright woman, tricking her into saying something seen as objectionable by The Guardian and PinkNews is easy. Our TV interviewers can set verbal traps with the skill of a KGB interrogator.

Armed with a full armoury of such techniques, save for rubber truncheons and strategically placed electrodes, Sky News presenter Niall Paterson was questioning Miss Widdecombe about the policies of the Brexit Party.

Except he really wasn’t. What Paterson was trying to do was to trick his mark into ‘incriminating’ herself by saying something ‘controversial’.

In that spirit, he pointed out to Miss Widdecombe that some of her views are at odds with many members of her new party. Specifically, he referred to her 2012 article in which she suggested that one day science may “produce an answer” to homosexuality.

She wrote that: “The unhappy homosexual should, according to gay activists, be denied any chance whatever to investigate any possibility of seeing if he can be helped to become heterosexual.”

“The fact that you expressed [this view],” said Mr Paterson with a well-practised self-righteous grimace, “means that plenty of people would not want to share a platform with you.” The mimicry was so vivid that the viewer was left in no doubt that Mr Paterson himself was talking to Miss Widdecombe only under duress.

All hell broke loose in the aftermath. Independent MP Nick Boles referred to Ann Widdecombe’s remark as “poisonous bigotry.”

Labour MP Chris Bryant added, without even pretending personal disinterest, that: “She clearly thinks there’s something wrong with being gay and wants to cure us or make us disappear.”

That Ann Widdecombe said something reasonable and compassionate got lost in the din, drowned in the venomous spittle sputtered by the paid-up worshippers of modern cults. Clearly, the only acceptable way to talk about homosexuality is to treat it as an ‘alternative lifestyle’, equal, and in some subtle ways possibly even superior, to any other – and certainly as normal as any other.

Anything else is treated as blasphemy against the cult, whose exponents won’t even bother to argue with the blasphemer. ‘Off with her head’ is the only righteous response.

Now I’m not aware of any universally applicable ethical system in the West other than that of Judaeo-Christian moral doctrine. This is the foundation not only of our morality, but also of our legality, which has to be accepted even by atheists.

According to that doctrine, homosexuality is a sin – not the worst sin, but one nonetheless. True, to most people these days sin is nothing but an outdated construct.

However, even they must see that homosexuality falls short of the norm, practised as it is by a small proportion of people (1.4 per cent according to the most extensive study I’ve ever seen). Yet in Britain the attitude to that practice has been lenient for at least a couple of centuries.

Society took the view that in this matter, as in many others, Judaeo-Christian morality shouldn’t be enforced. It was accepted that what two people do in private is their business and no one else’s, provided they don’t impose their morality on everyone else.

That’s where things would have stood had homosexuality, along with everything else that contradicts our moral tradition, not been politicised. It was no longer enough for people to tolerate homosexuals – the new political cult, just like bolshevism and Nazism, wasn’t satisfied with good-natured acquiescence. It demanded enthusiastic support.

Whenever none is offered, the ensuing outrage has nothing to do with the face value of the argument. The response isn’t that of a debater; it’s that of a fanatic whose sacr

So what’s the precise nature of Ann Widdecombe’s “poisonous bigotry”? She said that science could help homosexuals to become heterosexuals. This statement sounds unassailable: if science can change sex, why not sexuality?

If a man who used to be a woman can be impregnated by a woman who used to be a man, it’s counterintuitive to reject the possibility that science will one day be able to scale that particular barrier.

Miss Widdecombe was specifically talking about “unhappy homosexuals”, those who find their sexuality onerous. Do her detractors think such people don’t exist? Do they seriously believe that, while multitudes are supposed to be clamouring for a sex change, no homosexual would wish to change his sexuality?

If they believe that, they are deluded. They should listen to the song Glad to Be Gay by the punk group Tom Robinson Band, which has been considered the national gay anthem since it was released in 1976.

No one can miss the rage and anguish thundering from the lyrics “Sing if you’re glad to be gay, sing if you’re happy that way.” The unmistakable message is that some such people aren’t happy, so why not help them if possible?

If a treatment for homosexuality were available, clearly it would be like any medical help: offered only to those who seek it. In this case, those who aren’t glad to be gay.

One would think that anyone with a modicum of compassion and love would welcome such a scientific breakthrough. But that would be missing the point, which has nothing to do with compassion and love.

It’s all about scoring political points by propping up totem poles with false idols perched on top.

Yet Ann Widdecombe stubbornly refuses to prostrate herself before those idols. So the pyre has been assembled, all the twigs are in. Does anyone have a match?

Or is it sex life? One can get terribly confused trying to keep up with the giant strides English usage is making.

This is the kind of confusion that I, a lifelong student of the language, find unacceptable. That’s why I’m grateful to Prof. Cordelia Fine, the psychologist and author of Delusions of Gender, for helping me work out such lexical nuances.

‘Sex’, according to her, is nature: it refers to biological differences between men and women. ‘Gender’ on the other hand is nurture: it refers to socially constructed roles for men and women that they feel obliged to play.

And here’s the point that has hitherto escaped me: the two have nothing to do with each other:

“About 200 years of feminism has been trying to untie the link between sex and gender, arguing that the former doesn’t and shouldn’t dictate the latter. Using the terms interchangeably blurs importantly distinct concepts, and we need both –  scientifically and socially.”

I agree wholeheartedly that the two terms shouldn’t be used interchangeably; they do mean different things. Yet the real distinction seems to be beyond most people. Some other distinguishing nuances are much easier to grasp.

Such as, what’s worse than a blithering idiot? A ponderous blithering idiot. And what’s worse than a ponderous blithering idiot? One with an ideology.

Ideology has a vast capacity for trumping not only reason but even obvious, scientifically demonstrable facts. Hence it can transform someone like Prof. Fine into an oracle of ponderous blithering idiocy.

A scientist should deal with nature as it is, not as its phantom floating through a hazy mind enveloped in spurious beliefs. Still, if Prof. Fine wishes to abandon science and become a propagandist of feminist zealotry, that’s her right.

But she has no right to pass ideological idiocy for scientific fact, while pretending she’s still acting in the capacity of a scientist. Rather than conferring verisimilitude on her turgid musings, such pretensions compromise not only her personally but also her field of endeavour.

In non-ideological, which is to say proper, English, ‘gender’ denotes only one thing: a grammatical category. Every other use of ‘gender’ is an ideologically inspired solecism. Thus used, the word becomes an impostor usurping the place legitimately occupied by ‘sex’.

It takes an obnoxious bigot, in Domenic Raab’s robust phrase (which may cost him the party leadership contest), to insist that our biological and physiological makeup doesn’t produce distinct behavioural patterns. For example, any secondary school pupil taking biology knows that human aggression is a function of testosterone.

When female mice were injected with a huge dose of the male hormone, they began to display male aggressiveness. The same technique, incidentally, has been known to produce a similar effect on female athletes from the Soviet bloc.

Ever since Eve came out of Adam’s rib, and long before those nasty conservative types began to impose universal compliance with sex roles, men and women have performed different roles in life because they are, well, different.

They are built differently, they think differently, they move differently, they react differently to stress, their approach to life is different. They are different biologically, physiologically, physically, psychologically and even philosophically. This isn’t to say men are better – if anything, I think women are. But the two sexes are complementary precisely because they are not, nor can ever be, the same.

It takes a political zealot to politicise sex the way race has already been politicised. Neither race nor sex is a matter of choice, and any attempt to apply free market laws to such matters is cloud cuckoo land – unless it’s deliberate sabotage.

Speaking of the philosophical difference, consider the act of procreation: it’s the man who initiates conception. Though both he and the woman are essential to it, the man, by impregnating the woman, is the active agent; the woman, by being impregnated, is the passive one.

This determines their relation to the resulting offspring. Because a man procreates outside his own body, he stands outside and above his creation in the sense in which a woman doesn’t. She conceives and gestates the child inside her body, and in that sense the child is a part of her, even though the man also contributes his DNA.

The man is thus both transcendent (standing outside and above his creation) and immanent (present within it). The woman, on the other hand, is only immanent – which is why childcare is her natural domain.

The sabotage committed by the likes of Prof. Fine doesn’t warp merely the disciplines I’ve mentioned. It also distorts the language by, for example, shoving down our throats the misuse of ‘gender’ and also passing as a fait accompli the uncontested positive connotation of ‘feminism’.

Feminism to any non-ideological speaker of English denotes a stridently extremist political movement, dovetailing with all those other ones whose main purpose is to destroy not only the traditional social order, but indeed to perform the same vile deed on human nature.

In that desideratum feminism joins all other inhuman, socialist movements such as communism, fascism and Nazism. All such movements seek to correct God’s oversights in creating man.

Since this aim is by definition unachievable, those who persist in pursuing it degenerate into all sorts of grotesque intellectual perversions – such as insisting that it’s society’s fault that men and women are manifestly different. All in all, Prof. Fine is in good company.

Tonight two English teams, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur, are meeting in the final of the Champions League, the club championship of Europe.

There’s something odd about two English teams playing each other in Madrid, but the choice of venue was established long ago, when no one suspected that our teams would overachieve so spectacularly.

The English fans of the two teams have made their way to Madrid, yet so far no full-scale riots have been reported. However, I confidently predict they’ll break out eventually, after our football lovers have drunk the city dry. (Take it easy on that San Miguel, lads, it’s quite pokey.)

Their presence in the stands of the Atlético Madrid stadium is guaranteed to give the match a nice homey feel, creating the elegant, calm, polite and humorous ambiance John Cleese believes – correctly! – to be uniquely English.

But here’s the snag: the visiting fans will only take up half the seats in the 68,000-capacity stadium. This makes me worried that the 34,000 Spanish fans will feel left out in their own city.

However, they shouldn’t fret: I’m here to help. All they have to do to fit right in is learn a few stock chants, and Roberto is your uncle, as they say in Spain.

It’s all a matter of etiquette, and who better to give advice on it than someone who has made a lifelong study of charming English idiosyncrasies?

So here are a few suggestions from an inexhaustible reservoir of the football lexicon and chants. Spanish fans should think of John Cleese and other impeccable English gentlemen when following my tuition.

If you support Spurs, sing “You’ll never work again” to the tune of the Liverpool FC song “You’ll never walk alone”. This is a kind reference to the high unemployment rate in that city.

You may then wish to enlarge on your comments about Liverpool and its inhabitants: “Your mum’s your dad, and your dad’s your mum, you’re inbred and you’re benefit scum.”

A comment on the crime situation and its causal links with unchecked immigration wouldn’t be out of order either: “Stand up if an immigrant robbed your house!”.

Now Spurs call themselves ‘Yid army’ because they are based in a vaguely Jewish neighbourhood. Hence if you’re a Liverpool supporter, if only for the night, make sure you scream anti-Semitic invective whenever a Spurs player touches the ball. Making the hissing sound of gas going into the death chamber will also help you sound authentic.

In the same vein you may want to pose the question “Where’s your foreskin gone?// where’s your foreskin gone?// where’s your foreskin gone?” – and so forth.

When the Spurs Korean striker Son is dribbling, chant: “He’ll run and he’ll score, he’ll eat your Labrador.”

Whenever a burly defender has the ball, sing: “His name is [insert player’s name] and he dances on the grass// Don’t take the ball from him, he’ll kick your f***ing arse.”

When the Liverpool Egyptian striker Mo Salah is attacking, sing: “Mo Salah! Mo Salah! Mo Salah!Running down the wing//Salah, la, la, la//The Egyptian King!”

The proper English response to a player losing the ball is to yell “You’re shit, and you know you are!”

Note that this is a ubiquitous and flexible phrase. For example, when England played France in Paris a few years ago, the English fans were singing “You’re French and you know you are!”, much to the home crowd’s consternation. Unfamiliar with the underlying phrase, they just shrugged: “Mais bien sûr nous sommes français”.

If a player doesn’t appeal to you, shout: “Stand up if you hate [insert player’s name].

If a player does appeal to you, sing: “There’s only one [insert player’s name].” If the player has recently admitted to having fashionable psychiatric disorders, instead sing: “There are only two [insert player’s name in the plural]”.

Alternatively, you may sing “[Player’s name] is here, he’s there, he’s everyf***ingwhere!”

If the opposing fans are less loud than you are, scream: “Your support is f***ing shit!”

For a Spurs supporter it’s de rigueur to bring up the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, when 96 fans were crushed to death during a match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

This must be done with the characteristic English tact: “Who’s that standing at Hillsborough?// Who’s that turning f***ing blue?// It’s a Scouser and his mates, getting crushed on Hillsborough’s gates.” (For the benefit of Spanish fans, ‘Scouser’ is an affectionate term for a Liverpudlian.)

Whenever a player has incurred your displeasure, sing: “[Player’s name] is queer, he takes it up the rear.” This, irrespective of the player’s sexuality.

If wishing to voice your displeasure at the referee in general or any particular call in particular, shout: “The ref’s a wanker!” Actually, this could be used even if you’re happy with the referee, just to keep him on his toes.

When a black player is in action, you can put forth a mature judgement on Britain’s racial policy by observing, irrefutably, “There ain’t no black in the Union Jack!” But do make sure there’s no Anglophone cop within earshot.

If one is about, reassure him by singing “We aren’t racist, we just don’t like you.”

If the other team is losing, you may thus comment on their fans’ subdued mood: “You only sing when you’re winning!”

However, if your team scores, you should add a new twist to your comment on the opposition’s vocalism: “Can you hear the [insert team name] sing? I can’t hear a f***ing thing.”

There, this should get you started. Just keep in mind that, when an English fan asks you “What you lookin’ at, sunshine?”, this isn’t a request for information. Walk away or you’ll get punched.

P.S. From the gor blime to the sublime, if any music lovers among you happen to be in London on 6 June, do attend the recital of my wife, Penelope Blackie. Take my word for it: nowhere in the world will the piano be played so beautifully on that day. For details: penelopeblackie.com