For those whose modern vocabulary isn’t up to scratch, MCP stands for Male Chauvinist Pig. One of this mammal’s characteristics is a tendency to treat all female persons (except Diane Abbott) as sex objects.
That demeans each female person (except Diane Abbott) and, by extension, female personkind in general. And – are you ready for this? – many of the worst MCPs are to be found in the mother of all parliaments.
This not only demeans female personkind, but it also brings into disrepute the very concept of British parliamentarism. As such, it breaks all sorts of laws – and not just those of the misdemeanour variety.
After all, compromising the political foundations of Her Majesty’s realm may in some quarters be classified as high treason. Hence it’s no wonder that Mrs May has decided to take personal charge of stamping out any inappropriate behaviour in Westminster.
The lifelong feminist in me agrees wholeheartedly: our PM has no tasks more urgent than policing the sexual behaviour of her parliamentary colleagues.
And, judging by their 48-point front-page headlines, our newspapers also see sex pests as the greatest threat to Britain’s survival. Quite right too – but judge for yourself.
Mark Garnier, the international trade minister, sent his secretary out to buy two vibrators, possibly one for each orifice. In a similarly appalling incident, he called her ‘sugar tits’. The vibrators were presumably meant for home, rather than office, use, which may be regarded as a mitigating circumstance.
There are none such for the use of the MCP term ‘sugar tits’ or its synonyms, such as ‘honey’, ‘honey-bunny’, ‘honey bunch’, ‘sugar buns’, ‘sweetie’, ‘sweetie-pie’ or ‘sweetheart’. Though metaphorically referring to sweetness, they all leave a bitter taste in my feminist mouth.
Nor was that an isolated incident. Former welfare secretary Crabb owned up to sending sexually explicit messages to a 19-year-old girl seeking employment with his office. If that doesn’t put the country in imminent danger, I don’t know what would.
At least our MPs like women, something not to be taken for granted among graduates of our fine public schools. That’s more than can be said for the actor Kevin Spacey, who finally emerged out of the closet and admitted making unsolicited passes at 14-year-old boys.
Actually, scratch this remark. Having put it down, I realised that it may be misinterpreted as implicitly homophobic, a crime as bad as sex pestering and possibly even worse.
If there exists any moral difference between pestering women or boys, it’s in favour of the latter activity, what with it being more progressive and liberating.
In any case, Harvey Weinstein has proved to the world that red-blooded men are still extant in Hollywood… Well, scratch this remark too.
Facetious digressions aside, Mrs May has her job cut out for her. The reason for this is mainly physiological: our MPs are deficient in every conceivable qualification for their job bar one: powerlust.
That tends to go hand in hand with aggressive libido – as a lifelong feminist I realise that sex is an act of aggression above all. Hence making love to a woman is akin to beating her up, thereby probably falling under the jurisdiction of our courts.
In addition to offsetting the congenital testosteronal aggressiveness of men, Mrs May also has to contend with the extra powerlust of her colleagues. This is a tall task, but it’s good to see that she has taken it head on.
With her natural flair for English, Mrs May has called for a cross-party effort to establish a “mediation service backed by a contractually binding grievance procedure”. I’m not sure I quite understand what that means, but then the addressees of the message are more adept at linguistic intricacies than I am.
Yet something in me says that “a contractually binding grievance procedure” won’t quite do the job by itself. More drastic measures are required, those that may activate the dormant spirit of the Blitz and rally our leaders to protect Her Majesty’s realm from the grave threat it’s facing.
I’d like to make my modest contribution to the task at hand. I propose that, once elected, all male MPs should be surgically castrated.
Before you throw your hands up in horror, allow me to explain.
So far we’ve established two facts: 1) the testosteronal aggressiveness of men is in the case of politicians further enhanced, and 2) this makes them call their secretaries ‘sugar tits’, thus undermining our whole political system.
Now you’re beginning to see the logic of my proposal, aren’t you? Politicians need all the aggressiveness they can muster to get to Westminster, but, once there, that same quality leads them to criminal behaviour.
The conclusion is obvious: they must be castrated after they’ve been elected but before they get the chance to call a female person ‘sugar tits’.
Since they all claim to be committed to serving their country, no sacrifice should be too big. In their case, the sacrifice wouldn’t be too onerous anyway: judging by the way they govern the country, they lack the offensive part of their anatomy anyway – or only ever use it to send their secretaries out for vibrators.
As an interim measure, Mrs May should establish not only “a contractually binding grievance procedure” but indeed a new government department solely dedicated to protecting the country’s female personkind from sex pests.
Perhaps Kevin Spacey, who has lived in Britain for a long time, will agree to lead it.
Your proposal is sound, but goes too far. One male MP should be exempted from the procedure, in order to service those female colleagues whose sexual frustration might otherwise impair their judgement. I propose Philip Hammond, and suggest that he sets about alleviating Diane Abbott’s problems with immediate effect.
MCP? So last century – 1960s in fact. It was replaced with a succession of terms except at a time when men did not need adjectives because all were deemed to be equal – all predatory criminals or at least thinking about being so.
A contractually binding grievance procedure? TM should know that we pay for the law courts to do that. TM should merely increase the list of crimes to cater for all grievances. Except that the thick blue line that she failed to reform would have to deliver the alleged culprits to the courts, which would violate Newton’s law that an object at rest does no work.