What's in a name

I don’t like people being rude and hurtful but sometimes it’s unintentional, and that takes the edge off their ‘sin’. I have to caveat my opening sentence because I’ve been known to put my foot in my mouth without thinking, often when trying to be witty or playful. In fact, ‘Riddles’ was my nickname (one of many) at school because of my propensity to try and say something funny about almost anything, and not because of a physical resemblance to the Batman character. If the latter were the case, then one of my friends should have been called ‘Penguin’. There I go again.

Sometimes I intend to be rude about certain politicians, campaigners, commentators and incompetents. Sometimes I single out individuals, such as when I refer to Angela Rayner as ‘Knickerdropper Gory’. Other times I’m rude about a ‘group’ or ‘type’ because of their collective wilful ignorance and/or nastiness, and they deserve to be publicly denigrated. My long list of targets includes but is not limited to the Labour Government, peado sympathisers, chromosome deniers, and traitors like Gina Miller, David Lammy and Lord Harmer. It goes without saying that these groupings are not mutually exclusive.

My justification for my rudeness is that those on the list are not only rude themselves, and nasty, but they deliberately cause harm – financial, physical or emotional – to many who don’t deserve it or are unable to defend themselves, so I spoil for a fight on their behalf. Not very Christian I know, but then I don’t profess to be a Christian, whereas some who do are included on my long list. 

Tiresome judgmentalists with a Messiah complex have slapped my wrists as punishment for my ‘childish name-calling’. They fail to appreciate that I don’t rely on lazy witless tropes, for example ‘Tory scum’ à la Knickerdropper, but either latch on to a clever epithet doing the rounds – Rachel-from-accounts springs to mind – or compose something original, often alliterative, always illustrative, as when Rachel-from accounts morphed into Blubber Britches … What is it with female Labour MPs and their underwear? Don’t worry, I’ll steer clear of Jess Phillips.

People are sacked and ‘cancelled’ all the time for saying hurty things and causing offence. I’ve got the T-shirt. Several in fact. And proud of it. I keep pointing out that there’s no red line dividing hurty and non-hurty, offence and no-offence; the red line is more like a movable, malleable pink smudge. Two recent but related high-profile appropriate miscreants that illustrate my point are Greg Wallace and John Torode of BBC’s MasterChef fame. Wallace was accused of “inappropriate sexual language and humour, but also culturally insensitive or racist comments”, i.e. hurty words, plus allegations of “unwelcome physical contact and … being in a state of undress”. Torode was accused of using racist language.

I haven’t trawled the internet to find out exactly what they said and did but, for the sake of argument I’m assuming that I wouldn’t approve of any of it, and that if I’d been the butt of their attentions (pardon the expression), I’d have reacted appropriately, which means I give as good as I get. Similarly, I would have offered support to any other ‘victims’ I knew about.

That doesn’t mean I support the potentially career-ending witch-hunts. Of the 83 allegations made against Wallace, almost half were dismissed, and the majority of the substantiated claims related to his language and humour, not his actions. Wallace apologised for his ‘misunderstandings’. Further, some women towards whom, they claim, he behaved inappropriately, challenged him or stood up to him at the time and he was compliant. He admitted that he "missed the mark", but added, "I never set out to harm or humiliate. I always tried to bring warmth and support to MasterChef, on screen and off … For a working class man with a direct manner, modern broadcasting has become a dangerous place.” He’s recently been diagnosed as neurodiverse so reads the room and interacts differently from how others might but, when Wallace mentioned this, he faced a backlash from, of all people, autism charities and similar organisations. Don’t ya just lurve the smell of betrayal in the morning?

As for Torode, he said that the allegation against him, which was upheld, dated from 2018/2019 and the "person I was speaking with did not believe that it was intended in a malicious way and that I apologised immediately afterwards … I have absolutely no recollection of any of this, and I do not believe that it happened." That is so obviously a he-said-(s)he-said scenario with no tangible evidence, therefore there’s reasonable doubt, therefore he’s legally innocent.

Now for the really farcical bit – aye, it gets worse. Starmer Stalin’s official spokesman said that Downing Street was pleased that the BBC had "severed ties" with Wallace and added, “… appropriate steps must be taken to ensure abuses of power are prevented from happening in the future." This from the greatest power-abuser of them all. But what does he mean by ‘abuse of power’ in this instance? How was Wallace more ‘powerful’ than his accusers? If it’s because he’s a man and a celebrity, and his accusers are female and wannabees, then Starmer is perpetuating the myths of outdated sexist stereotypes and asinine celebrity culture. Regardless, why is a British Prime Minister concerning himself with TV light entertainment? Are there no wars, no murders, no poverty and no potholes? Get a grip, TTK, and do your day job. Actually no, please don’t, because when you do you mess up.

The farce extends to the rest of his Cabinet. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy angrily blasted the allegations against Wallace as “horrendous and appalling”, yet had calmly concluded that Pakistani rape gangs were “a pernicious problem”. If Rayner drops her knickers, and Reeves blubs into her britches, then Nandy talks through her G-string.

And where has all this outrage got us? Are we a richer, happier, kinder nation for Wallace’s downfall? A TV series that launched and enhanced countless culinary careers and brought smiles to millions of faces just got a wee bit less enjoyable. No one wants another Jimmy Savile or Rolf Harris, but no one wants a world full of Armchair Pontius Pilates either.

Personally, I’d rather go down the pub with a cheeky chappy with an infectious grin, a love of puds and the social and cultural sensitivity of a squashed hedgehog than with moralisers with a sense-of-humour failure, no sense of proportion, and a social and cultural compass attuned to the latest Guardian opinion piece.

That rude enough for you?