Jo Brand, pictured moments before the Terrible Thing happened. She still has the dress.
A large woman in a sack, of bloated body and ill-fitting face, has apparently said something bad about the BNP. I don’t care about that at all, although if it’s illegal to say bad things about some groups then it should be illegal to say similarly bad things about all groups.
Actually, I think it should be legal – nay, compulsory – to say bad things about all political parties in alphabetical order, once a day and in public. Just to keep them on their toes. Sadly, our ruling Righteous prefer it the other way round. Except when it suits them.
So it is with Mary Moneypot MEP, when discussing the latest TV nonsense that nobody with a brain watched anyway. She does not regard the BNP as people, she regards them as seventies knuckle-dragging skinheads with a dotted line and ‘cut here’ tattooed around their necks, and backwards swastikas on their foreheads because they put them there with a school compass and Quink while looking in a mirror. I met some of them in the early eighties when they were on the wane. I was left in some doubt as to whether they would even recognise the image in the mirror as themselves. These were not thought criminals. They were criminals, mostly, but there was no thought involved.
They weren’t BNP, but they were the creatures the current party evolved from, and the current lot are far more eloquent and far less terrifying, although they still have some scary policies. Very few of those skinheads remain but one or two still wander the streets looking for Red Stripe and ska music and people to hit. Most of the current BNP membership and supporters are – breathe the words softly – ordinary people. Most of them, in fact, are ex-Labour supporters. I have no problem with the rank and file, but I could never vote for their ‘repatriation’ policies. Some of those they’d throw out have been here far longer than my own family and once they’re all gone, who’d be next?
So Jo Brand, a sack of potatoes with a melted head on top, said something bad about a political party. I do that all the time and not just one, but many. I’ve groaned at the Gorgon’s Goblins, I’ve cursed the Cameroids, and I’d belittle Clegg and his Last of the Summer Whine party if they ever did anything worth mentioning. I’ve ridiculed the Little Green Men and poked fun at Al the Oily Fish and his Scottish Nut Parade. Nobody is immune. Not even Nick ‘No damn foreigners’ Griffin. If it came to a writ, I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on because they’d be pawned to pay the fines.
Jo ‘Bin-bag’ Brand is censured for that one comment. I can’t help laughing because she’s fallen foul of the ‘Verbal offence is worse than murder’ attitude of her very own party. Yes, she’s one of the Gorgon’s. Before she gave her support to them, she looked like the picture above. Moments later… well you’ve seen what it did to her.
The Moneypot doesn’t like to see such blatant victimisation of a horizontally challenged sufferer of ‘Gordon’s face syndrome’. These speech censors don’t apply to her own side, and certainly not when the offence is directed at someone she doesn’t like. She maintains, however, that she is a supporter of free speech. As she says…
Living in a democracy means that sometimes you have to listen to points of view that you disagree with. Personally, I found the performances of Bernard Manning or Alf Garnet, extremely offensive, for example. But I don’t think that either should have been put in prison and had the key thrown away.
I quite agree. I don’t like Jonathan Ross but if he’s popular and gets the ratings, let him have his show. He’s a gobshite, for sure, and he’s proved it repeatedly but the BBC knew that when they hired him and anyone watching him knows what to expect. I don’t watch him so I don’t feel the need to complain about him. Likewise Jo’s malignant afterbirth, Russel Brand who resembles a hairy cancerous wart and is about as entertaining. Don’t like it, don’t watch it. There are better things to do.
But she can’t resist. Moneypot spoils that paragraph, and her free speech credentials, by ending with this:
There are other ways of dealing with this kind of thing and today that kind of content would not be tolerated.
Sometimes you have to listen to points of view that you disagree with. Unless you can censor them before anyone hears them by stating that such content will not be tolerated. Then you don’t have to listen to them. Free speech if it’s the right kind of speech, but not if it’s non-Righteous free speech.
Bernard Manning skirted the bounds of decency and was excised from our screens for it. He did not suggest we send ‘poo’ through the post to anyone. Alf Garnett was openly racist but he was a character, not a real person, and his racism was derided and made fun of throughout those programs. He was not inciting anyone to send poo through the post. Neither of them phoned elderly actors and crowed about shagging their granddaughters (although I’m sure Manning would have if he’d thought of it).
Mary Moneypot supports free speech if she likes what you say but not if she doesn’t. You can be as abusive as you like to those she doesn’t like but you can’t spoil her politically correct multicultural Nirvana by saying anything she doesn’t like.
Free speech does, indeed, mean that you will hear things you disagree with very strongly indeed. It also means that the person saying those things has the right to say them without being criminalised for it. All you need do is disagree or not listen.
It means we have to hear what Mary Moneypot has to say. It apparently does not mean that she has to hear anyone else.
But then, who in the Labour party has ever heard anyone else?