Things we got up to...

...before we were really human.

On a related topic, I note that the Cornish councillor who went off on one about "putting down" disabled children fell on his sword last week. That'll teach him to spurn the offer of equality and diversity training. So having enjoyed our fit of righteous indignation, all that is left for us to do is to, er, stop putting down disabled children.

Moral agency

Buried somewhere in this Beeb story is an oblique hint to the effect that if gay men persist in playing Russian roulette with their health by having unprotected anal sex with numerous strangers, it may not entirely be the fault of an uncaring homophobic society. But you have to work at finding it - in fact, you have to work your way to the final sentence. In between there's a lot of stuff about how various fake charities need more of our money so they can hang up "Caution, stable door open, bolting danger" signs and count the horses periodically to establish how many have gone awol since the last time.

The case for gay marriage is made in a way that is curiously detached from the facts on the ground* as alluded to by Yusuf Azad. Is it intended as an alternative to the "gay scene" or as an add-on to it? Or is that just none of our business?

Meanwhile, Harry's Place, in stereotype-busting mode (ee, bah goom, lad, it's tough up North London, and no mistake), has no doubts whatsoever about moral agency. If a couple of civil partners can't get a joint appointment at a beauty salon, then the proprietor should be driven out of business. And preferably hung, drawn and quartered and his remains left for the vultures to dispose of.

When Mr G was a student Leftie, he and his comrades in arms aspired to nationalise the top 200 monopolies under workers' control and management. If he was a student Leftie today he'd be campaigning for a boycott of the homophobic beauty salons of Woodford Green, apparently. Somehow, a wider vision has gone missing.

*A little number-crunching: the number of gay men living with HIV is comparable to the number living in civil partnerships.

It's also interesting that the average age of new civil partners continues to be fortyish (bizarrely but perhaps revealingly, the average age of those dissolving a partnership is actually lower), which does rather suggest that it's what you do when promiscuity begins to seem a bit like hard work. Now I'm not saying there aren't plenty of straight men who would be very happy to build up their sexual CV along similar lines, given half a chance. But the whole point is that, unless they have the good fortune to play in the upper reaches of the Premiership, they aren't given the chance.

Beebthink

Britain has some of the highest childcare costs in the world, with many mothers with two or more children saying it does not make financial sense to work.

What the writer is trying to say is not that the Swedish system has driven costs down by having one carer per five hundred kids and paying the carers just enough to subsist on bread and water. He/she is complaining that the British state does not pick up as much of the tab as others do. Because when the state pays, there is no cost to any actual people, right?

Just like the free-at-the-point-of-use BBC, come to think of it. With an outfit like this forming voters' opinions, is it any wonder that Gordon Brown spent like there was no tomorrow and Cameron and Osborne dare not cut as if yesterday really happened?

Me, Sharmi Chakrabarti and my Christian employees: a statement from UK taxpayer Mr Grumpy

"The message coming from Strasbourg is that although people are entitled to hold religious views, that right is severely limited in the workplace when it comes into conflict with the rights of other people. The judgement also hands considerable discretion to employers to set reasonable policies and then insist that employees follow them whatever their religious beliefs."

- Robert Pigott, Religious affairs correspondent, BBC News.

“British courts lost their way in her case and Strasbourg has actually acted more in keeping with our traditions of tolerance. Let’s hope that some of those who threaten to pull out of the ECHR remember this case in the future. However the Court was also right to uphold judgments in other cases that employers can expect staff not to discriminate in the discharge of duties at work.”

- Sharmi Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty

Dear Everyone,

As an employer I welcome yesterday's rulings from the ECHR and would like to take the opportunity of clarifying my employment policies as they relate to those working for me who are Christians.

I should begin by emphasising that I cannot speak for British Airways. Echoing Robert Pigott, however, I take the view that as a private company it should, I believe, in principle be free to exercise its own discretion with regard to its employment policies.

Let me now turn to the cases involving people who were working for me. As a Council Tax payer employing registry office staff.I expect registrars to keep abreast of the latest ideological trends and update their own views accordingly. Yes, Mrs Ladele, I'm you sure are warm and enthusiastic and the couples you married loved you, and I have taken due note of your ethnicity, but you can't seriously expect me to let you opt out of bits of your job just because you say they're against your conscience. I don't pay you to have a conscience, and how am I supposed to run a diversity policy if everybody insists on being different?

As for relationship counsellors, I emply them indirectly via the "charity" Relate ("Relate's 'voluntary' income is predominately made up of grants from statutory & other bodies"). This makes no difference to my expectations of them, which are exactly the same as for those who report to me directly  As an employer committed to nurturing diversity I expect those who work for me to think as I think.

It has been put to me that Mr Gary McFarlane is an able and conscientious counsellor, and that he belongs to an ethnic group which is underrepresented in Relate's workforce. Questions have been raised as to whether it was reasonable to dismiss him not because of anything he had done but because of what he said he would do in a hypothetical situation which had never actually arisen in the course of his work. It has been suggested that requests for sexual counselling from same-sex couples could easily have been fielded by his colleagues.

Mischievous comparisons have been drawn between the right of conscientious objection granted to pacifists during the war against Hitler and the non-negotiable requirement for Mr McFarlane to be prepared to teach gay couples how to do sex.

Look, I'M THE BOSS ROUND HERE AND I MAKE THE RULES, OK?

Phew, that feels better already.

With regard to the wonderful nurses who work for me in hospitals around the country, I will be brief. Anyone needing to be treated in an NHS hospital can rest assured that, whilst it may not be possible for busy nursing staff to provide them with drinks of water on a more than weekly basis, they will be absolutely safe from the health and safety risks associated with religious jewellery. I operate a strictly zero tolerance policy in this matter and I have zero sympathy with anyone falling foul of it. Good nurses are ten a penny - Shirley Chaplin please note.

Returning to the quotes with which I began, I am delighted to announce that Robert Pigott of the BBC is my Employee of the Month. This award is in recognition of his clear-sighted understanding of my prerogatives as an employer. Please join me in congratulating him.

I was going to share the award between Robert and Sharmi Chakrabarti, until it was pointed out to me that Sharmi doesn't actually work for me (though I am thrilled to be able to support her work through the charitable status enjoyed by the Civil Liberties Trust). Thank goodness for people like her who appreciate that whilst liberty is a fine thing in its proper place, those who accept employment from me leave their liberty (and their consciences) at the workplace door. Nothing must stand in the way of my ensuring that people like me are not permitted to work for me.

With my very best wishes for the year ahead,

Mr Grumpy

PS If you ever feel you would like to work for me, Sharmi, my office door is always open. Just reach out.

Vee heff vays

Just been watching a documentary about Victoria and Albert. I won't bore you by enumerating the ways in which it irritated me, instead merely noting that the actor reading quotes from the Prince Consort did so in what Frau G speedily diagnosed as a fake German accent. Even if they couldn't get Andrew Sachs (a German who, come to think of it, himself owes his celebrity status to a fake accent), we have a sizeable German community and one or two of them must surely hold Equity cards. Strange, when it has become unthinkable for an actor to black up, that it's still OK to pretend to be a Kraut.

PS Happy New Year.

Cognitive dissonance: always in fashion

A random and entirely non-seasonal observation: when did models stop being exploited, objectified victims of the patriarchy and become feminist icons?

A happy and peaceful Christmas to anyone who should happen along. No promises, but I might manage a more substantial slab or two of curmudgeonliness before 2013's wage slavery gets under way.

Mars, the bringer of flab

I'm sure I'm one of many who have been beguiled by the BBC headline "People can be fat yet fit, research suggests". In fact the piece would be more accurately titled "Being fat is only bad for you when it makes you ill". So it seems those deep-fried Mars bars should remain off-limits.

Though I haven't eaten a Mars bar in years, there was a time when I considered a coffee and a Mars an entirely satisfactory substitute for breakfast.

Not, however, deep-fried. Does anyone really eat them that way, or is that just a viciously Scotophobic urban myth? This settles the question in a somewhat curious manner. "Dispel" as a synonym for "prove to be entirely true" is a new one on me.

The BBC's way with words

At least 48 people have been killed in ethnic clashes in south-eastern Kenya, police say.

The clashes in Tana River district, Coast Province, took place late on Tuesday between the Orma and Pokomo groups, the region's police chief said.

Most of the dead were women and children, many of whom were hacked to death with machetes, he said.

The clash is the worst single incident since violence rocked the country after disputed polls four years ago.

Regional deputy police chief Joseph Kitur told AFP news agency that those killed were either hacked to death or burned alive when their huts were set alight.

If only those women and children would stop clashing. They're as bad as Egyptian Christians.

Is "massacre" reserved for the actions of colonialists?

What's in a name?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a jobbing journalist at a loss for a topic now the Olympics are over must be in want of the annual baby names survey. This year your licence fee has helped fund a truly outstanding specimen...

But parents choosing a name for aspirational reasons need to think about how it will go down in the playground, says Scarlet Brady, editor of the modern parenting magazine Gurgle.

"You can wrap up all your hopes and dreams in a name but have to be careful that you don't put all of that on your child's shoulders."

How a name rolls off the tongue is an often overlooked reason for why names have changed. Today's more tolerant society seems to prefer "softer sounds" like Charlie and Maisie over harsher sounding names like Reginald and Gertrude.

The Reverend Rosie Harper, vicar of Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, says parents look for different qualities in boys' and girls' names.

Parents still like Bible names for boys - there are five in the top 12 - Thomas, James, Joshua, Jacob and Samuel. But the highest-placed girl's Biblical name is Hannah at number 41.

"The Biblical names for boys are macho warrior blokes. They all have gravitas. Whereas what's chosen for girls tends to be Victorian names linked to image. They're not empowering, they're pretty names like Isabel and Olivia."

The disappearance of Mary is part of this trend. It is perhaps too associated with Catholicism and the Virgin Mary for many parents in England and Wales.

There's some wonderful cognitive dissonance here. We are a "more tolerant society"... but be careful not to give your sprog too outlandish a name, lest he/she be given hell in the playground. And we draw the line at tolerating Catholicism, it seems.

But let me draw your attention especially to the Reverend Rosie Harper and her contention that "[t]he Biblical names for boys are macho warrior blokes". Hmmm. By my reckoning we have one patriarch (whose machismo was of a more procreative than martial character, apart from his wrestling bout with the angel), one prophet, two entirely non-violent Apostles and just one authentic macho warrior bloke. A score of 20% would suggest that Ms Harper might usefully spend a little more time with her Bible.

It might, among other things, help her out with one or two "empowering" names for girls. There are plenty of Judiths in my pre-feminist generation, a fact which doesn't altogether square with her thesis, but there can be little hope of the name returning to favour within the next 50 years. Nevertheless, there is still scope for her to promote empowerment of a no less radical kind. Jael Harper has a certain ring to it. A somewhat chavvy ring, admittedly (and let's face it, the Book of Judges contains pretty chavvy stuff), but surely that will not deter such a determinedly trendy and right-on vicar.

Seriously though, what a perfect vignette of what Andrew Marr has acknowledged to be the BBC's "cultural liberal bias". A candyfloss piece needs filling out with a quote from a vicar. Who gets the call? A Home Counties feminist whose time at theological college seems to have taught her more about empowerment than about the contents of the Bible.

Or am I being unfair to the BBC? Is Ms Harper by now an entirely typical specimen of the Anglican clergy?

Doomed

M& S hit by weak clothing sales

- thus the Beeb's link to this.

Well, goodness me. I can't quite make out whether it is Marks or the competition who are flogging weak clothing. If the former, and we can no longer even trust our undergarments to take the strain, we can surely wave goodbye to civilization.

BBC stands corrected (a small victory)

Sent to the BBC on Tuesday:-

{Complaint title:} BPAS's vested interest in abortion not flagged

{Complaint:} This news item on abortion statistics includes quotations
from spokespersons for Life and the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.
Life is correctly described as an "anti-abortion charity". The BPAS is
referred to only by its name, which conceals the fact that it derives
the bulk of its income not from providing advice but from performing
abortions, and is thus anything but a source of impartial comment.
Readers should be enabled to put the BPAS's views in context by some
such description as "leading abortion provider the British Pregnancy
Advisory Service".

Received yesterday:-

Dear Fred, [Mr Grumpy to you, if you please, but let that pass]

Very important point, we have amended,

Best wishes

BBC Health

And they are as good as their word. So it's worth complaining. The watchwords are concise, factual, rational and don't tell them they're the Devil's spawn (even if you think so). And really they're not; of course the collective bias is left-liberal, but they do have journalistic standards.

Is the BBC losing its touch?

Could this "baby seal" story (©Dumb Jon) do for educational anarchy what this one did for the benefit culture?

Not killing people - it's just so twentieth century

"It's no longer acceptable for 21st Century medicine to be governed by 20th Century attitudes to death."

I don't want to get at the speaker of these words, Mrs Jane Nicklinson, whose situation is certainly not easy. But they will be echoed by lobbiests and applauded by commentators and commenters. For in post-Christian Britain this is where we are at in the matter of ethics. It's just a little unusual to see ethical progressivism summed up in such a lapidary manner.

Globally speaking, the twentieth century was not actually marked by a great aversion to killing people, but let that pass. The real point is that a morality with a sell-by date is no morality at all. This is Why I Am A Catholic in a nutshell. Ethical progressivism abounds in the Church of England, all the way up to the top. Beware particularly of those who announce that they have the support of the Holy Spirit. It has plenty of devotees in the Catholic church too, but they don't get to vote on the Magisterium - and the Pope is an impassioned enemy of relativism.

This morning the link from the BBC home page referred, give or take a word or two, to Mr Nicklinson as "a man who is so paralysed that he wants a doctor to be able to lawfully end his life". There's the measure of how far down the slippery slope we've gone. If A, then B. If you're sufficiently incapacitated, naturally you'll want your life ended. These things are never just private lifestyle choices. Once we have accepted it as a valid choice, imperceptibly we slip into the expectation that others in the same situation will make the same choice, and we become a little less interested in finding ways in which such a life can be made more bearable.

Powers behind the throne?

What can we expect of Bashar al-Assad's consort? There's some delicate pirouetting here around a room liberally furnished with elephants:-

There are cases where the wife is a malign influence but mostly it's not the case, says Daniel Chirot, author of Modern Tyrants: The Power and Prevalence of Evil in Our Age. In fact, wives are often unfairly blamed for the actions of a leader, due to a kind of prejudice that holds them to higher standards.

Poor things. So let's hear it for Eva B's benign influence on You Know Who. Without her he might have turned really nasty.

PS Credit where credit's due:Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, not exactly my favourite member of the commentariat, is admirably robust.

Professor Malaprop

"Foetus parties" are a phenomenon that appeared on my radar the day before yesterday. I started reading this expecting to find myself harrumphing over the latest irritating fad. Then I reached this bit...

Also, does this escalate the thinking held by some that a foetus should have a life of its own before birth and, therefore, have rights of its own?

At the moment, UK law allows for the mother to make decisions on behalf of her baby until the baby is born. Using technology in this way seems to have the potential to upset this position and raises the spectrum of women being accused of doing wrong to their foetus, as happens in the USA.

The least of my concerns is that someone who can't write literate English ("raises the spectrum", mark you) is entitled to call herself a professor. More horrifying by far is the discovery that a person who worries about encouraging mothers to see the children inside them as human beings in their own right is chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives.

So, don't feel obliged to invite me, but by all means keep partying. As for Professor Warwick's concern about "class envy, alienation and a sense of inequity", how about foetus parties on the NHS?

Imposing the party line

To give its due, the BBC has done a much better job of reporting the massacres of Nigerian Christians than other news media. Not that that's difficult; today the Daily Tottygraph thought I would be more interested in the revelation that Foxy Knoxy's ex has a new girlfriend. Frau Grumpy says if I want to read a proper newspaper why don't I give the FAZ a try.

Unfortunately today has provided evidence of the party line being laid down at the Beeb. This morning at 08:06 the latest report appeared under the admirably unambiguous headline:-

Nigeria Christians hit by fresh Islamist attacks

But by 18:26 the same story had been published again with a new headline:-

Nigerians flee Boko Haram sectarian attacks

Even in its earlier incarnation the story begins with an equivocal reference to "a 24-hour wave of violence apparently targeting Christian communities". Clearly it is too early to exclude the possibility that Nigeria's large Buddhist community is being targeted.

But the introduction of the weaselly use of the word "sectarian", familiar from the BBC's coverage of massacres of Christians in Egypt, represents a definite turn for the worse.

Update: on revisiting the Trivigraph I discover that it is important that I should know that somebody called Graham Norton has been burgled. Full marks to the Grauniad though, and the paper should also be complimented on this piece - yes, "sectarian tensions" here too, but once you get past that it's a good report.

Not on speaking terms

So Mrs Vali Chapti has lost her appeal against the ruling that her Indian husband must learn some English before he acquires the right to live with her in the UK. How does the BBC feel about this? There are some clues: the Chaptis' lawyer. Manjit Gill QC, is quoted at greater length than the judge, and a pro-immigration lobbyist gets considerably more space to air her disappointment than the Immigration Minister gets to express his satisfaction. Same old same old, as we bloggers used to say.

I can agree with Mr Gill on one point: this is about racism. We learn that the Chaptis 'have divided their time for 15 years between Leicester and India', so it seems reasonable to conclude that Mr Chapti has spent a total of several years lving in an English city. During that time he has not felt moved to acquire the most basic English (which, lest we forget, is one of the national languages - in many respects the national language - of his native India). That being the case, he can never have held a conversation - never so much as said 'nice weather we're having' - with the citizens of the country which he wishes to make his home. Or rather, only with the ones who belong to his own ethnic group.

This goes some way beyond a natural preference for mixing with one's own kind, does it not? Give Mr Chapti a paler complexion and he would be Dr Verwoerd's idea of a model citizen. Question 1: why doesn't the Beeb see it that way? Question 2: how many more Mr Chaptis are there living in Leicester? Question 3: how surprising is it if some of the people in Leicester who Mr Chapti doesn't talk to are drawn to the EDL or worse?

Deadly serious

Apple is cool. Abortions are cool. The BBC is a great and impartial national institution.

Compare and contrast. Rhetorical mass murder by the nation's favourite wind-up merchant? Cue instant grovelling apologies. Whereas endorsement of actual industrial-scale killing? I won't hold my breath.

And I'll back the Sack Clarkson campaign just as soon as I hear that I can retire on a full pension at 60, thank you very much, Brother Prentis.

Good non-secular persons rejoice

The Royal Mail has issued its Christmas stamps, which this year feature pictures of the Nativity.

Praise the Lord - and the even better news is that they also feature the Annunciation and the Epiphany. Doubts as to how clearly the Beeb's scribe understands what the Nativity is can only be magnified as we read on...

The company said the stamps were inspired by verses from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.

True BBC impartiality! But never mind, we have clear acknowledgement here that Christmas is a a Chrsitian festival. Or do we?

Last year's Christmas stamps featured animated characters Wallace & Gromit. Royal Mail's policy for its official Christmas stamps is to alternate non-secular and secular themes each year - but non-secular festive issues are always available.

Not where you might expect

Euro judges join forces with German tree-huggers to interfere with hardworking British wealth-creators

I'm sure they'd make the headline a lot more snappy, but doesn't it have all the ingredients for the front page story in the Daily Mail? So you might be a little surprised by the destination of this link.

If you find any trace of balance and impartiality, let me know.