Once a year I have to out myself as a fan of Strictly Come Dancing and now is that time. I like dance, that is all.
OK, maybe I should write a little bit more than that.
There is the distinct possibility that one of the most horrid people ever to enter British politics is starting to be thought of favourably. Ann Widdecombe is not, and never will be, a national treasure. It's not just because she is a Tory, it is because she is a particularly unpleasant person all round.
I could just leave it at that but some younger people may just think that she is a shrill voiced, humourless joyspoiler but wait my little naive friends, she is so much less.
She is anti-abortion and seems to have problems with embryonic stem cell research whilst not fully understanding the science behind it. Scientists didn’t want to create a human/animal hybrid Ann.
She is anti-Sex Education.
She advocates only the Police Stopping and Searching only Asian and Black people because “there is a certain form of person who is a danger to society and that sort of person are more likely to fall in to that category then others” despite the fact that most terrorism offences committed on these shores are by White Irish men.
She supports Homophobia as long it's by Religious people (It's free speech you know.)
She supports tougher drug laws.
She seems to think that the Church of England apologising for the Crusades and slavery “makes them look silly”.
She believes in censorship.
She is one the idiot MP's who wanted Terrorism suspects detained for 42 days despite no evidence that it would help investigations in any way.
She is against political parties trying to help get more women into Parliament.
She seems to agree with PETA on some things (they even gave her an award).
She insisted that Tories "throughout the Thatcher period" had always cared about the poor.
In 2007 she earned £310,000 above her parliamentary salary.
She writes for the Daily Express.
She was opposed to the repeal of Section 28.
She is a climate change denier.
She left the Church of England because they started ordinating woman.
In 1996 she defended the Governments policy of shackling pregnant women with handcuffs and chains when in hospital, even when giving birth.(turns out that Hannsard says that bit is not true despite what I read else where.)
And on top of all of this, SHE REALLY REALLY CAN'T DANCE!
Although on the plus side she is against fox hunting.
Well said. I'll admit, I'd fallen into the trap of thinking 'oh, she's a loveable battleaxe'. No, she's a racist, reactionary, blinkered homophobe! As a pro-choice black woman I can't afford to reserve any warm and fuzzies for the likes of her.
ReplyDeleteThat I'd even entertained the thought of it shows just how powerful PR can be in the face of truth.
And, of course, she attempted to diminish the US Catholic priest paedophile scandal, with the statement:
ReplyDelete"After all the dust had settled in America, 98% of priests were untouched by allegations, let alone convictions."
Well, given that, at any one time, there are somewhere in the region of 46,000 Catholic priests working in the US, that's just 920 of them to worry about. So, that's okay then...
What a shame the kids weren't left untouched. She's a vile woman.
DeleteHear, hear. A very good reminder and necessary since she has become a "celebrity". As Ruby A says, it is easy to fall into the "loveable battle-axe" trap.
ReplyDeleteIs she really nasty???
ReplyDeleteAnti-abortion: How dare she try to protect human lives!
What does it matter whether she understands the science behind stem-cell research. With that you imply that only experts can make a moral judgement on this subject. Whether you agree with the opinion or not, it does not take an expert to form a moral opinion on the destruction of human life for medical research.
On sex education: Being against something being done by the state does not make you against it in it self. You silly statist! People should see their children being coerced into something as sex eduction. Sexuality will always be linked to morality and in a free society the state does not coerce morality.
Police searching by ethnicity: You are right on that one and Ann is not.
Homophobia is an idea, do you really want to give the state the power to punish people for holding a certain idea? Of course the state should never discriminate, but outlawing discrimination by persons or private entities is discrimination too.
Support for tougher drug laws is very silly indeed. If Ann was consistent in her "conservative" philosophy she'd advocate more personal responsibility and possibly legalization.
Apologizing for the crusades would be silly, we can not apologize for what previous generation did.
Censorship (by the state) is never acceptable.
She is also wrong on supporting the 42 day detention law.
Voters not political parties decide who get into parliament, anything else is undemocratic.
She sometimes agree with Peta? All right you've convinced me: she is nasty.
The Thatcher government tried(!) to cut taxes and increase freedom, there is nothing the poor need more than those. Widdicombe can proud of supporting Thatcher.
WHAT THE F****** F*** is wrong with earning a living? Be happy for everyone that she is creating an income and wealth.
If you don't like the Daily Express then don't read it, but don't give us that elitist tone like you know which newspaper is best for other people to read.
Against section 28? Great the state should not promote homosexuality, nor heterosexuality or anything of the like. Those are private matters.
Although I am not a climate change denier (I think man's industrial activity has had some warming effect) having "deniers" as MP is better then having "believers" who will vote for coercive and money wasting government programs.
So what does is matter she left the CoE because of female priest. That's her religious conviction. Just as long as she does not support laws banning others churches from having woman priests.
Shackling woman to their bed's was probably wrong but I would like to know the details, whether the were prisoners or something like that. But sounds very nasty indeed.
And the last one very nasty indeed, who the **** does she think she is deciding for other people whether or not they would fox hunt or allow the hunting of foxes on their property.
On the whole I like Ann, but she indeed has some flaws in her political beliefs.
I'm not sure "anonymous" should be allowed opinions on stem cell research either. Or abortion. Not while insisting it's about "human life".
ReplyDeleteThe problem with people like that is the blinkered absolutism. They need a black/white answer and can't accept that, without invoking a magical soul, there's no discernible moment at which "cell" becomes "person". Just a long process. Any lines we draw HAVE to be compromises somewhere in that grey area - putting them right back at the cell stage is just astoundingly stupid. Widdecombe's antiquated absolutism on this dooms her to irrelevancy.
Anonymous makes some good points. It was a bit of a low blow to bring up what she earned over and above her MP’s wage of about £65000. Many MPs have second (some have third and forth) jobs and I’m sure it doesn’t affect their ability to do their primary job of representing their constituents in Parliament.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of understanding the science behind stem cell research I think that it is a legitimate point to make. If you do not understand what is/was being done then your opinion is misinformed. It’s not of a problem if you are a taxi driver (unless I’m in the back of your taxi) but it is a problem if you are a law maker. If you are against something on moral grounds then fine, we can debate it, but if you are moral opposed to something that isn’t happening or is untrue then your opinion is not valid, in my opinion.
Ann was touring the country to give talks on changes to the Human Fertilization and Embryology bill and why it was wrong. She was handing out false information. So either she was misinformed, which is not really acceptable in a Law maker who was making such a fuss about a subject or she was informed but decided to misinform those she spoke to and that makes her a liar.
On sex education, were you fully informed by your parents? I certainly wasn’t. Parents should educate their children but they don’t and someone needs to. We have an increasingly sexualized society (some of which comes from one of Ann’s employers, more later), I don’t think that this is a good thing myself, but children are faced with this all the time so they need to know how to deal with it and the problems and pressures that it may bring.
If you don’t educate children properly they end up with playground knowledge i.e. are you familiar with Coke douching? Poor sex education (which we have) leads to our high numbers of teenage pregnancies. To be honest this is a whole blogpost on its own.
The subject of abortion is such a contentious one that I really don’t want to get into it, mostly because I am a man and I really don’t think that I have the right to tell a woman what she can and can’t do with her body, but I would say this, you, like Ann, are clearly a Libertarian. As you put in you comment on the drugs thing “If Ann was consistent in her "conservative" philosophy she'd advocate more personal responsibility and possibly legalization.” So drugs is a personal choice thing, you should be able to decide what you do with your body should you? Surely that must follow for abortion then?
“Voters not political parties decide who get into parliament, anything else is undemocratic,” was your point but my point was about candidate selection. If the people selecting candidates are sexists or racists then you end up with an unrepresentative Parliament. The people can vote for whoever they like.
Before the Thatcher Government the percentage of families living in poverty was 10%, by the 2001-02 had risen to 22% when Labour had been in power for 5 years. This was not the peak however; the peak was in the Mid-90’s when the Tories were still in power. Poverty increased under the Tories. I would point out that there are always arguments to be had on statistics and how they are collected and the difficulty in compeering different sets of data.
Mrs Thatcher cut the taxes for rich people and big business. There where minor tax cuts for lower paid workers but she (and her Government) caused mass unemployment, you can’t pay tax on a job you don’t have.
On section 28, it stated that a local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality", fair enough, in schools no one should promote any sexuality but it goes on, “promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". That means that it was not acceptable for teachers to say that gay parenting was ok and that is discriminatory and wrong.
ReplyDeleteIf you choose to write for a newspaper that is borderline racist, xenophobic and homophobic such as the Express then I do think that it reflects upon you in quite a specific way. Oh and it’s owned by a pornographer which I think is relevant if you are going to moralize in the way that she does.
You are right Anonymous, you can’t legislate against ideas such as homophobia or sexism but she was supporting the churches right to discriminate, a large international organization that should fall under UK law, not the individuals right’s. The Churches should have to employ woman in high places because the law says that there is no reason not to and I’m pretty sure the bible agrees with me. I don’t think that it mentions the ordination of woman at all. This is because the church did not exist at the time. The rules on the ordination of woman come from man not God so they cannot use God to defend them.
On the Climate Change thing you seem to conflate 2 issues, big government and climate change. This is disingenuous. Of course Government shouldn’t waste money on things that don’t work or have no point but what has that got to do with Climate Change?
This brings me back to my first point on the stem cell science, is she misinformed, which is possible, but again unacceptable if you are passing laws and making pronouncements, or is she just ignoring the science in favour of her own dogmatic point of view? Because of it is the second one I would again call her a liar.
On the subject of Ann leaving the CofE in favour of the Catholic Church because the first wanted to ordain woman you say it’s ok because it’s her “religious conviction.” Discrimination is ok if it’s on religious grounds is it? This is just special pleading. If they wouldn’t employ black people would that be ok if it was on religious grounds? At what point do you think that something isn’t expectable on religious grounds? Is terrorism ok as long as you justify it with religion? Where is your line? Bigotry and discrimination hidden behind dogma is still bigotry and discrimination.
Ann has, though out her life, aligned herself with originations, the Catholic Church, Thatcher’s Tory Party, the Daily Express, that hold bigoted attitudes minority groups within society. You can judge a person by the company that they choose to keep.
You can like her if you want, of course you can, but I don’t. And she still can’t dance.
Oh and one more thing, if you are going to post comments (which I welcome by the way, debate is fun) please put your name, it’s only polite.
There were links to all the points I have tried to make here but blogger won't allow them, drop me your Email address Anonymous and I'll forward them to you.
Although anyone who doesn't like fox-hunting can't be all bad, it's not necessarily badness versus goodness at issue here but certainty versus fallibility. People who have that kind of certainty scare me.
ReplyDeleteMs Widdecombe (I'd not have the temerity to use her first name for fear of being knuckle-rapped with a ruler) is a powerful polariser. She has made up her mind and knows she's right. There is little point arguing with people like that - they (quite reasonably) don't listen. Why would they, after all? If you know you're right then what's the point of listening to others?
And - having not listened - your arguments have withstood attack, further confirming your self-belief in your own correctness. There's a kind of mad logic, insane consistency to it. You can't fault being faultless, since any disagreement - by definition - must be wrong.
I'd like to ignore her completely, as is my instinct so to do, but she appears to have power and influence, or - at the very least - influence over those with genuine power and influence. A meddlesome person.
It does make me wonder which former Tory politicians will be next for rehabilitation on Strictly...John Major? Norman Tebbit? Good grief, have just had a sudden mental picture of him doing a rumba, which is making me feel slightly ill. Have to go and have a lie down...
ReplyDeletewhy oh why do you keep feeding this ghastly womans over inflated dillusional ego. All the time you waffle on about the old crone the more she will lap it up, try ignoring the foul old hag and with a bit of luck she will disappear into obscurity where she deservedly belongs.
ReplyDelete