Matron Maltby is back. Kate Maltby has taken to patrolling the corridors of Parliament (metaphorically speaking) along with Matron Leadsom and Harriet Harman, who will do it literally, policing the behaviour of male MPs. It is good to see the sisters are generating cross-party support in all of this.
We are still talking about Damian Green ‘fleeting hand against my knee — so brief, it was almost deniable’ all these years later. He was hauled over the coals again on BBC radio’s Today, Mishal Husain interrogating him as to whether he has said sorry for his inappropriate behaviour towards poor Kate Maltby. It was a popcorn moment, it really was. Hilarious in its pathetic-ness.
Goodness, I love that term ‘inappropriate behaviour’ which is everywhere now, and a particular favourite of Maltby. As I have said before, it is a very subtle way of saying, ‘This happened, my version of events is correct, I am morally superior to X, case closed.’ It also implies that what is and is not appropriate is settled, when often one person’s inappropriate behaviour is another’s flirtation.
Ah, ‘inappropriate behaviour’ – I use it on the kids all the time. That is completely inappropriate, I say in my sternest voice to command control. And this is exactly how these feminists are treating all the men – like kids.
The rules of the Maltby Houses of Parliament are as follows:
· ‘We’re not banning workplace relationships or bad jokes,’ Maltby assures us. (Although actually if the jokes ‘signal to young women exactly their status in the ecosystem’, she would quite like them banned.)
· People will still be allowed to be human – not for their sakes, mind, but for the sake of the feminists who ‘do ourselves a disservice if we don’t allow people to be human’. (Phew!)
However, Maltby continues, ‘we need to hold our MPs to account’ for any behaviour deemed ‘inappropriate’ by the feminists. This is because ‘there is something uniquely problematic about sex in parliament’. I’ll say.
If there is actual sex actually happening in Parliament then this is a misuse of public funds. MPs are not elected to Parliament and paid to go there so they can bang people in the broom cupboard. I am sure these are Maltby’s concerns too, but it’s not clear. Anyway, as we have pointed out before, one of the strangest things about this ‘sex scandal’ is the shocking lack of sex.
Matron Maltby continues: ‘As Leadsom’s report notes, the problem in parliament is not that most MPs are monsters, but that they exist within a culture that doesn’t teach them normal professional boundaries. Nudging MPs into basic self-awareness can only help them avoid trouble.’
That’s what mothers do, is it not? Nudging their kids along to help them avoid trouble? Teaching them boundaries? Imbuing them with ‘self-awareness’ – although I think awareness of others is more important.
Thank goodness, ‘as a mother’ Leadsom is on hand to mother all the male MPs. In case you are in any doubt as to how patronising this whole scheme is, Maltby finishes thus, ‘we’d like our MPs to grow up.’ And it is the self-appointed feminists who will force these grown men to grow up. Well done, Mother Maltby.
And the male MPs, the handsy idiots like Damian Green (all sympathy to the long-suffering wife), just have to suck it up and not take it like a man, so to speak, but to take it like my five-year-old son must accept a telling-off from myself, his mother.
These MPs know they have to go along with this, practically cutting their balls off and leaving them on the dispatch box for the feminists to pop in their handbags. That’s what happens if you make common cause with the feminists on all their other crazy issues.
I just hope the new feminists’ overlords can show them some mercy, but I doubt it.
