Mark Andrews – Stop the boats on football badges, coronation quiche, Dominic Raab, and the perils of Punch and Judy
Writing in The Guardian, Simon Hattenstone calls for Manchester United and City football clubs to remove pictures of ships from their badges, saying they are a symbol of slavery.
Which will go down a storm in the clubs' heartlands of Middlesex and Surrey.
It must be exhausting, finding ever more tenuous things to be offended by. Maybe he was resentful he never got a Blue Peter badge as a child. Still, Simon does prefer the present Manchester City crest to the previous one, which featured a picture of an eagle. That one reminded him of Nazis.
Now if Hattenstone is calling for United and City to be deducted points by way of reparation, that's fine by me. It might mean Villa qualify for the Champions League. Or maybe not.
Perhaps this is what the Prime Minister meant by Stop The Boats.
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The odd thing about people like Hattenstone is that while they always find offence where none is intended, they are strangely quiet when somebody does something blatantly objectionable.
Take, for example, the King's announcement that the signature dish for his coronation will be... quiche. His Majesty could have chosen roast beef, bangers and mash, or shepherd's pie, and the nation would have been united.
Instead he chose a ghastly, divisive import mainly preferred by the sort of people who also consider quinoa and muesli socially acceptable. I bet Hattenstone loves it.
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A couple of months ago the Welsh Rugby Union tried to stop fans singing Tom Jones's hit Delilah, saying it encouraged domestic violence. At the time, I questioned what they would make of a Punch and Judy show.
Now a council in Lincolnshire has banned P & J on the grounds of it being too fighty. I bet not even Mary Whitehouse thought of that.
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Reading Adam Tolley's report on bullying claims against Dominic Raab, the main allegations seem to be that he described a piece of work as 'woeful', he sometimes interrupted civil servants when they were being long-winded, and reminded them of their code of conduct when their work fell short.
Not exactly J R Ewing, is he?
* * * I recall similar allegations being made during the last days of Gordon Brown's premiership, when he was alleged to have thrown a mobile phone amid reports about a 'macho culture' in No. 10.
My thoughts at the time were 'I do hope there is a macho culture in No. 10'. As Britain sank into recession, it was only hard graft – not idealistic navel gazing – that would get us out.
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Wishing you all a happy St George's Day tomorrow. And if talk about slaying dragons riles our friends in Animal Rebellion, so much the better.
