Peter Rhodes on passwords, Waterloo and the MP who supports 'genuine trans' people
One of the problems with huge events like the Coronation is that they overshadow lesser happenings, such as World Password Day.
This falls on the first Thursday in May and is aimed at “promoting better password habits.” Despite all the warnings and all the scams which end in tears, the four most common passwords are 123456, 123456789, qwerty and, of course, Password. Heaven helps those who help themselves, right?
At the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, an artillery officer told the Duke of Wellington he had Napoleon in his sights. The Duke responded sternly: “It is not the business of commanders to be firing upon one another.” There was a reminder of Wellington’s ethics in the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s denial of involvement in the Kremlin drone attack: “We don’t attack Putin or Moscow. We fight on our territory.”
While such etiquette on the battlefield may be admirable, it is also costly. The Ukraine war may be remembered as the conflict in which half a million young men died because a single elderly tyrant lived.
Statistics are still coming in on the impact of would-be voters having to produce photo-ID for the council elections. Pardon my cynicism but what we may never know is how many of those turned away were genuinely disappointed - and how many were activists making a point.
How wrong can you be? With my finely tuned political antennae, I was convinced the Tory MP for Lichfield, Michael Fabricant, would spark a tsunami of outrage for using the term “genuine trans people.” But a couple of weeks have passed and I can find not a peep of protest.
By referring sympathetically to “genuine trans people” being demonised, the MP implies that some trans people are less than genuine. Who has he in mind? The 60 per cent trans prisoners in Scottish prisons who began transitioning only after they were jailed? “Female” athletes with the build and genitals of men? Or perhaps the supporters of those athletes who have coined the truly weird term “a penis-having woman.”
Either way, Michael Fabricant has coined a new term which has not been challenged. This suggests he has common sense on his side. At least among brain-having people.
