Ed Miliband will criticise Jeremy Clarkson and Janet Street-Porter on Monday for demeaning people with mental health problems, likening attacks on sufferers to the fight against racism, sexism and homophobia.
Oh Gawd, here we go again…
As is usual from our hard of thinking opposition leader, the response to people saying insensitive things is to ban the insensitive speech.
Frankly, when dealing with the aftermath of a suicide on the railway, I’ve said some insensitive things – and Jeremy Clarkson’s remarks about Johnny Suicides is pretty mild in comparison. But, then, he has never had to clear up the mess.
So, while I am all for taking mental health matters seriously with access to the relevant treatment, I am most certainly not in favour of another “phobia” – and let’s be fair, homophobia is merely an artificial construct. A phobia is an irrational hatred or fear and those who express such are in a very small minority. Mostly, dissent takes the form of dislike and disapproval, maybe, – but irrational fear and hatred; no. Yet the expression is used casually to describe anyone who dares to voice disapproval of the modern orthodoxy. It is a tool to shut down voices that dare to stray from the path of righteousness. To wheel out the old sexism, racism and homophobia clichés is typical of the shallow thinking and offence seeking behaviour of the leftist; to stifle those who would disagree with them, to poison the well.
“Just as we joined the fight against racism, against sexism and against homophobia, so we should join the fight against this form of intolerance. It is not acceptable, it costs Britain dear, and it has to change.”
It’s not intolerance, it’s facetious comment, nothing more. And we get that old phrase wheeled out by the censorious; “not acceptable”. Not acceptable by whom? I am more than happy to accept it as part and parcel of the rough and tumble of free speech. If someone says something genuinely insulting and insensitive, there are plenty who will point it out, which is all that needs to happen. We can do this all by ourselves, we don’t need politicians to do it for us.
Besides which, it’s none of Millipede minor’s business anyway. Lord help us if this cretin ever steps foot inside number 10. The current incumbent is bad enough, but Millipede will make the Gorgon seem like a pleasant memory.
Well said!
On a side issue, it;s another of those crystal ball news stories, telling us what someone will say; the whole speech laid out in detail in advance. In fact there’s no need for the faithful – or the press – to turn up, or, for that matter, for him to make the speech at all; having effectively cut out the middleman, he might as well go and have a nice coffee instead.
Except, of course, for the television coverage; this is politics reduced to the status of scripted reality TV and filming will go ahead unless prevented by force majeure or major disaster – which would make a nonsense of this article.
Railway suicides are not a comfortable subject with my family because a close connection died that way but none of us would ever consider demanding that Clarkson be banned from making insensitive remarks on the subject.
There’s a real risk it will end up with the double standards that allow minority groups to use freely – and in some cases, provocatively – terms that no-one else may allow to pass their lips on pain of prosecution.
In another blog post – the one about the Stoke Park affair – your final paragraph begins with: “But then, some people are born attention seekers…”
(Disclaimer: What follows only applies to those who deliberately decided to commit suicide in this way. People who fell onto the tracks, or were shoved in front of a train in an act of murder are obviously not included.)
It is possible to be (a) suicidal and (b) a born attention seeker at the same time. This fact appears to be frequently overlooked.
Ask any train or Tube driver who’s had to live with the aftermath of being unable to avoid hitting someone: they have to live with those images every day for the rest of their lives. The driver is also one of those who has to remain on the scene to help emergency services clean up the resulting mess.
Some drivers who go through this ordeal *never drive again*, their career plans ruined by a selfish, suicidal attention-seeker’s decision to ensure they get as much attention as possible, albeit post-mortem. Yet we rarely, if ever, hear about _their_ plight. Only the “victim” seems to matter.
It’s perfectly possible to kill oneself without forcing an unwitting third party to commit involuntary euthanasia on your behalf without so much as a by-your-leave. Hanging is one example; another is to jump off a bridge into a river and drown. I’m sure most of us could think of plenty more. (The old piping the car-exhaust-into-the-car technique is also quite popular.) Hell, there are even Swiss companies who will help you depart this mortal coil for a fee.
Yes, the emergency services will inevitably have to get involved, but they’re trained to deal with this. Drivers get little, if any, relevant training, and all the counselling in the world is no substitute for not having to go through it all in the first place.
*Any* form of suicide that involves forcing another person to kill you without even giving them the possibility of opting out is *fundmentally* selfish and attention-seeking. Clarkson, for once, is absolutely spot-on.
XX Frankly, when dealing with the aftermath of a suicide on the railway, I’ve said some insensitive things – XX
ALL that can be described as “emergency services” have, and do. It is a way of relieving the tension. “Black humour”. Be it, as yourself, or firemen, Coppers, nurses, doctors, lifeboat-men, or whatever.
People that complain about it, need to get their heads out of their arses and TRY doing the job, some time. At least in this way, we are not costing the NHS millions for PTS theropy.
(Therepy…. Theripy ( …. 😯 ) na, it is before coffee, after a 24 Hour shift, and I can not be arsed pulling the dictionary off the shelf. You know what I mean. 🙂 )