stay-at-home secretary
Jacqui Smith and Margo Leadbetter: are they by any chance related?
Well, the Labour Party is finally safe for the People - I mean real people, nice people, people who need people, people like us - the kind you'd invite round. Phew! It's taken years, but it's now official, and just in time for the Renaissance. Get out the fish knives, we're going to have a dinner party.
According to the BBC, "Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has admitted she would not feel safe walking around London after dark." The article continues: "Asked if she would feel safe walking alone in the Hackney neighbourhood, Ms Smith replied: 'Well, no, but I don't think I'd have ever have [sic] done'." What, even when it was safer? You have to wonder what it is that's changed - oh, wait, it's her.
So I guess she's never been to the pantomime at Hackney Empire. Or to the gastropubs of London Fields. Or to the Istanbul Iskembecisi in Dalston... But it gets better!
"In the interview with the Sunday Times, Ms Smith was asked why she would not feel safe on Hackney's streets at night.
She replied: 'Well, I just don't think that's a thing that people do, is it, really?'"
(Pause.) Laughing yet? It's not even over:
"She was also questioned about how she would feel if she was walking through the more affluent area of Kensington and Chelsea after dark.
'Well, I wouldn't walk around at midnight and I'm fortunate that I don't have to do that,' she said." But Jerry was putting on one of his Count Basie records again, so she had to go and tell him to stop.
14 comments:
Pardon my language, but that woman's a fucking idiot.
Aw, Kris. Margo Leadbetter is one of the all-time great characters!
But, you know, as a member of the GBLTGIFriday community you're already a member of the scary demi-monde - you probably even like living in Hackney, or something.
Well I live nearby in 'London's Tower Hamlets' and my partner Jodie Foster and I never, ever leave our purpose-built panic room. It's lucky that the wireless internet just about creeps down the tiny air pipe we have near the ceiling, or I'd have no contact with the outside world.
Fantastic post.
Watch out in Mayfair, it's full of Lord Lucan types.
lol
'Well, I wouldn't walk around at midnight and I'm fortunate that I don't have to do that,
Very fortunate!
And very obviously, unlike some of us, she's not a working girl...!
I missed this - no, she couldn't have, could she? What the hell did she think she was doing? Next thing she'll be calling us plebs civilians.
Simon, I'd do the same if I lived in Tower Hamlets. Give Jodie my best.
Jonathan, thank you!
And RH, the whole point about Lord Lucan is that nobody knows where he is. He could be anywhere... As it happens, I do sometimes drink in Mayfair - well, Belgravia, at the very pub Lady Lucan ran into, covered in blood, after the famous attack.
Selena, fortunately not very many of us are "working girls" - in my neighbourhood the midnight streets are full of Hassidic men, women, & families. I'm afraid the Home Secretary is reminding me of a man I once knew in Canton, CT, who would only let his teenage daughter drive into Hartford if she locked all the car doors - "and don't talk to anybody."
Mopsa, indeed, the mind boggles.
I've read the Lord Lucan case several times and it seems he may have been whisked off to France by the old boy network, his car was found at the Channel, but that could have been a trick of course. And I agree with the bloke from Canton, having raised a teenage daughter myself I was probably even more careful, and I seriously advise women not to drive with their doors unlocked, especially at night, and make sure they're locked wherever you park, creeps have been known to get in when you're not there and hide in the back, we had a serial killer here in Mornington, Vic, who operated that way.
Miss B, I think Jaqui is still smarting from the time you overheard her getting her metre all wrong and made her cover Hackney town hall in six foot tall iambic pantameters a la Life of Brian graffiti scene. I'm not surprised she's nervous, you just daren't go out lest someone overhear you confusing assonance and alliteration and doesn't let you go until you've sighed up to their haiku workshop.
Well at least I knew what she was saying when she said she wouldn't go out after dark. Here she is on the new anti-terror measures (in particular the facility to extend pre-charge detention):
"It won't be hypothetical if and when it occurs. We are not legislating now on the basis that we are bringing it in now for something that might happen in the future; we are bringing it in now for something that might happen in the future; we are bringing in a position for if it becomes unhypothetical. If, unfortunately I and many other experts are right and we do need it in the future it is in place"
Well that clears it all up.
P Ump, that is brilliant. Perhaps we have a new Rumsfeld in our midst?
Indeed, though the difference is that Rummy's most famous quote "known unknowns" actually did make sense if you could wade through it. Whereas this bit from Ms S is lost on me.
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