JK Rowling is right: these gender fanatics are an embarrassment to Labour
In her letter of resignation, Rosie Duffield , the newly independent MP for Canterbury, claimed that many on the Labour benches share her disgust with Sir Keir Starmer . Some, however, appear to be rather more disgusted with her. Take this haughty denunciation from the 28-year-old MP for Nottingham East, Nadia Whittome.
"Rosie Duffield," she tweeted, after news of the resignation had broken, "has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society."
Ms Whittome was referring to people who identify as transgender. In reality, though, Ms Duffield has never "dehumanised" them – all she's done is to defend women's rights to female-only hospital wards and changing rooms. Among the many people who kindly tried to help Ms Whittome grasp this simple point was JK Rowling , who told her: "Rosie Duffield was one of the few female Labour politicians with the guts to stand up for vulnerable women and girls, while self-satisfied numbskulls like you fought to give away their rights and spaces."
What particularly interests me about Ms Whittome's rebuke of her ex-colleague, however, is her use of the word "marginalised". Is this really an accurate description, in an age when the LGBTQIA+ flag is ostentatiously flown by every major corporation (in their Western markets, anyway)? Can Ms Whittome name any celebrities who have been cancelled for promoting gender ideology? Does she know of any women who have been fired from their jobs for tweeting, "Trans women are women"?
Frankly, if anybody has been marginalised, it's Rosie Duffield. For the past five years in the Commons, she has been given the full Mean Girls treatment: ostracised by the cool kids for having views they deem frightfully unfashionable, while others stayed silent out of a cowardly fear that they too would be ostracised for defending her. And what made this ostracism all the more pathetic was that the overgrown adolescents behind it were her own so-called colleagues.
The Labour party would be much better off with more Duffields, and fewer Whittomes. Plainly, however, its leader can't see this. Despite his fabulously expensive spectacles, Sir Keir remains hopelessly myopic.
Is this Sally Rooney's secret?
Reviewing Intermezzo – the latest masterpiece from the fashionable, self-proclaimed Marxist author Sally Rooney – one critic notes a curious stylistic habit. Many of the novel's sentences seem to be the wrong way round. Instead of "The city feels empty", for instance, we find "Empty the city feels." Other examples include "Tea they have given her", "Sore his eyes and hot he felt", "Deafening the clamour of applause", and "Talk to someone he would nearly like to."
The critic is puzzled by this unusual form of sentence structure. Personally, however, I think it's quite obvious what's going on.
"Sally Rooney" doesn't exist. Her novels are actually written by Yoda from Star Wars.
It's the only explanation that fits. First, because this is, famously, the unique and unforgettable way in which Yoda speaks ("Found someone you have... Help you I can... Powerful you have become"). And second, because no genuine author could possibly type sentences like those quoted above without thinking: "Hang on. I sound like Yoda from Star Wars. I can't write like this, or everyone will make fun of me. I'd better put my sentences the right way round, like a normal human being."
Still, one mystery remains. Why has a venerable Jedi Master born millions of light years from Earth taken to writing superficially highbrow bonkbusters about insufferable arts students? We can of course only speculate. But I would assume that he is currently on the run from the forces of the Dark Side, and so, to prevent the Emperor's intergalactic spies from discovering his whereabouts, he has adopted an ingenious false identity.
And, until now, his disguise was brilliantly convincing. To ensure that critics would think his novels were the work of a serious literary intellectual, he diligently avoided using inverted commas around the characters' dialogue. To make the BBC eager to adapt his novels, he filled them with endless rapturous sex scenes. And to guarantee the furious adulation of middle-class progressives, he ordered his human surrogate – a glum-looking 33-year-old woman from Ireland – to go around giving lectures about the evils of Israel. As a result, no one suspected a thing.
But now, because of a few unfortunate syntactical slips, poor old Yoda has accidentally given the game away. His cover has been blown. He will have no choice but to abandon this inspired ruse, and flee for his life, before the Sith Lords get him.
Sadly for the BBC's drama department, I fear this means that we won't hear from "Sally Rooney" ever again.
Way of the World is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 7am every Tuesday and Saturday
