Rosie duffield

The Liberal Democrat candidate in the Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland constituency recently released a video clip of herself sitting in a car and saying just the following: ‘As a Liberal Democrat, I believe that women can have a penis.’ When I’m feeling depressed or under the weather, I play this clip to myself over and over and it never fails to put me in a better frame of mind. It is less the bovine stupidity of the message that amuses than the fact that Jemma Joy – yes, yes, I know – felt the need to recite it, as if there were people out there determined to believe that she thought that women couldn’t have penises and might victimise her for this heresy.

Monday nights are rarely the booziest in Parliament but yesterday proved to be an exception. For Boris Johnson was up before the 1922 committee in the Attlee Suite — an ‘oddly appropriate setting,’ as one right-winger muttered to Mr S darkly. Highlights included veteran Telegraph columnist Chris Hope nearly being diverted into the room last night after security thought he was a Conservative backbencher, while actual MP and alleged 'pork pie plotter' Chris Loder was initially blocked. Despite looking ashen-faced with fear, and protesting that 'they won't let me in,' he was eventually escorted through. Inside the room itself, there was much excited chatter about the return of the Antipodean election extraordinaire Lynton Crosby.

One of the most shocking images from the Corbyn years of the Labour party was Luciana Berger flanked by police officers at Labour conference. Here was a Labour MP who had been subjected to so much hostility and outright racism from cesspit leftists that she felt unsafe at her own annual party gathering. That a Jewish woman was made to feel so unwelcome, so threatened, was a black mark against the Corbynista left. I would never have guessed that Keir Starmer, the anti-Corbyn, the man who said he would rescue Labour from its nutty wing and restore its respectability, would have a similarly shameful moment. And yet he has. At this year’s conference, which starts on Saturday, one Labour MP will be absent.

News that Rosie Duffield will be missing the Labour Party conference over threats to her personal security brings to a head an appalling situation where a female Labour MP cannot stand up for the rights of women without triggering opprobrium. Keir Starmer cannot and must not sit on the fence any longer. Maybe he is trying to sit tight and hope that this goes away? This seems unlikely: Duffield’s opponents are motivated by an evangelistic zeal to silence those who dare to disagree with them. Thankfully, Duffield isn’t taking the hint On Friday, she spoke more sense into the debate: https://twitter.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1436276240500105219?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1436276243167580160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://twitter.

Every party keeps on file a list of rash things politicians in other parties have said that can be used against them at a later date. Way back when I was directing Ukip’s 2014 European parliamentary campaign, I built up a ‘helpful contributions’ folder containing print-outs of gaffes and embarrassing admissions made by pro-EU MPs and MEPs. Conservative Campaign Headquarters probably has at its disposal a far more sophisticated and comprehensive digital system for logging the own-goals of its adversaries. But one thing is certain, someone will imminently be inputting an entry marked something like ‘Duffield, R. – Labour’s plan to re-join the EU’.