These virtue-signalling celebrities are an embarrassment to the Garrick
On Tuesday the Garrick Club will hold a historic vote to decide whether to start accepting women as members. Some prominent figures, however, have already made their feelings clear. Stephen Fry, Sting and Dire Straits’ Mark Knopfler have co-signed a letter, announcing that they “won’t feel able to continue as Garrick members” if women aren’t admitted. And the BBC’s John Simpson has publicly declared that he too would “find it impossible to stay”.
This is of course supremely noble of them. I have only one question.
After their many years as members, have they really only just discovered that the Garrick excludes women?
I suppose they must have. After all, if they’re so horrified by the exclusion of women that they feel compelled to resign, they must have hitherto been unaware of the men-only rule. Which means that, until now, they must have assumed that many of the Garrick’s existing members were women.
If so, I hope they didn’t entertain any unworthy thoughts about them. Such as: “Why do the female members always insist on wearing trouser suits, rather than a nice frock? And why do so many of them have moustaches? Honestly. One doesn’t wish to seem ungallant. But the women in the Groucho are so much prettier.”
Then again, there is another possibility. The letter co-signed by Messrs Fry, Knopfler and Sting states that “the current very public controversy over this issue has put us all in an untenable position”. This suggests that they’re threatening to resign not because the men-only rule offends their proud feminist principles. It’s purely because they’re panicking about what The Guardian will think.
In which case, their frantic virtue-signalling is far more embarrassing than any newspaper exposé.
Schools out
Why should children have to go to school? That’s just one of many thought-provoking questions posed by a forthcoming book. In Child Liberation: The Oppression of Children and the Case for Change, Lorna Finlayson – a radical Left-wing academic at the University of Essex – will argue that children are “an oppressed group” because we adults deny them so many “basic freedoms”.
The book won’t be published until 2026. But I for one can’t wait to read it. I love the idea of granting children the same freedoms that we adults enjoy. And I bet lots of other parents will, too.
After all, think how wonderful it would be, if, instead of cruelly forcing our poor children to go to school every day, we liberated them to go out to work, so that they could stand on their own two feet, earn their own money – and finally contribute their fair share towards our household bills.
Victorian children were liberated in this way. They were entitled – indeed, strongly encouraged – to enter the workplace as soon as possible. So why can’t we take a similarly enlightened attitude? There may no longer be much call for chimney sweeps or shoe shine boys, but there would surely be plenty of exciting opportunities for our children in fruit-picking. Many British farmers these days are struggling to fill their vacancies. And, since our children will no longer be going to school, passing exams and gaining qualifications, this type of unskilled labour should suit them perfectly.
At any rate, I think this book sounds like a major landmark in progressive thought. Radical Left-wingers have long fought to abolish private schools. But now they’ll be fighting to abolish state schools, as well.
Sir Keir’s cunning plan
Nothing infuriates commuters more than the last-minute cancellation of their train. Thankfully, Labour has promised to tackle this problem as soon as it takes office. In its proposals to reform the railways, the party says: “A resource-led, viable timetable will be devised, agreed with the secretary of state, and implemented at speed to tackle train crew management, timetabling, and service delivery issues.”
If the jargon in that pledge seems hard to decipher, don’t worry. In a national newspaper this week, an unnamed “senior rail source” offered a helpful translation. “Everyone in the rail industry knows what that [pledge] means,” claimed the source. “It means reduced services.”
Or, to put it even more simply: Labour will prevent trains from being cancelled – by not running the trains in the first place.
What an ingenious solution. Its logic is irrefutable. In fact, if I were Sir Keir Starmer, I’d be tempted to take this logic further. Instead of merely reducing services, run no services at all. Then there would never be any cancellations, or for that matter any delays. A spotless record.
Of course, if such an approach goes down well, Labour could easily extend it to other areas. For example, GP appointments and NHS operations. “Mr Speaker, under the Tories, life-saving operations used to get postponed all the time. Not any more!”
Come to think of it, this may also be the answer to the woes besetting Co-op Live. As a result of ongoing “technical issues”, the opening night of Manchester’s major new concert venue has been repeatedly delayed, meaning that several big events have had to be rescheduled or cancelled.
I suggest that the people in charge of Co-op Live take a leaf out of Labour’s book. Simply demolish the building. Then they’ll never have to postpone a concert 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
