Columnists From England

"[On the media's short attention span] This is no longer anything to do with me at all. It's about the 60,000 women's voices and the strength of those stories. Regardless of whether someone wants to interview me next week, it doesn't matter at all as long as people are still fighting."

"[In the late 1990s] But the conversations we had then were whether or not it was feminist to wear fishnets. There was never any subtext of violence against women. By the late 00s, lad-mag controversies were of a completely different nature. Danny Dyer had an agony uncle column in Zoo that he used to advise a reader to cut his ex's face to stop anyone else wanting her. Other advice was to set fire to a readers's girlfriend’s pubic hair that he didn't like. These were ghostwritten and as such can only really speak to the new mood in lad-mags, but two things had changed. One was a complete normalisation of violence against women and the other was a void where the humour used to be. The norm had been flipped: the argument in the 90s, that anything was fair game so long as it was funny, had turned into: "Anything is allowable, so long as I say it is funny.""

"Later, they were both part of the metropolitan elite, or, as we used to call them, "Londoners"."

"It's an extremely peculiar situation, if you come at it cold: neither the Labour leader, nor any of his shadow cabinet, can get through a broadcast interview without being asked who has a penis and who has a vagina. Why, at this moment of both national and international crisis, has the media decided that the most important question for a party that hasn't been in government for 12 years, is a hypothetical one about genitals?"

"[On a couple's engagement] As for the man asking "permission" from the bride's father, one friend expressed my thoughts exactly: "If I'm going to get married, I sure as hell want to be the first to know about it.""

"Ultimately, if Greer is saying we need to take rape less seriously, she needn't worry … society is already doing a pretty great job of that all by itself."

"[On changing surnames on marriage] We wrangled back and forth over this – he would have been happy to take my surname, but already had a friend with the identical name. Would that be weird? We dismissed double barrels. We considered the new trend for combining the two names into a hybrid – this worked for friends with the surnames Sand and Smith (giving them the magical-sounding Sandsmith). But neither Baylor nor Tates has quite the same romantic ring. Of course, the simple thing is to keep one's own name and get on with it. But for me there was something meaningful about making a shift in our official identities. Eventually, my fiance came up with a simple solution: we'd each take the other's surname as an extra middle name, leaving our surnames unchanged. Problem solved. (Until, as my mum pointed out, we might have to think about what surname to use for any children, but hey, we'll need something to talk about once we're married.)"

"[Definition by Bates of Everyday Sexism as published om the project website in 2014] To prove how the steady drip-drip-drip of sexism and sexualisation and objectification is connected to the assumption of ownership and control over women’s bodies, and how the background noise of harassment and disrespect connects to the assertion of power that is violence and rape."

"The repulsive Paul Gadd — or Gary Glitter — as I cannot bring myself to call him because of its frivolous connotations says he wants police protection because some "nutter" might kill him. I'm not sure how much of a nutter one would have to be to want to kill Gadd, a convicted paedophile with a penchant for small girls. Most rational people would find it quite acceptable if he were to be taken out and shot in the back of the head, and will be regretting that he came through his three years in a Vietnamese jail in quite such good shape. I am not for a moment suggesting that anyone outraged by the existence of Gadd, or who fears for their own children when this man is loose on British soil, should take the law into his own hands. I do, though, fail to see how making him sign the sex offenders' register is going to make the blindest bit of difference. The police have better things to do than to protect this piece of filth. The only reason why they should stick close to him, though, is to keep him away from our children."

"[R]epulsive shagger ... Liddle, by the way, is the Michael Winner or Jeremy Clarkson of political journalism – all bluster and no balls. The idea of an articulate woman being in charge of the country for a whole seven days is enough to give chaps like him sleepless nights. What is the world coming to."

"[T]his is the cover story of the Spectator magazine. We're back in the schoolyard – or is it the brothel? Again. I wouldn't usually bother spitting the words "Rod Liddle". It is like being angry at cows – tempting, but pointless."

"Rod Liddle might have given a new Independent impetus. Now, if Lebedev gets his prize, he should make every effort to retain [[w:Roger Alton|[Roger] Alton]]. He might start by expressing regret for permitting his representatives to advertise the prospect of a Liddle editorship before the deal was done. An apology should be offered to Liddle as well. He did not ruin his own chances of editing the Independent. That was done by the people behind a viciously intolerant campaign of liberal bigotry."

"Then, later, after his father has died alone in a care home, notes that nearly no one attended the funeral. If our dreadful generation is to blame for the bored, fat kids of today, then why aren't the Liddles Snr responsible for their terribly unhappy son? Never mind the bombast, Liddle’s pessimism about the rest of us is actually pessimism about himself. His Golden Age is bleak, his best is blown, his future is death. A panic attack is mistaken for a heart attack. The grey in his hair can no longer be disguised by Grecian 2000. He longs to be 16 and rebellious again, but doesn't seem to have had a new idea for a decade. Now all he can do is rage, rage against the dyeing of the white."

"The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who is 5ft 6in tall, has been accused of using bullying behaviour with regard to her civil servants. Nowhere near enough bullying behaviour in my book."

"We will rue the day we all decided bullying was a bad thing. The consequence is that the inept, the imbecilic and the perpetually frit will hang on to their jobs and we will become a much less efficient country. By bullying I do not mean physically beating someone up and stealing their lunch money, which is what it used to mean when it had a proper meaning. I mean telling someone they're useless and deserve to be sacked, which is what bullying means today."

"Exciting news from Durham University, which is helping its students to become "sex workers". This noble institution is offering two courses in the various forms of harlotry. My only concern is that at present they do not actually offer an academic qualification in these subjects — at the very least an undergraduate degree in, say, Practical Whoring. Perhaps followed by an MA in Deconstructing the Topless Hand-Shandy1897-1913. Such courses would probably result in more lucrative career opportunities than many of the more traditional subjects which students pay through the nose to study. I am attending a dinner at Durham University next month and fervently hope that some of the ambitious young ladies on these courses will be in attendance."

"Men, too, have to give serious thought to what they want to be in this bewildering social landscape. Liddle says, "Men always want other women", and although I can't know what it is like to have one's entire being dominated by the twitches and spasms of uncontrollable manhood, is he content to be thus defined? Can such men comprehend the need to create a new masculinity and fatherhood where consistency and contentment matter more than lust?"

"According to her allies, Priti Patel is about to "go off like a shotgun", which should keep us all entertained a while longer, as long as the shotgun is this time pointed in the right direction, rather than at her own head. Someone tell the woman: turn the gun around; those two holes you’re staring at are where the pellets come out. Pull the trigger now and you'll be a far less Priti Patel. I suppose, pointed in the right direction, a shotgun might do a bit of good. Theresa May's government resembles a dog with a broken back, dragging its tail in the sea; you shield your eyes from watching its dying spasms, block your ears from the pitiful whining, yearning that it might soon be put out of its misery."

"The liberals believe this is another pitch from Boris [Johnson] to the right wing of the Conservative party and that the Islamophobia within the Conservative party is every bit as corrosive as the anti-Semitism within Labour. My own view is that there is not nearly enough Islamophobia within the Tory party."

"I seriously contemplated being a teacher once upon a time, when I was lot younger. ... I never found out because the one thing stopping me from being a teacher was that I could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids. It seemed to me virtually impossible not to, and I was convinced that I'd be right in there, on day one. We're talking secondary school level here, by the way — and even then I don’t think I'd have dabbled much below year ten, as it is now called. I just thought we ought to clear that up early on."

"As it happens, I think Galloway has a point. ... Meanwhile the ambassador who went a bit mental, Craig Murray, decided to go on Newsnight and actually NAME one of the women accusing Assange. What a radical act. He was of course slapped down by presenter Gavin Esler."

"But for sure, what Mr Forrest did was wrong. I suspect — and it is only a guess — that thousands of teachers up and down the land conduct sexual relationships with their older charges and that in most cases no harm comes of it."

"Anjem [Choudary] and I fervently agree on one important issue, though. He has urged British Islamists to leave the country and blow themselves up. Me too. Actually, I don't really mind if they don't leave the country, so long as they blow themselves up — somewhere a decent distance from where the rest of us live. Tower Hamlets, for example."

"As it happens, I disagree with Boris. Postboxes are bright red and bank robbers traditionally wear tights over their faces. I think they look more like Darth Vader. If you are an unpleasant person who enjoys rather macabre entertainment, wander down to Mile End and watch the women in the full burka trying to cross the A11. That's always good for a laugh. Almost as good is watching them take selfies. I mean, what's the point?"

"What on earth is the government going to do about all these deranged northerners running amok shooting people? The more callous among you might well argue that it doesn't really matter, as these madmen are only shooting other northerners, and so it is therefore none of our business. Perhaps. But there is no guarantee that the next deranged northerner will not get on a train, if he can afford it, and start shooting at us, instead. This is the thing; you simply cannot tell with nutters, there is no logic to their mayhem."

"To tell you the truth I thought the "Auschwitz Experience" had been devalued by the people who run it to the point where I think it deserves taking the p*** out of ... it's set up as a politically correct tourist attraction, sort of Hitlerworld."

"A small yield nuclear weapon, such as the American W89, dropped on Glastonbury in late June would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying. You would see a marked reduction in the keffiyeh klan, for a start, and all those middle-class Extinction Rebellion protestors would find, in a nanosecond, that their rebellion was pointless, because extinction had arrived even more summarily than they expected. Go on, glue yourselves to that, Poppy and Oliver."

"I am not saying that we should do this, of course – it would be a horrible, psychopathic thing to do. I am merely hypothesising, in a slightly wistful kinda way."

"I found the reaction shocking. And then I suppose I came to the conclusion - gradually - that I must have got it wrong. [...] I thought for a long time that in the context of The Spectator it was fine and that people who read The Spectator would know it was a joke and that there was a point behind the joke as well."

"A national newspaper edited by an iconoclast determined to challenge the tyranny of the liberal metropolitan elite would have been a real addition to the national conversation, not least because Liddle's challenge would have come from the left."

"Her only policy, her only raison d'être, is a particularly vacuous feminism dating from a sixth-form common room in about 1973. Were this a serious commitment and grounded in reality, one might respect her for it and even agree. But it never is grounded in reality. It is the perpetual shrieking of an idiot."

"So — Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober. The alcohol is sloshing around inside your brain, you’ve enjoyed a post-pub doner kebab together and maybe some grilled halloumi (a woman’s right to cheese) and she suggests, as you stand inside the frowsy minicab office: fancy going south, big boy? (I don’t know for sure that she’d use the term ‘big boy’; this is largely hypothetical stuff, you understand.)"

"I went a year or so back. F***ing outrageous that you can't smoke in Auschwitz. I had to sneak round the back of the gas chambers for a crafty snout."

"[George Galloway's comments on the alleged rape victims of Julian Assange in August 2012] [T]hose women were not "raped", he says of the accusations against Assange; calling that sort of thing rape diminishes the concept of rape — it was just "bad sexual etiquette"."

"If you have a student son or daughter who's thinking of voting, shove some high grade skunk under their bedroom door the day before the poll. You can lace the skunk with horse tranquilisers if you wish — do anything, just stop them voting. Pay them not to vote, or organise a rave with bangin' choons for polling day. It is your duty — and the kids will thank you for it in about ten years' time, when a semblance of sentience has established itself inside their heads."

"No matter how vile we may consider the sexual predilections of paedophiles, we should not be in the business of putting people in prison for simply looking at things. The law should be above the blind, howling, rage of Rebekah Wade's moronic vigilantes. But there is the whiff of Salem about it all."

"This is just a guess, but maybe you are reading this as you wait on a station platform for a train that is 30 minutes late ... And you may, therefore - understandably - have forgotten why you voted Labour in 1997. But then you catch a glimpse of the forces supporting the Countryside Alliance: the public schools that laid on coaches; the fusty, belch-filled dining rooms of the London clubs that opened their doors, for the first time, to the protesters; the Prince of Wales and, of course, Camilla ... and suddenly, rather gloriously, it might be that you remember once again."

"[On an exclusive organisation for Swingers based in South-East England] Believe me, [[w:Dougie Smith|[Dougie] Smith]] and his fellow Fever workers are not remotely embarrassed by their line of employment. They are positively evangelistic about it – and not simply for financial reasons. A couple who choose to attend a Fever Party will dissolve the sexual tension and emotional jealousy which bedevils and destroys so many relationships. That insane craving for sexual différence ... can be a most malign force: it breaks up families, it costs the Exchequer lots of money, it causes havoc. Why not have it rigorously assuaged in a pleasant, controlled environment with other, like-minded people?"

"We had this row and we were shouting at each other. I said, "Well, phone the police", and she said she would. I thought she was only joking. She didn't talk to them, just hung up. An hour later the coppers got here. She begged them to go away, but they wouldn't."

"Nothing terrifies or disgusts us more than paedophilia. It is fashionable to argue that the reason there seems to be so much of it about is that, actually, we're simply more aware of the problem than we used to be. Partly, this is true. But there may be more of it about anyway. The more profound the taboo, the greater will be the drive among some to transgress."

"My own choice of election date would be a day when universities are closed and Muslims are forbidden to do anything on pain of hell, or something. There must be at least one day like that in the Muslim calendar, surely? That would deliver at least 40 seats to the Tories, I reckon."

"I'm so furious and upset about it [...] If I'd had enough spine I would have said no to the caution. They couldn't have charged me."

"During the recent Tory leadership election, one of Boris Johnson’s emissaries struggled to defend his candidate’s erroneous claim about free trade under Gatt 24. After Barnett had conclusively exposed Johnson’s falsehood, he stuttered: "I don't believe he is incorrect." With deadpan scorn, she flashed back: "Because you don't believe facts?" To David Bull, a newly elected Brexit Party MEP who had complained on Twitter about his scandalous discovery that the journey to Strasbourg was quite long, she asked: "Did you not look up how you might get to the European parliament?" "Weirdly," he admitted, "it did not really cross my mind.""

"I can see why so many politicians are in for a shock when they come on Barnett's show. The cool ease with which she can segue from convivial to confrontational is quite unnerving."

"[On suffering from endometriosis] My body's been such an instrument of torture."

"I personally found the first few months of motherhood discombobulating, knackering, joyous, emotional, frustrating and quite frankly odd."

"But I didn't want to move on. Not for a long while. I had formed a relationship with our baby, daring to map out a little of our future together. But beyond medical forms, conversations with my stunned and deeply saddened husband, my texts to people about our loss and my memories of such a bond, there was nothing else to show the whole episode happened. Like millions of women before me, the baby lived within me and died within me. My body and mind were the keeper and witness."

"My grandmother escaped the Nazis from Wiener Neustadt in Austria and found sanctuary as a housemaid in this country. My husband's grandmother survived unspeakable torture in Auschwitz. In Europe. A two-hour flight from here. I've been. He won't. He can't bear to. Our grandmothers, who read us bedtime stories safe in our beds in this country, this happened to them – people I met and loved. Only two weeks ago, I opened Twitter on my phone and saw "Jewish privilege" trending. Do you know how that feels? Do you how frightening that is? I have had my fair share of abuse online, much of it sexist or politically charged. But the one form of hate that always stops me in my tracks and makes me feel angry and sad and burned? Antisemitism."

"My experience of periods is extreme because of my endometriosis. But while most women don't have a specific condition, they still often feel grim at that time of the month, require painkillers, need to access the loo more often and may suffer headaches, backache, sweatier brows and the squits."

"Beginning IVF can be like walking into a high-stakes casino. From the moment you first place a bet, submitting those first bloods or semen samples, you are hooked. Excitement, hope, long odds and croupiers in white coats keep you coming back for more. A tweak of meds here, a change of diet there, the rush of the pregnancy test after weeks of needles and pills, and then the massive low of the single blue line. It all leaves you vowing you will never, ever gamble again."