A Labour MP has distanced herself from her mother’s call for a book burning of best-selling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey. Clare Phillipson, the director of a woman’s charity and mother of Sunderland South MP Bridget, frothed:
“Our concern is not the graphic depiction of sex – this is an abusive relationship presented as a love story. It normalises abuse, degrades women and encourages sexual violence. There is lots of abuse in the book, not just sexual abuse. Do millions and millions of women suffer from secret self-loathing? Do they all want to be treated this badly? Some of what happens in the book, Fred West did to his victims in his cellar. I fail to see what is erotic about that.”
Phillipson went on to refute the obvious comparisons:
“There’s an assumption that Nazis are the only people who burn books. What we are saying is, this book is rubbish and we would like to reduce it to ashes.”
When Guido spoke to Bridget about her mum’s S&M shocker, the Labour MP refused to be tied down by her parents’ strict views:
@MrHarryCole of course I don't
— Bridget Phillipson (@bphillipsonMP) August 24, 2012
Ouch…
The Mirror have issued a high-minded statement explaining why they nobly decided against publishing the naked Prince Harry pics:
“The Daily Mirror took the decision not to publish the pictures of Prince Harry because we would be in clear breach of the Press Complaints Commission’s Editors’ Code of Practice, regarding intrusion of privacy, which we signed up to and we stand by that decision.”
Nothing to do with them losing the bidding war for the photos to the Sun then…
Labour MP Frank Dobson has slammed proposals from the Policy Exchange think tank to sell off expensive council houses in order to pay for cheaper social housing elsewhere. Dobson ranted:
“When we look at the social impact, we are talking about the breakdown of communities and the creation of ghettos. Parts of London will be left for rich foreign bankers and nobody else. This mad idea shows this is a government not for people but for estate agents.”
Perhaps Dobson’s vehement opposition has something to do with the fact that he lives in a £1 million council flat in a London mansion block. You could probably build five new council houses from the proceeds of selling it off…
UPDATE: It has come to Guido’s attention that Dobson also owns a posh family home in a town outside York. And yet he still scrounges a council flat off the taxpayer…
Lord Ashcroft posits that…
“Prince Harry has been blessed with a very nice bottom.”
Raids on newsrooms, journalists arrested, politicians demanding greater regulation of the press. No it’s not Britain, but rather the latest revelations surrounding the Ecuadorian government’s crackdown on the country’s media. Now President Rafael Correa has hit back, telling the Guardian that he is no worse than Lord Justice Leveson:
“We won’t tolerate abuses and crimes made every day in the name of freedom of speech. That is freedom of extortion and blackmail. Do we have an unwritten law that we can’t sue a journalist? Since when? So nobody should sue Murdoch and his partners in crime in Britain? The Ecuadorean and Latin American press is not like the European press, which has some professional ethics. They are used to being above the law, to blackmail, to extort. I am sorry about good people on an international level who defend this kind of press. The newspapers have power.”
Would-be press regulators should be careful what they wish for…
At the end of July Guido revealed how David Miliband had made the most of being pipped to the Labour leadership by joining the 1%. The banana-brandishing former Foreign Secretary has raked in half a million quid over the last year, and the lucrative deals are still lining up. Miliband was paid £14,000 for a two hour speech at Claridge’s Hotel in June, meaning he earned a staggering £116.66 per minute. Perhaps it was the best career choice after all…
