NOW here’s an interesting question. Will the House of Lords be able to halt the march of the self-named Great Ginger Growler? Can she possibly be stopped?
The Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner (the GGG to the rest of us), is hoping her Employment Rights Bill will escape the second chamber unscathed.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s Employment Rights Bill has a very disturbing part – the Banter Ban[/caption]

The law might mean stewards kicking people out of football matches if they say something like: ‘Ref, are you blind?’[/caption]

People might also be banned from talking about contentious subjects such as migrants arriving on dinghies[/caption]
There’s some good stuff in the bill. On zero-hours contracts and the like.
But one part of it is very disturbing. That’s the Banter Ban — the law which says that staff must never have to hear anything which might offend them.
Once again, it’s an assault on freedom of speech.
It might mean, for example, that people might be banned from talking about contentious subjects down the pub. In case it offends the bar staff.
Stuff like transgender issues, or migrants coming over in dinghies.
According to Lord Young, it might also mean stewards kicking people out of football matches if they say something like: “Ref, are you blind?” Or indeed: “Ref, are you transitioning?”
Pubs are where we go to talk about contentious subjects, after all.
And you can’t really enjoy a football match unless you have had a go at the ref. The truth is there’s almost nothing we’re allowed to shout at a football match any longer.
We have to behave as if we’re at the bloody Royal Opera House. This will be the final nail in the coffin.
Games will be played in near silence. Just like they are at Arsenal already.
But that’s not the only implication.
It means that chippy employees might be very quick to take offence and complain that they heard something rude and so the customer should be thrown out.
Bridge too far
To see what I mean, read the following from some bloke on a social media site commenting on the Banter Ban. It was posted yesterday.
“Having worked retail, this sounds like it’ll finally kill off the ‘customer’s always right’ nonsense that means middle management will give freebies to arseholes.
“This wording sounds like they have a duty to tell them to f*** off now, and companies will have to back their staff rather than twatty customers.” Charming, no? But you see what I mean.
And here’s the thing. Nobody has a right to never be offended.
My own view is that everybody should be greatly offended at least once each day. But maybe that’s just me.
We shouldn’t have laws that protect people from hearing things they don’t want to hear.
First, because it is a grotesque imposition on freedom of speech.
Second, because we are all made of sterner stuff than that, surely?
Are we really the sort of people who would go sobbing to the Old Bill because we heard someone suggest that maybe there are a few too many immigrants in the country?
Labour says it won’t be banning banter. It will instead be banning “harassment”.
But I’m not sure there’s a clear distinction between the two.
And if there is, I’m fairly certain the police won’t understand it.
We have lost so much freedom of expression this century. This is a bridge too far.
Let’s hope their lordships tell the GGG to about-march.
TIME TO SHOW METTLE

The Government has nationalised our last remaining steel blast furnaces, in Scunthorpe[/caption]
SOME good news – the Government has effectively nationalised our last remaining steel blast furnaces, in Scunthorpe.
That will protect jobs. And allow us to make our own steel.
As Keir Starmer said, this is also a national security issue.
It was always a madness to let a Chinese company run such a vital part of British manufacturing.
Just as it was madness to let the Chinese have an involvement in our nuclear plants.
But those decisions were all taken when we had an incredibly naive view of globalisation.
We thought national security didn’t matter.
And we also didn’t mind that we were no longer manufacturing ANYTHING by ourselves.
Luckily, this view is diminishing among even the dimmest politicians.
Oh, and while we’re talking about dim politicians, let’s remember that the Scunthorpe steel plant has been forced to import costly foreign coking coal because the likes of Net Zero loon Ed Miliband won’t let us dig our own here.
RUBLE’S ON ROLL

Rather worryingly, the strongest currency in the world right now is the Russian ruble[/caption]
NOW here’s a poser for you. What, right now, is the world’s best-performing currency.
I’ll give you a clue. It’s not the Pound Sterling. And it certainly isn’t the euro, still less the dollar.
Were you tempted to answer the yuan? Well, it’s not that either.
Rather worryingly, the strongest currency in the world right now is the Russian ruble.
Yes, after all those sanctions. And three years of war.
The sad fact is that being at war can actually grow an economy – despite the country’s sky-high interest rates.
And Putin is laughing his head off.
WOMAN SENSE, AT LAST

At long last some of our institutions are beginning to live in the real world, after the Supreme Court concluded that there are two sexes[/caption]
THANK the Lord! Our Supreme Court has concluded that there are two sexes, male and female.
And that a “woman” is an adult female. Not a bloke with a pair of breasts stapled on the front.
It is almost beyond belief that such an obvious scientific fact should be debated in the law courts.
But that is the consequence of the deranged trans-activists and their sponsors, such as the odious Stonewall, of course, demanding ever more flights from reality.
The next thing to do is get rid of gender recognition certificates.
These allow trans men and women to live under a delusion that they actually ARE the sex they want to be.
They are bits of paper that lie to the world.
And lie to the people who hold them.
At long last some of our institutions are beginning to live in the real world.
Even some of the judges.
SO, the Stone Age Islamist savage Hashem Abedi is back in the news.
He’s the brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, and was jailed for a minimum 55 years after being convicted of murdering 22 people after helping to plan the attack.
Last week, he launched a vicious attack against three guards, including throwing boiling cooking oil over them and using homemade knives.
The question is why this moronic thug was given so many special privileges while banged up.
A stove to cook on and cutlery? Nah. Give him cold food only and make him eat with his hands.
For the next 50 years. He deserves no better.
ISLE BE DAMNED
I HOPE you weren’t thinking of going to the Maldives this summer.
Paradise, my arse. Just sand and tepid water and the occasional palm tree.
I’d rather take a holiday in Syria.
Anyway, I think we should boycott the place.
This Muslim nation is now banning anyone from Israel from visiting.
Ok, you do that. And hopefully your trade in the West will dry up.
KATY’S BACK DOWN TO EARTH WITH A GRUMP

Katy Perry has been criticised for that Blue Origin jaunt[/caption]

But of course she doesn’t care about the bloody environment, you deluded saps[/caption]
CAN you imagine anything worse than being sent up in a spaceship with Katy Perry? Especially if she started singing.
Which she did during that Blue Origin jaunt with its hideously right-on passenger list.
Perry has been criticised for taking the flight.
“We thought you cared about the environment!” came the massed bleating.
Of course she doesn’t care about the bloody environment, you deluded saps.
She just says she does because that is what you’re meant to say when you’re a sleb. She doesn’t mean it – none of them do.