A pregnant feminist MP and the death of British courtesy

Simple courtesies: A spokesman for Equalities Minister Jo Swinson insisted it would have been offensive and patronising for any fellow MPs to offer her a seat in the Commons simply because she was a pregnant woman

The Commons chamber during Prime Minister's Questions is one of the least civilised places at the best of times. Packed with hundreds of MPs, crushed together like rush hour commuters, they bawl at each other as if it's a second division football stadium, not the cradle of democracy.

It's hot, smelly and humid - hardly the most pleasant of conditions for anyone, let alone a woman who is seven months pregnant.

Yet this week, not one person offered heavily pregnant Equalities Minister Jo Swinson their seat, obliging her to stand throughout.

Even more astonishingly, a spokesman for Miss Swinson later insisted it would have been offensive and patronising if anyone had.

'The idea that just because she is seven months pregnant she has lost all ability to stand on her own two feet or fend for herself is quite sexist,' said a source close to her.

It's hard to know which is the more depressing insight into the mindset of our MPs: the rudeness of those who didn't offer Ms Swinson a seat or the political correctness of those who deem it insulting if they had.

Only in Westminster could you find such a sorry mix of discourtesy, insensitivity and perversity - proving once again how disconnected MPs are from the values of ordinary Britons.

Ever the politician, Miss Swinson quickly rowed back when she saw the backlash on Twitter and said: 'About to get on the Tube - seat offers welcome & definitely not sexist.'

It would be a brave person who took the risk. Better to look the other way than risk offending the sisterhood.

Which is why, I suggest, many don't bother to be considerate - they're too timid or too selfish to show simple common courtesies.

And it's not just heavily pregnant women who end up paying the price. My friend's 80-year-old mother was visiting me this week.

The disabled cab she was travelling in stopped outside my house in a tiny street in North London to allow her to get out.

Within seconds a woman in a massive 4x4 was hooting her horn and screaming at her to get out of the way.

An older gentleman in a car also spewed out a barrage of abuse, claiming he, too, was disabled and could not wait even a few minutes.

I have lived in Britain for 27 years and one of the things I loved most was its courtesy and consideration for others. But if even our political masters can't demonstrate such qualities, what hope is there left?

Brian May says his campaign to save the badger is like the fight to end slavery. Indeed. The statue of William Wilberforce in Westminster Abbey should be taken down and replaced with one of the Queen guitarist immediately!

Great to see Kate out and about again since the birth of baby George in July, playing volleyball at the Olympic Park in towering wedges. Some will be astonished at how quickly she's lost her baby weight. She even squeezed into her famously well-cut J Brand skinny jeans, known for giving women a sleek silhouette. As if Kate, of all people, needed a helping hand in that department.

Partying: Sally Bercow, wife of the Commons Speaker John Bercow, was photographed tumbling out of a taxi before dancing in the street after a champagne party

Just how low can Mrs Bercow go?

Just when you think Sally Bercow can't sink any lower, she unfailing proves you wrong. Celebrity Big Brother . . . a bizarre friendship with Big Fat Gypsy star Paddy Doherty . . . a couple of 'tramp stamp' tattoos . . . and then subjecting her five-year-old daughter Jemima to a tacky TV show, during which the child broke down in tears three times.

This week, 'Sally the Alley' was back to her old tricks, photographed flashing her Spanx as she tumbled out of a taxi and danced in the street after a champagne party, looking more like a drunken tart on a Club 18-30 hen night than the wife of the Commons Speaker.

Can no one save this troubled woman from herself - if only for the sake of her three young children?

Sharing the stage: Tess Daly (left) pictured with fellow presenter Claudia Winkleman (right) who is filling in for Bruce Forsyth on Strictly Come Dancing

Strictly Come Dancing presenter Tess Daly insists Bruce Forsyth is here to stay, despite concerns about his age and his no-show due to flu.



Could her devotion to Brucie have anything to do with her fear of his stand-in, clever, sassy Claudia Winkleman, who made Tess look more plastic than a Barbie doll?

Or is she keeping the spot warm for her husband Vernon Kay? At least that will give him less free time to sex-text other women.

Bottom of class

Perhaps the most depressing story of the week was that thousands of teachers went out on strike yet again, with their unions threatening more industrial action into the New Year.

Their main gripe is that Education Secretary Michael Gove wants to link their salaries to performance and to get rid of bad teachers.

Quite right, too. The former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, said there were as many as 15,000 teachers who are failing our children.

Yet over the past 40 years only 18 have been sacked for incompetence.



In what other business would such widescale failure be tolerated?

It's no wonder that our young adults are officially among the most innumerate and illiterate in the industrialised world.

Trudie Styler (left) and husband Sting believe they are treated unfairly by the British press

Sting's wife Trudie Styler says she prefers the U.S. to the UK, as the couple are treated 'unkindly' here. She refuses to talk about the break-up of Sting's previous marriage to Frances Tomelty, saying: 'It exposes too many people whose privacy should be respected.' Well, that's one way of covering up the fact that she stole her best friend's husband!

A brillian t interview by Radio 5 Live's Victoria Derbyshire with ex-con Vicky Pryce revealed a bitter, brittle woman utterly unrepentant and without a shred of humility. She did succeed in one thing, though. Making us all understand why her husband Chris Huhne left her in the first place.

How creepy of Gordon Ramsay to secretly install a spy camera in his 15-year-old daughter's bedroom, to make sure she's revising and see what she gets up to with her boyfriend. Being a father to a teenage girl requires patience, guidance, discipline and (crucially) trust on both sides. Playing peeping Tom isn't going to help one jot.

Fat chancers

After an edict went out to doctors to show respect to obese people so as not to hurt their feelings, Dr Max Pemberton argued in the Mail that it is a GP's duty to tell patients the truth. 'If you're fat, eat less, exercise more, or both. Obesity is not an illness, but a mindset,' he said. Quite right. And isn't it odd that fatties get special pleading for abusing their bodies, while no one says we should be 'respectful' to smokers or drug users who also bleed the NHS dry.

When police accused Andrew Mitchell of calling them 'plebs', most people believed them. Who wouldn't take the word of a bobby on the beat over that of an MP? Now it is revealed that - at best - the police were being utterly disingenuous and - at worst - plotted to destroy the career of a Cabinet minister in revenge for the Government's plans to rein in police forces' eye-watering perks and pensions. I was among the many who took the word of the police over Mitchell's, a man I have known for many years. I apologise to him and his wife Sharon - but it's the police who owe him the greatest apology of all.



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