Am I missing something here? The Telegraph is getting it’s gender-specific underwear in a twist over nothing, isn’t it?
The first part of this, frankly, piss poor piece starts of invoking Orwell, by claiming the government is changing the meaning of the words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ to make them interchangeable…
Civil servants have overruled the Oxford English Dictionary and hundreds years of common usage effectively abolishing the traditional meaning of the words for spouses.
[…]
It comes as part of a Government initiative to “clarify” what words will mean when gay marriage becomes law.
But critics described it as the vocabulary of “cloud cuckoo land”.
It follows claims by opponents of the redefinition of marriage that universally understood terms such as father and mother might be simply deleted by bureaucrats on official forms.
That would be fucking mad, wouldn’t it? How can the government just get rid of words? That’s just downright, er, erm, Orwellian!
Fear not, dear reader. We now move into the second part of the article where some sense is spoken, but not very clearly, if anyone got that far past the outrage just gushing out from the page.
Instead officials have decided to allow the words for the spouses to be used interchangeably for people of either gender in some contexts.
You see? “Some contexts”. The Telegraph gives an example…
The guidance gives the example of some early health and safety legislation drafted in 1963 which includes a range of exemptions for family businesses where the terms husbands and wives will mean people of either gender.
“This means that ‘husband’ here will include a man or a woman in a same sex marriage, as well as a man married to a woman,” it says.
“In a similar way, ‘wife’ will include a woman married to another woman or
a man married to a man.
“The result is that this section is to be construed as including both male and female same sex marriage.”
Yet it then goes on to say that in future legislation the traditional male-only meaning of husband and female-only understanding of wife could make a comeback – but not in all cases.
“The term ‘husband’ will in future legislation include a man who is married to another man (but not a woman in a marriage with another woman),” it adds, confusingly.
“And ‘wife’ will include a woman who is married to another woman (but not a man married to another man) unless specific alternative provision is made.”
Er, yeah. That is confusing. It would be much easier to say in existing legislation, ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ can be interchangeable depending on the circumstances, and the people the legislation applies to, which will not be a problem to devine
In future legislation a ‘husband’ is a married man and a ‘wife’ is a married woman, irrespective of what gender their spouse is.
See? That’s not so hard is it? It doesn’t quite fit the agenda of needlessly restricting who can marry who to fit some outdated bigotry, though.
Nadine Dorries is to stop claiming personal parliamentary expenses to avoid being further ‘targeted’ by investigations.
Speaking exclusively to the Times & Citizen, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire revealed that she will forego around £3,040 a month in expenses including cash for Westminster accommodation, council tax, travel costs and meals.
She said: “For me the problem is the moment I put my head above the parapet and campaigned to have the abortion limit reduced from 24 weeks to 20 I became a target.”
Well, yes wanting to be more restrictive on abortion is one of the reasons Dorries gets a load of shit, and it’s not just the time limit that she want’s introduced that’s got peoples hackles up, but her proposed restriction on who can give counselling that would see many non-religious, pro-choice organisations excluded and the only choice many women would have would be to receive counselling by anti-abortion organisations.
But the reason Dorries keeps getting her expenses investigated is not because of her views on abortion, it’s her attitude to claiming them. See Ministy of Truth here or really just enter into the search box of the site “nadine dorries“.
She added: “Even though I’m completely innocent it’s tough for my office staff because they are the ones who are responsible for compliance.
“Every time there is an investigation it goes on for months and I can’t keep putting them through it.
We shall have to see if Dorries is completely innocent or not, but an appeal for everyone to stop reporting her not-so-straight-forward-expenses reporting would be a nice touch, if she didn’t keep giving IPSA reason to investigate her.
The only person able to stop the ivestigations if Dorries herself.
“I’ve had to take this decision it’s been horrible to see how stressed they have been, even though the investigations always fully cleared me.”
She said: “I feel that the best thing to do is to remove all claims and I’m lucky because I’ve got personal support and can do that. I’ve got a great partner.”
She added: “I’m going to work for free, I have to live in Bedfordshire because it’s what my constituents expect from me, but as I sit on and chair committees I have to have accommodation in Westminster.”
Another, fairly major sleight of hand there, as she won’t be working for free, being paid nothing. She will still get the £65k-ish salary. But not claiming expenses is not the thing to do. Dorries here, knows she’s going to get her knuckles rapped. She may not get a proper bollocking, but she knows it looks bad and so instead of looking at why her expenses look so bad and trying to organise things better, she’s trying to make herself a matyr.
Fair enough. If she doesn’t want her expenses, fine. She’ll be the one to lose out.
While we’re talking about Dorries’ salary, she did promise to donate to charity her salary for the time she spent in the jungle on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!. She was on it for 12 days which works out at about £2,100 -ish.
I don’t think I need to add anything more to the following from Johnny Void (although it is my emphasis)…
From October this year [Employment Support Allowance] claimants will not be able to appeal against a ‘fit for work’ decision until they have first requested a ‘mandatory reconsideration’ by a DWP decision maker. Only if the claimant disagrees with this decision will they be able to take an appeal to a benefit tribunal. This process is likely to take months.
A recent response to an FOI request (PDF) confirms that claimants will not be able to claim ESA whilst waiting for this process to be completed. The DWP say that claimants will instead have the: “option of applying for alternative benefits, such as Jobseekers Allowance, however they must meet the conditions of entitlement”.
One of the key conditions of entitlement for Jobseekers Allowance (JSA) – the benefit for those unemployed not unwell – is that the claimants is able to work.
This will mean that those appealing an ESA decision and claiming Jobseekers Allowance will be placed in a potentially fraudulent position. They will be appealing an ESA decision based on the fact they do not believe themselves able to work, and will be claiming JSA based on a claim that they are able to work.
