Jottings
with proceeds going to a charity opposed
to Female Genital Mutilation.
However, when she turned up on the
agreed date, March 6, she was told her
speech had been cancelled and the
lecture hall was empty. It’s the latest
example of “no-platforming,” described
as a form of student boycott where a
person or an organisation is denied a
platform to speak.
The National Union of Students
established the practice in the 70s to
deny a voice to speakers considered to
be fascist or racist. However, the policy
has always attracted criticism from those
who consider it to be a form of
censorship.
So why was Ms Rudd no-platformed?
Because of her links to the Windrush
scandal in which Britons of Caribbean
heritage were wrongly deported from
the UK.
However, that is only part of the story
because although she resigned over the
issue, she was later exonerated by a
Whitehall inquiry which found she had
been badly advised by civil servants. In
addition, as a former minister for
Women and Equalities, Amber Rudd is
passionate about encouraging women
who want to make a difference in the
corridors of power. She was invited to
speak by the university’s UN Women’s
Society who, apparently remarkably
ignorant of the facts, then uninvited her
just 30 minutes before she was due to
speak. Ms Rudd described their action as
“rude” and told the Society to “stop
hiding and start engaging.”
The incident brought condemnation
from politicians from all sides. The
general reaction was summed up by
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the present Leader of
the House of Commons, who wrote,
“Free speech is the bedrock of a
democracy and Oxford University ought
to lead the way rather than being
snowflake central.”
And talking of snowflakes, new evidence
has come to light of their arrival on
Earth from a different planet. A survey
of 4,200 Britons aged between 25 and 39
has found that 62 per cent do not know
how to use an iron.
The study by Clear It Waste, a London-
based rubbish disposal firm, concluded
that snowflakes simply melt away when
asked to press a shirt because they can’t
understand the settings - and don’t know
whether or not to press the button
marked “steam.”
25
In addition, nearly half said they found it
difficult to change a duvet cover. Anyone
tell them that they’re not supposed to do
both things at the same time?
What we missed
In the middle of an international health
crisis, one could be forgiven for missing
a number of recent news stories which
would otherwise have grabbed world
headlines. Your Jottings team is pleased
to be able to bring you up to date with a
couple.
First, the British are very good at
protecting those icons which shout
“Britishness” from being tampered with
in any way. So it is with The Wombles
who taught a generation of children
about environmental issues long before
Greta Thunberg was even a twinkle in
her father’s eye.
For those too young to remember, The
Wombles were the animated stars of a
children’s TV series screened between
1973 and 1975, narrated by Bernard
Cribbins. They first appeared in a series
of books by Elizabeth Beresford who
wrote about a group of creatures who
lived in burrows on Wimbledon
Common and who collected and
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