The latest mishap to hit Theresa May’s vision of Brexit tells us one fundamental truth. It’s a truth that none of us men can escape, and may be hard for us to swallow. The fact is that it’s always women who are asked to clean up after we bad boys have left a dreadful mess.
It all starts when we have just come into existence. Yes I know, it’s very trendy to talk about paternity leave and male gay couples having kids, but let’s face it, 99% of the time it’s the woman who cleans up after that little brat has just vomited all over the beautiful Persian rug in your living-room.
It’s when boys reach puberty that things really start getting out of hand, and the object of contention is the enclosed space in which your typical spotty faced adolescent seems to spend more time than is allocated by the calendar – his bedroom. I’m not even talking about the literary masterpieces that lie under the bed covers. No, this is what lies around the bed. From last month’s socks that start showing signs of life, to used paper tissues that didn’t have the decency to find their own way to the wastepaper bin. Between the bedroom door and the window, the boy’s belongings occupy a 3-dimensional space that seems to be lost in time. The worst thing is that no amount of, “come on, be a sweet boy and tidy your room,” will change the fact that all teenage boys are oblivious to mess and dirt. A boy’s bedroom is not only a no-go zone for his parents, but also for the vacuum cleaner.
There is a scientific explanation for the messiness of a boy’s bedroom. It’s a phenomenon that can be explained by entropy and the second law of thermodynamics,
Entropy is a thermodynamic quantity representing the unavailability of a system’s thermal energy for conversion into mechanical work, often interpreted as the degree of disorder or randomness in the system.The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy always increases with time.
In other words, it is a law of nature that everything in the boy’s room will turn from order to disorder, and there’s nothing women can do about it. Messiness haunts men their entire lives, and makes no distinction between intellectual capacities, social status, or wealth.
Theresa May’s speech that followed a third defeat of her withdrawal agreement was as full of pathos as it was with truth. Here was a prime minister who desperately wanted to deliver the result of a popular vote that she didn’t even ask for, hadn’t prepared for the outcome, and didn’t really believe in the solution. She has practically given up on clearing up the mess that was originally created by a male prime minister craving for power, and fuelled by 5 arrogant and irresponsible teenage boys who, between them, poured £15m into the Leave campaign costs of £24m.
Bad Boy Number 1 – Lord Robert Edmiston
Edmiston has made his fortune in the car industry, property market, and finance sectors. The combined turnover of his various companies is estimated at £500m. A more than ardent Christian Evangelist, Edmiston is the founder of Christian Vision, an organisation whose vision is to convert 1 billion people to become, “real followers of Jesus.”
Although we live in a relatively affluent region shaped by Western culture and a Christian heritage, we recognise that Europe is indeed a mission field. Therefore, our fundamental focus is to equip the Church with evangelism and discipleship resources. We work to give the whole Church its voice through a multicultural and age-diverse approach that recognises what God has done in the past while asking, ‘What can we rekindle to set a path for the future?’
As a member of the House of Lords, Edmiston opposed gay marriage which was adopted in 2013, fearing morally dangerous consequences that would follow the removal of consummation from marriage,
If there is no possibility of genetic offspring or indeed no requirement for consummation, why should not close relatives get married?
In a statement explaining his reasons for supporting the Leave campaign, Edmiston uses the classical arguments put forward by all those supporting Brexit. He criticises the EU’s lack of democracy, and interference in the day-to-day running of member-states. But do his remarks concerning freedom of movement echo the generosity of the Evangelical faith?
The free movement of people across Europe, including those who may have recently been granted resident status in another state means they are freely able to enter our country and that poses a real current threat and in the future an increasing level of threat to our security.
What is more worrying, is that for someone who is supposed to spread the Christian faith, he appears to be nostalgic for days-gone-by, especially those when Britain ruled the world – “The sun never used to set on the British Empire,” and all that.
Bad Boy Number 2- Arron Banks
Arron Banks is believed to have donated £8.4m to the Leave campaign, the largest political donation in British politics, but it is unclear from where he obtained that amount of money. He failed to satisfy us that his own donations had, in fact, come from sources within the UK. At the same time, we have evidence of Mr. Banks’ discussions with Russian Embassy contacts, including the Russian Ambassador, over potential gold and diamond deals, and the passing of confidential information by Mr Banks. – Commons Select Committee
Arron Banks like many other of the bad boys, makes his money in the City. He is by far the biggest donor to the Leave campaign and insists that the money he donated is all is own. I must admit that I’m no good with money, and it doesn’t help when dozens of companies owned by a single person have practically the same name. But even I can see that the following two comments don’t quite go together.
The money came from Rock Services, which was a UK limited company. It was generated out of insurance business written in the UK.
Rock Services is a treasury function, it just delivers the cash. It is just a service company. The actual loan came from another one of my companies…
How I just love companies that don’t make money but still make you rich and hand out money to your favourite charities!
Bad Boy Number 3 – Jeremy Hosking
In 2016, Jeremy Hosking was found guilty of discussing with fellow employees plans for a new business, whilst working at capital management company Marathon Asset. He was ordered to pay £1.38m in damages, and give back £10.4m profits he had received, in 2012. Being in one camp and helping another seems to be one of Hosking’s favourite pastimes. After having funded the Conservative party during the 2015 general election, he then donated £50.000 to the LabourLeave campaign. During the 2017 general election, Hosking targeted pro-Brexit Conservative candidates in Labour constituencies that had voted Leave but were represented by a pro-EU Labour MP.
It remains unclear why Hosking didn’t make any donations to UKip, the DUP or the Liberal Democrats! Or maybe he did and nobody knows about it.
Bad Boy Number 4 – Peter Hargreaves
The Guardian describes Peter Hargreaves as, “a modest multimillionaire, who dislikes the ostentatious display of wealth and avoids debt like the plague.” I do suppose that the former rather helps the latter. He doesn’t own sports cars or expensive overseas villas, and doesn’t spend much.
I only spend a minuscule amount of my capital, my wife likes clothes, but she doesn’t go for the top designers, and we both have amazingly modest cars
Hargreaves’ large donation (£3.2m) to the Leave.EU campaign is probably explained by the fact that he doesn’t need the EU because he grows his own vegetables. He is, indeed, a very simple man.
Bad Boy Number 5 – Crispin Odey
Crispin Odey is a man of vision. He successfully places bets on future financial crises to which he has contributed and then reaps the benefits of his “foresight.” It’s a bit like if you tamper with someone’s car brakes and then place a bet that he won’t be able to stop at the traffic lights. In 2008, Odey amassed £25m by speculating on the financial crisis that nearly brought an end to capitalism, and is also reported to have made £110m from short bets placed against the pound during the 2016 EU referendum.
You could argue that all of the above are just very patriotic and only have the best interests of the country at heart. They wake up every morning and sing “God Save The Queen,” whilst taking a very quick shower in order to save dwindling water supplies. You may have a point because people like Peter Hargreaves just love their life in the UK.
My greatest pleasure is going out on a horrible, cold, wet January morning to pick the vegetables for our Sunday lunch, putting them in a muddy pile on the table, and then spending 45 minutes washing and preparing them. I like doing it because it’s so different to what I do in the week. The same holds for cleaning the car or shining my shoes.
At least he’s honest, not like some:
The bad boys of Brexit remind us of how dangerous it can be when relatively few people have nearly all the money. It is with that money that they can force political ideas on others and influence the democratic process. Let us just hope that politics doesn’t boil down to, “who has the most money and the worst political ideas.” If it does, democracy really is in trouble, and women politicians will have a lot of cleaning-up to do – unless, of course, they also act like little boys.