NOTHING IS MORE INDICATIVE of the differences between ourselves and our European brothers and sisters than our attitude towards sex and scandal, particularly when politics and sport is involved. Former postman and Labour government minister Alan Johnson (pictured above) resigned from his powerful position as shadow chancellor of the exchequer earlier this week because his wife was found to be having an affair, stating he was finding it "difficult to cope" with his personal crisis while carrying out his front bench duties.
YET IN ITALY CHEERFUL LEADER BERLUSCONI is relatively happy to continue in office despite almost four hundred pages of a government-commissioned report showing that he often held “parties” at his house in and at which “half-naked starlets performed pole dances, put on stripteases and wriggled up to the prime minister provocatively on the sofa, rubbing him up and letting him have a feel, indulging in mock lesbian kisses and rubbing against each other”.
BERLUSCONI, WHEN CONFRONTED BY THESE ALLEGATIONS, has declared somewhat bluntly to the press (and in this order): I have not had sex with these women; (then after Barbara Guerra [above] suggested otherwise) OK. But I never paid for it; (then when Nicole Minetti showed us the money) OK, but at least I am not a homosexual.
ON THE CONTINENT ONE CAN GET AWAY with these declarations, but the most important news of the last week in British media-land involves the hapless Andy Gray, football commentator extraordinaire for Sky “keep you on the sofa” Sports, and his chuckling cohorts Richard Keys and Andy Burton, all of whom have been suspended and, as I write, in the case of Gray, dismissed from his lofty position.
THIS IS DUE TO A LITTLE BIT of sexist banter when Gray suggested a lineswoman at the Wolverhampton Wanderers vs. Liverpool football match was incompetent due to her being a woman who would not understand the offside rule.. Burton had earlier described her as “a bit of a looker”. The number of complaints apparently registered about this blatant sexism at the subscription-only TV channel famous for reducing our male population into couch potatoes who are happy to survive on unemployment benefit as long as the bailiffs do not cut off their TV access is alarming. Gray and his assistants have become the scapegoats for a moment in time that does not know how to deal with sexism in sport.
THE GAME ENDED IN A WIN FOR LIVERPOOL after a dubious (but correct) call made by the attractive lady lineswoman. According to my Girl Friday (who actually watched the match), this allowed muscled Raul Meireles to outstrip the Wolves defenders, splendid in their fetching old gold shirts, and slip the ball to the somewhat effeminate Fernando Torres, Liverpool’s pin-up centre-forward, who deftly stroked the ball into the net.