Gales are currently tearing through the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, as they generally do at this time of year, bringing down power lines, and more. On BBC News 24 a few minutes ago, a decidedly unstressed spokeswoman for a Scottish utility company cheerily remarked to her interviewer:

Hundreds of our guys are out there doing all they can to restore power to people’s homes.

Two questions:

1. Where are the calls for gender equality in dangerous outdoors jobs, in unpleasant conditions, where employees – men, invariably – have no choice but to work unsocial hours? 96% of work-related deaths in the UK are of men.

2. Where are the calls for gender equality in safe indoors 9 – 5 jobs, in pleasant conditions, which women gravitate towards, whilst whining about the gender pay gap?

[Note added 11.1.15: The relevant extract from last Thursday’s Question Time has just been loaded onto our YouTube channel – here – please leave any new comments there, rather than on this blog piece. Thank you.]

I’ve long been an admirer of Julia Hartley-Brewer, the broadcaster and columnist.

Occasionally I’m asked what my favourite media interview to date has been. Without a doubt it was this interview in March 2013, when Julia was working for LBC Radio (she announced live on air three weeks ago that she was leaving LBC). I was talking on my mobile, and I find the lack of face-to-face contact in such radio interviews frustrating, but she quickly put me at my ease. It became apparent she’d gone to the trouble of reading our consultation document – the precursor to our 2015 general election manifesto – and after outlining some of the content, uttered a line which made me laugh out loud:

I’m very surprised to say this, Mike, but I have an awful feeling you may have a point, scary as it is!

Julia is a consummate professional, and had seemingly spent more time preparing for our short discussion than anyone who’s interviewed me so far, whether for TV or radio.

I was interested to watch her contribution to last Thursday’s Question Time. At 27:25 a lady in the audience asks the following question, and the section on this issue lasts until 44:42:

After serving his sentence for rape, should footballer Ched Evans be given a chance to continue with his career?

To my mind, Julia’s response was the only one from any of the five panelists which demonstrated intellect, fair-mindedness, and compassion. The responses from the first two of the other panelists (below) were predictably woeful, while the final two, both highly intelligent men, let themselves down:

– Liz Kendall, Labour MP since 2010, Shadow Minister for Care and Older People, former Special Adviser to Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt;

– Vince Cable, Lib Dem MP and Anti-Business Secretary, a prime mover behind the government’s bullying of FTSE100 companies (FTSE350 companies are next in line) into appointing more women onto their boards despite the compelling evidence base – which Campaign for Merit in Business presented to House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries – which show that one predictable consequence will be corporate financial decline;

– David Davis, the Conservative MP who I’ve been saying since 2005 should have been elected party leader, rather than David Cameron. To be honest, I’d have opted for a houseplant rather than Dave;

– Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia.

Our thanks to K for pointing us to a BBC video of a debate on violence against women, held in Westminster Hall on 21 January 2010 (less than four months before the last general election). We can find no record of a debate on violence against men, needless to say.

The website informs us that the start of the recording is missing due to a technical problem. No matter, it means we get to see right from the start, a statement from Vera Baird MP, Solicitor General (she is, of course, now the Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria, a position from which we’ve publicly challenged her to resign, on five separate counts – here). Ms Baird states:

I used to make speeches on violence against women, saying between two and three woman a week are killed in domestic violence. That statistic now, happily, has to change, and it is – though still far, far too high – something like just over one woman who is killed in that way.

So where does this leave Laura Bates, who won the first of her two ‘Lying Feminist of the Month’ awards for claiming in a TEDx presentation in London in January 2014 – the video is here – that over two women a week in the UK are killed by male partners or ex-partners? The latest official figure, from 2012/13, was 75. Her award certificate is here.

She later brazenly repeated her lie on live television – ‘that is absolutely the official figure’ – after Owen Davies, a student in the audience, mentioned our public challenge of her over the issue. A video of the programme is here.

J4MB can now cite a statement by Vera Baird to prove that Special Snowflake is lying. Oops. Will the mainstream media ever expose her for what she is? It’s about damned time they did, likewise many other feminists we’ve proven to have lied publicly – Caroline Criado-Perez and Kat Banyard among them.

Mob rule has triumphed again.

Luke Gittos is the law editor of spiked and three days ago this excellent piece on the Ched Evans saga was published. Ched Evans’s website is here. Evans is appealing against the rape conviction which resulted in his imprisonment for two and a half years. We note the public intervention of Vera Baird QC, Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria, in the matter.

Our thanks to J for providing us with a video file today, of a BBC TV discussion in 2009 about the proposed establishment of a register of male perpetrators of domestic violence, to include men alleged by two or more former female partners of having been violent. Hmm, how might that potentially be manipulated by women intent on wreaking revenge on former partners?

Ray Barry is the leader of Real Fathers for Justice and will be standing for J4MB in the Broxtowe constituency at the general election. His contributions to TV and radio programmes are always impressive, and this is a good example. The whole piece (17:42) is worth catching, and I recommend you read the short description under the YouTube video, which gives the start times of Ray’s contributions. And don’t be drinking a hot beverage when Pat Craven speaks…

The video is here.

Are you as tired as we are of seeing, hearing, and reading stories about the NHS lurching from crisis to crisis, with politicians and others gravely asserting the causes are numerous and complex, and ever more taxpayers’ money is required, when the prime cause of these crises was predicted by Dr Vernon Coleman in his books, over 30 years ago?

We cover the issue of employment on pp. 18-23 of our election manifesto, with a particular focus on the prime cause of the crises in the NHS on p.20.

It’s not rocket science.

An uplifting five-minute-long pre-Xmas audio message posted by Sad Womble in 2013 has just been drawn to our attention. In the message Sad Womble states, ‘Sad Womble by name, not Sad Womble by nature’. Enjoy.

The general election is now only four months away.

We’re planning to start our street campaigning in early February, and we’re looking for someone with video recording and editing expertise beyond that of ‘the man in the street’ to work with us and develop a video diary of the J4MB campaign, to the north and west of Nottingham, right up to the three results being announced in the early hours of 8 May, the day after polling day.

The intention is to release material on this site every few days, or maybe once a week. Associated expertise in audio recording would be welcome too, and we might have some ‘vox pops’ on the campaign trail.

If this sounds like something you could support us by doing, please email me mike@j4mb.org.uk. Thank you.

Our thanks to Doris, a long-time supporter and donor – who recently suffered a heart attack, from which she is thankfully recovering well, partly because she’s heroically managed to give up smoking – for taking the time to send this in:

I had a girlfriend whose father told her she was a whiner.

I used to ask her, “Would you like some cheese with that whine?”

If anyone manages to video record Special Snowflakes’s fiance saying this to her, along with her reaction, we’ll make a modest donation to the charity of his or her choice, so long as that choice is Mankind Initiative.