Parents of primary school children will start getting letters in September telling them how fat their children are. But however much they weigh, no child will ever be described as obese.
The Department of Health has found in surveys that the term obese is a turn-off, so instead will use the term “very overweight” for those children whose body mass index exceeds 30, in an attempt to enlist parents’ support.
Primary care trusts have been given a detailed set of instructions, and a sample letter, explaining how to convey to parents the results of the National Child Measurement Programme.
Among other words not to be used is “exercise”. Dr Will Cavendish, Director of Health and Wellbeing at the department, said that this, too, conveyed an unhelpful image to parents. Being “physically active” is preferred.
Meaningless jargon and trendy buzzwords should be banned from town halls, it was claimed, after one council introduced the term “thought showers” to replace “brainstorming”.
Tunbridge Wells Borough Council in Kent ordered the change because they feared epilepsy sufferers may be offended by the term used to describe idea-generating sessions.
But charities representing epileptics said the ban was taking political correctness too far.
You are really, really not going to believe this - here are a few brown pearls of wisdom from Tom Hampson of the Fabian Society (the people that brought you political correctness).
UPDATE: Jon Holmes covered this on The Now Show on BBC Radio 4 on 1st Aug 2008 - here’s the mp3
‘Chav’ is way above the threshold of acceptability. It is deeply offensive
In whose opinion?
to a largely voiceless group
HA! Voiceless?! If only! You really haven’t left your Islington flat in a while, have you?
and – especially when used in normal middle-class conversation or on national TV – it betrays a deep and revealing level of class hatred.
I’ll come back to this. Keep going before the coke hits….
The phenomenon of the word has grown over the last five years. Initially it was purely a term of abuse. (You only have to visit the website chavscum.com to see this – have a look at it and be appalled.)
Er, knock knock? Not noticed that it became chavtowns.co.uk a while back? Never mind, doesn’t seem you’re on the same planet anyway
You cannot consider yourself of the left and use the word.
Although I don’t consider myself on the left anyway, how patronising can you get? So, left = mental and unable to have an opinion?! I know several “people of the left” - their opinion is wrong, of course, but I haven’t even for one moment considered such nonsense as that last sentence.
It is sneering and patronising
A little like your article, Tom?
and – perhaps most dangerous – it is distancing, turning the ‘chav’ into the kind of feral beast that exists only in tabloid headlines.
There is nothing I would like more than distance from chavs, and nothing would please me more if they really DID exist only in tabloid headlines, but if I can just get you to pop your copy of Socialist Worker down and look in the real world for a moment, you’ll find they are very much feral, and very much out there.
But who does the white working class have?
WORKING class? If ignorance is bliss, you must be a very happy man, Tom. Chavs are not “working class”. You seem to think they are somehow forced into their position. You don’t have Burberry, prison-white trainers and a Renault Clio Turbo forced on you. You aspire to it. Chavs relish, embrace and cultivate the way they are.
You might think they would at least have the progressive left, but it would seem not.
Since when did “progressive” equate to “ignorant”?
The BBC should specify the word in its guidelines for programme makers and take class discrimination seriously. The new Commission for Equality and Human Rights should show that they understand class discrimination is an issue that can have effects as detrimental as racial or gender bias.
I’m really beginning to wonder if my clock is set wrong and it’s actually April Fool’s Day.
But more importantly, we must stop using it ourselves. From now on – embarrassingly PC though it may seem – I shall audibly ‘tut tut’ and wince whenever I hear it used. You should too.
Should I? Well, thanks for giving us the benefit of Comrade Hampson’s wisdom.
At the time of writing, Pat Condell’s website at has been taken offline by Homestead with the message:”Sorry, the site you requested has been disabled” , not “exceeded bandwidth” or anything like that.Update! Don’t worry - I went up to Mount Sensible, and I saw a bespectacled wise man who passed me a couple of tablets and said
“Lo! For I am simply changing my host and not to worry about it”.
So there you go. No conspiracy. Got me worried though!Also, some Youtube users are reducing Pat’s viewcount and popularity by stealing his content, worst offender being janelite007 I’ve already left a message on this person’s channel. Please do the same.Also, can everyone please send the following message to Youtube.
Hi - theYoutube user patcondell is having his videos stolen by the user janelite007Eg., this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxbYBIlT6VEIs identical to this original video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3_qelW5qp4I feel this violates policy and users should be redirected to v=W3_qelW5qp4 and the views transferred.
Talking of Freedom of Speech(or lack of it)http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7326476.stm
Comedian and writer Ben Elton has said the BBC is too “scared” to broadcast jokes about Muslims for fear of provoking radical Islamists.Elton, in an interview with Christian magazine Third Way, added that the broadcaster would “let vicar gags pass but would not let imam gags pass”.He said fear rather than “moral sensibilities” fuelled decisions about what material was appropriate.
I was watching the 2005 Johnny Depp remake of Charlie and the Chocolate factory.
Conversation with girlfriend went along the lines of “I bet in some dark corner of teh interwebs, some sad lonely fucker has blogged about Augustus Gloop’s portrayal being fattist/racist/somethingist”.
So I had a look the next morning, and I didn’t find that, I found even better!
The blog author has written a fantastic piss-take, along the lines of Maddox’ “Unfastened Coins” video. And the commenters have taken the bait!
For example:
Early on in the film a story is told about how Willy Wonka goes to India to build a palace made completely out of Chocolate for an Indian Prince. Well it gets really hot and the palace starts to melt and the first drop of melted chocolate lands directly on the Indians forehead. I think the stereotype implications are clear. By all indications the so called “Oompa Loompa’s” are in fact African Pygmies. Additionally it is clear that Wonka doesn’t even regard them as real people. After he is done explaining that the “Oompa Loompas” do all the work in the factory he catches the fat kid eating out of the river of chocolate and says “Hey little boy my chocolate must be untouched by human hands”. Well we know that the factory workers must handle the chocolate. He’s basically saying they aren’t human.
Genius! And so a commenter has written
This movies racial overtones were so obvious that one has to be blind or stupid to miss it. To say that this is just a movie, enjoy it, just a childrens story, blah, blah, blah…. misses the entire point. it teaches kids that “black” people are; stupid, cheap labor, simple, not really human, primitive and less than “white” people. It also supports and justifies European colonial history and teaches kids that it was okay.
It makes a hilarious read, but at the same time, a little sad. Throw a bone at an idiot and he’ll come barking…
Of course, it’s not offensive to anyone. The thing that IS offensive is this:
A story based on the Three Little Pigs fairy tale has been turned by a government agency’s awards panel as the subject matter could offend Muslims.
The digital book, re-telling the classic story, was rejected by judges who warned that “the use of pigs raises cultural issues”.
It’s almost as if the ruling of Becta was designed to set people against each other. I wrote and asked them about this phrase, and they pointed me to a wishy-washy press release, which didn’t answer the question at all.
Anyway, follow the comments on the PM blog - from which I found the following gem (credit to mittfh, not me)
Other candidates for censorship:
Cinderella - because her aesthetically challenged sisters are portrayed in a negative light.
Snow White - because her vertically challenged housemates do all the work.
Rumpelstiltskin - portrays vertically challenged people in a negative light.
Jack and the Beanstalk - where do we start? A cow, a thief, GM beans, a GM goose, and a cannibalistic tall person!
Sleeping Beauty - a narcoleptic, an “evil” elderley person, and a heterosexual “Love at first sight” match is soooo last century!
