• DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Cleverly made the joke to female guests while attending a Downing Street reception earlier this month.

    Yikes! The added context makes it even worse.

  • cybersandwich@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    He reportedly joked that the secret to a long marriage was ensuring your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there”

    “In what was always understood as a private conversation James, the Home Secretary tackling spiking, made what was clearly meant to be an ironic joke - for which he apologises,” a spokesperson for Cleverly said in a statement.

    So a self-deprecating, incredible obvious joke, told in private to friends, has people jumping to be offended!

    People really need to save their outrage for serious stuff because being outraged over something like this minimizes actually serious situations. It’s like the boy who cried wolf(read: outrage).

    Edit: is also fairly obvious that most of you just read the headline and popped in to be outraged. Merry Christmas!

    • rowrowrowyourboat@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, this is ridiculous. Imagine living in a world where you are afraid of joking because people will lose their minds.

      Even if his joke was even worse than this, who cares? The people at the party would have thought, “Wow, this guy is lame,” and that would have been enough of a consequence.

      What kind of puritanical, pearl-clutching, and judgemental society are we creating with these outrageous reactions. Get a life people.

      If you wanna hate him, hate him for actual valid reasons. Don’t become a petty gossip-monger.

    • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 year ago

      It’s a joke about drugging your wife. You know that’s a real thing that happens, right?

      You’ll have to forgive me for not finding “I abuse my wife” a funny joke. I dont find abusing women to be a funny subject, really no matter the context. If he had said, “The secret to my long marriage is beating my wife,” would you have still found it funny? Or is it only acceptable because the joke is that he is drugging her? I can not imagine what I would do if my spouse said something like that about me. It’s violating demeaning and humiliating. A total lack of respect for me.

      • Seventhlevin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I showed the joke to my wife and she said that it was a good idea and she would try it on me.

        • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          1 year ago

          Yeah that doesn’t really matter when it is absolutely offensive to women. As evidenced by the response to this leak. Don’t joke about abusing your wife. It’s really just not funny. This has come up many times before in public discourse. It was one of the watershed moments of the feminist movement of the 70s. Specifically men making jokes about beating their wives.

          • OceanSoap@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            The joke is in no way offensive to women. You insinuating that it is just because some overly-sensitive people (lots of which have a monetary incentive to do so) jump to call offense is what’s actually offensive.

  • stephan262@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If the government has even the smallest modicum of dignity, he’ll resign or be sacked. It’s one thing to enjoy crass and offensive jokes, I certainly do, but there’s a time and a place for such humour. I mean he’s the Home Secretary for fucks sake! How in the world did he think that that kind of joke would go down well?

    I’ve seen first hand the aftermath of someone’s drink being spiked… It’s not something I ever want to deal with again. Though I’ll bet it was far worse for the unfortunate victim of it.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mean he’s the Home Secretary for fucks sake! How in the world did he think that that kind of joke would go down well?

      And this assumes it was a joke…if I were his wife, I’d be looking for a way to tell if I’ve been drugged or not.

      • Lmaydev@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        He reportedly added that the secret to a long marriage was to ensure your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there.”

        It 100% was a joke. Just a very inappropriate one.

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Yeah,

          There’s definitely a non-zero chance that he’s doing exactly that. Abusers frequently joke about abusing their partners; they see abuse largely as normal, and that’s why it’s okay to joke about it. If it plays poorly, everyone just thinks they have bad taste in jokes until the partner turns up dead.

          Then it’s “we had no idea…”

          It’s a glaring red flag, and it should be treated as such.

  • Numenor@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    According to the paper, Cleverly – a senior minister in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government – said that adding “a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night” was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit.” He reportedly added that the secret to a long marriage was to ensure your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there.” His comments came on the same day that Cleverly vowed to strengthen British laws on the growing epidemic of drink spiking in the UK, according to the Mirror.

  • adam_y@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    He should have been sacked when he described Stockton – a place ravaged by 13 years of Tory austerity – as a ‘shithole’ during a televised parliamentary session.

    Not for calling Stockton a shithole (I love the place but it really is a bit rough), but for being the sort of politician that is so poor at their job that they say stuff like this in front of the public.

  • HipPriest@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    God’s sake. I mean… At least he’s apologising? I could imagine some of our recent lot doubling down on this and refusing to give in to wokeness blah blah blah…

    But yeah. I’m really trying hard to be charitable cos it’s Christmas and everything. That’s not really pleasant stuff to hear from the guy who is in charge of the Police (over 1,100 under investigation for sexual assault or domestic violence atm)

  • Lophostemon@aussie.zone
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    1 year ago

    OH HO HO HAH HAH!!! RAPE JOKES EH WOT?!?

    SO TERRIBLY WITTY EH OLD CHAP?!?

    MARVELLOUS I SAY, MARVELLOUS!!!

  • VCTRN@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    So, Lemmings only go with titles, instead of reading the article, like redditors? Smh my head

  • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    According to MBFC, CNN has bias by omission and consistently fails fact checks. Not sure why this story is allowed.