To really, really hate Toby Young

[MargaretCavendish]

So, yes, I'm an academic and I think Toby Young was a crap choice for his new job (as does just about anybody who knows anything about it). But it has also just reminded me of the depth of my hatred for him - I think he is the person who I most hate in the world, which is unreasonable really, given he isn't actually a mass murderer or genocidal dictator. But... is it? IABU to think that Toby Young is the world's most odious twat?

And I bet his dick's smaller than the average button mushroom - one of those flaccid, tinned ones, at that.

I don't think it helps the argument against misogyny when you make equally sexist remarks.

And I bet his dick's smaller than the average button mushroom - one of those flaccid, tinned ones, at that.

Bit of a stupid comment and doesn't help.

It highlights the power imbalance, though.

LakieLady is an anonymous poster on the internet and will be read by MNers.

Toby Young, on the other hand, has a far greater amplification of his misogyny, and is effectively paid to promulgate his misogyny.

His misogyny also replicates a structural misogyny, whereas I think you're on a hiding to nothing arguing the case for a structural discrimination against and hatred of men echoed in Lakie's remarks.

Toby Young has his misogyny implicitly validated and endorsed through this appointment.

Toby Young's misogyny is not an impediment to his holding a prominent position. Indeed, I would suggest that it has possibly furthered the career that led to this advancement.

I'm guessing no-one's going to be thinking, "Hey, gotta offer that Lakie a position as one of the great and good. What a caustic wit!"

He's foul. Total tosser at university and has remained so ever since.

Toby Young seems tortured by his height.

By the way, I think this is a good place to point out that this is not normal.

It is not normal to appoint someone with opinions as rancid as those expressed by toby Young to such a position. Nor to appoint someone who is effectively a populist incompetent, and whose only real qualification is as a populist incompetent to such a position.

I think we really need to hold on to our boundaries of what is acceptable in politics.

It's easy to say "Bloody Tories," but this is not normal. There are plenty of Conservatives who find this appalling. I do think the Party has been effectively hi-jacked.

This is not normal.

Gosh cat you are so clever and articulate (not sarcasm)

hence you shall never be overpromoted.

Dumb yourself down a bit, honey (free Virgin Trains joke)

By the way, I think this is a good place to point out that this is not normal.

Totally agree with your whole post, cat. I sometimes don't think we even HAVE an Overton Window any more, it's shifted so much.

It's not normal to appoint someone to such a post whose principal achievement is 'How to lose friends and alienate people'.

YANBU - he's a cunt

He is a prick to be fair.

Hating Toby Young is not as effective as signing the change.org petition calling on the Prime Minister to remove him from his post. Just his tweets about the breasts of women MPs would be enough to make him unsuitable to sit on the Board of the new student regulator. But there was an article in the Spectator in 2012 where he derided "inclusivity" in schools, which he wrote "means wheelchair ramps, the complete works of Alice Walker in the school library and a Special Educational Needs Department that can cope with everything from dyslexia to Munchhausen Syndrome by proxy ". So. demeaning to women, demeaning to the disabled. Need I say more? Come on Mumsnet, show the power of women when we refuse to put up with this sort of thing!.

Yes, we all need to sign the petition to have him removed.

James O"Brien has been doing some good work on this -
www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/james-questions-toby-youngs-government-vile-tweets/
www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/james-obrien/james-questions-toby-youngs-government-vile-tweets/

Interesting article in the Times today by Janice Turner. She defends him in some ways but mainly says he cannot let his immaturity slide. She thinks he is too frightened of something to allow the decent values inside to show. I don't agree with that but she certainly thinks he shouldn't be appointed.

Yes, you're unreasonable, hyperbolic and jumping on a fashionable bandwagon.

I'm not sure if it is particularly fashionable to think an overgrown manchild with an overblown ego, a penchant for misogyny, disabilist language and an overinflated sense of their own abilities, is not fit to be involved in politics - see Donald Trump being voted in as President of the US.

Oh, I don't know about jumping on a fashionable bandwagon. I think MNers have been fairly appalled by Toby Young for years. Cak in the days when it was simply 'falling into the trap he has himself set up', MNers found him appalling.

Now we're appalled at yet another example of someone utterly inappropriate being given a serious public role.

"Cak" = "back".

So close to BINGO! Where was the mention of the "patriarchy"?

manchild, ego, misogyny, disablist, Trump ...

Yes, you're unreasonable, hyperbolic and jumping on a fashionable bandwagon.

That you Tobes?

device, should we take it you don't think Young is disablist or misogynistic? Would you care to explain how that view is compatible with the tweets complained of?

I think 'cak' is a perfect word to use cat.