Would you Ken it?

Ken Clark is an oaf.

He comes across as the man in the front bar who sups his pint and expounds his theories largely to himself and a quiet audience who all agree that things aren't the same as they used to be and a woman's place is behind an ironing board. His type of intellect and boorish delivery is best suited to the bar where, to be frank, you don't find many aspiring Minister's of Justice.

I actually listened to the Five LIVE interview yesterday and heard his 'gaffs' at first hand and it was dreadful to hear. Having just waffled on effectively saying that some rapes were worse than others, he patronisingly tried to get out of it by acknowledging that all rapes were traumatic to the women involved which then sounded 'Janet & John' stuff, reminiscent of Yvette Cooper's childlike explanation of the Economic Crisis for the benefit of the Nation's thick population.

A rape victim gave her harrowing tale of how her attacker had pleaded 'Not Guilty' for 688 days and then on the day of the trial changed the plea to 'Guilty' and got a 33% reduction in sentence for doing so. The attacker served 1.5 years of a 4 year sentence and went on to re-offend twice, having been convicted previously as well.

Clark's comment was, "I hope he's behind bars". To which I screamed in the car that 'He should have been there in the first place!'

Somewhere in all this chilling nonsense was a point that only 6% of all reported rapes end in conviction and, perhaps, the purpose of the proposal to reduce tariffs for guilty pleas was to increase the conviction rates. If you like, this was an encouragement for offenders to come clean.

But even that is indefensible. I may be wrong but it seems that the rape laws are written largely by men as they seem to easily allow the defence of 'she wanted it really' and 'the way she dressed asked for it' and allow benefits of doubt to get through. I don't agree with women lying to get people into trouble but the fact of the matter is that such cases are overwhelmingly the minority.

The reality is that when men get a 'rush of blood', animal instinct takes over and in the aftermath any number of excuses are invented to cover the facts.

In a world where equality is much sought after, rape is one territory where men have no clue and never will because we fail to share the same inner feelings toward rape. Until a time when our physical make-up allows us to we should not be making the laws on rape, in my opinion.

Meanwhile, pub boars should remain where they belong, supping ale in the front bar, talking bollocks to other boars who might listen.

Ken Clark is the sort of man that gives men a bad name.




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