By Ben Pensant

Nothing excites the modern left more than women being murdered. (Apart from women being murdered by coppers. Or manhandled by them.) In fact the only thing that comes close is women accusing mystery noblemen of racism but we’ll come to that later. No, the death of a woman at the hands of a misogynist brute is music to the ears of leftists, especially when the suspected misogynist brute is a bastard in blue. Indeed, the only time murdered women don’t cheer us up is when the misogynist brute responsible is Black, Muslim, or an immigrant. When such fates conspire we tend to keep a respectful silence, wait for the full story to emerge, and focus on cautioning against the inevitable backlash against the Black, Muslim or immigrant communities: a backlash so inevitable it never arrives despite the fact that we really want it to.

Of course, if the misogynist brute turns out to be Black, Muslim and an immigrant then we have two simple options: pretend it never happened or convince ourselves he only did it because he once got harassed at an airport by a racist sniffer dog. Because as everyone knows, you can’t respond to a human killing another human until you know who the killer is. And yes, when I say ‘who the killer’ is I absolutely mean ‘what colour they are’, ‘which god they believe in’, and ‘whether they have a cock or a fanny’.

(Unless they’re a woman with a cock or a man with a fanny in which case it’s none of your bloody business who they murder, terfy-chops. And if it’s the former then all discussion about misogynist violence must be shelved so we can focus on demanding the assailant is placed in a woman’s prison and send death threats to anyone who calls him a him. Including me.)

So naturally the last two weeks have been the most joyous for progressives since that glorious fortnight when Jeremy Corbyn RATTLED the BBC by accusing them of airbrushing his beret. Because the disappearance and murder of Sarah Everard gave principled leftists a rare opportunity to do what we do best – exploiting dead people to score points against something we don’t like. Or rather, four things: the police, men, men, and the police. And men.

Naturally, news of Sarah’s disappearance was initially met with sour-faced right-wing nuggets predictably suggesting she was partly responsible for walking home alone. Which was met with sensible points from level-headed people attacking such rank victim-blaming. Which was met with a tsunami of rage from principled leftists furious that the narrative was being controlled by right-wing nuggets and sensible level-headed people, smothering both with the kind of hysterical scaremongering and good-natured misandry not seen since oppressed CEO’s daughter Caroline Criado-Whitehouse got her non-consensual knickers in a twist over a toy elf with teabags for knackers.

Because we can’t simply say women should be free to walk wherever they like without being raped or murdered. No, we have to say that every time they leave the house they’re dicing with death, despite the fact that attacks on women are mercifully rare.

We can’t simply say that the onus should be on men not to assault, rather than on women to avoid being assaulted. No, we have to say that all men are responsible and it’s their job to stop assaulters assaulting.

And we certainly can’t say that conviction rates for rape are higher than most other violent crimes and this should be used to encourage victims to come forward. No, we have to say that if you’re raped you won’t be believed and your attacker will walk free so you might as well hide under your bed because if you show your face in public you’re asking for trouble. (Which sounds a bit like what those right-wing nuggets said earlier. Or at least it does if you’re bloody stupid.)

But mainly you have to avoid saying anything with substance and churn out a never-ending stream of vague generalities then cry when you’re asked to elaborate. The most popular of these is the oft-repeated “Men need to step up and stop men killing women!” and it’s equally banal variants, “Its on men to stop men killing women!” and “If you’re not stopping men killing women then you’re just as bad as them!”

Fortunately, there is no duty whatsoever to explain what this actually entails. As anyone who’s glanced at Twitter recently knows, the age-old question “How does a normal bloke with zero superpowers or detective skills stop wife-beaters and sexual sadists from murdering women?” is the ultimate headscratcher: a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, buried beneath a self-righteous tweet from a joyless blur-tick harpy who hasn’t a clue what she’s talking about.

Thankfully, such requests – or rather, ‘demands’. You must always call them demands – are easily batted away with either a curt “If you don’t know I’m not going to tell you!” or a link to that Mary Claire article on ten ways men can make women feel safe, none of which explain how crossing the road when walking behind a lone woman at night deters some other bloke from strangling her. The fact that it’s somewhat difficult to stop men killing women if you don’t know any murderers, are unsure where to find one, and suspect they wouldn’t listen to you anyway is utterly irrelevant. As is the fact that murderers tend not to announce their crimes in advance so every man in five-mile radius can race to the scene of the would-be crime and grapple with the beast before he starts slashing. Put simply, if you need this spelled out then perhaps the problem is you, not the brave woman demanding you fix something completely out of your hands because, well, just because. And even asking the question makes you as complicit as the animal plunging the knife.

Ah, complicity: the modern leftist’s favourite word-bomb in the war against people we disagree with. Because there’s nothing more satisfying than holding millions responsible for the actions of a minority; breaking our own rules to gleefully embrace our inner bigot and blame men, Tories, white people, Leave voters, lesbians, landlords, fishermen, glassblowers, and anyone who isn’t Black, trans or Muslim for stuff they had bugger all to do with. Indeed, when a marginalised Muslim does something naughty we do a complete 170 and brand anyone a racist who dares to tell peaceful followers of Islam that it’s ‘on them’ to stop other Muslims bombing buildings or raping children above chippies.

So it was great to see this cognitive dissonance represented in the various offbeat ‘solutions’ to the problem of femicide, the most principled the suggestion by Green Party Dame Countess Jones that a curfew be introduced to keep men off the streets after 6pm. Genius. Of course, the Duchess later clarified that her comment was actually an obviously un-serious attempt to make men understand how women told to stay at home to avoid being attacked feel, but not before scores of blue-haired man-haters and dick-tucking male feminists decided that it was a jolly good idea, demanding it becomes law before the entire female population of Islington is wiped out. They were joined by their equally gullible counterparts on the right, who spat fascist feathers at Lady Green’s hypothetical proposal. The difference, of course, is that leftists took her seriously because we’re Good People while the righties did it because they’re idiots.

That this came in the same week Queen Megan broke the nation’s heart with her tale of woe made it all the more special. Because as awful as Sarah Everett’s ordeal must’ve been, it was nothing compared to the trauma of marrying into the most privileged family in Britain. Sure, getting kidnapped and murdered is devastating but is it really as bad as being asked an inappropriate question about your baby’s skin colour by some unnamed aristo? Imagine the horror of learning that the snooty, archaic institution you’ve married into boasts one or two people with snooty, archaic views? And imagine being a time-served SJW and finding out your new family are every bit as obsessed with pigmentation as you and your befuddled husband? Sarah got off lightly.

Fortunately, Megan’s interview had a delightful sting in its tail, as it inadvertently left to wide-faced Tory Pierce Morgan getting the bullet from TVAM after committing the heinous crime of not believing a woman. Yes, really. Indeed, having briefly gone up in the left’s estimation after becoming a fully-fledged COVID scaremonger, Pierce spectacularly pissed on his chips when he countered a claim he didn’t like by saying it wasn’t true then storming off in the huff. (A manoeuvre beloved by the modern left but one that only works if you voted Remain or own a manhole cover signed by Jeremy Corbyn.)

Brilliantly, monstrous Morgan’s departure allowed OJ Jones to rock up to the TVAM sofa the next day, finally able to appear on the show without catching fascism from the former Scum editor as the producers replaced one petulant narcissist with a penchant for walking with another. At this rate, when OJ inevitably storms off after Susanna Reed calls him a ‘knob jockey’ don’t be surprised if they give his job to him out of The B-Gees who isn’t dead.

But as fun as this was it wasn’t the best thing to come out of Ms Everready’s death. Because something even better was around the corner: A protest! With banners! And singing! And coppers manhandling women! What more could you want? It almost makes me wish women got murdered more often. Yep, there’s nothing we love more than an excuse to descend on Hide Park armed with bedsheets and vacuous slogans. And while the fascist authorities insulted women everywhere by banning the demo, leftists were on hand to make damn sure the vigil turned into one. Which then turned into a mini-brawl after the Metropolitan police gave the activists hellbent on politicising Sarah’s murder exactly what they wanted by breaking up the peaceful wake and arresting several women for endangering public health via chanting in a park.

Cue furious condemnation from people who’ve spent the last year supporting soft authoritarianism but are now frightfully upset to see it used against their own. Which is understandable – when we said we wanted the police to enforce COVID restrictions we were talking about working-class idiots having barbecues, not Gender Studies professors using a young woman’s corpse to push crank-left nonsense.

All of which allowed us to drop any pretence that this was about Sarah Everest and absorb her well-timed death into standard BLM/Antifa-inspired narratives about defunding the police, destroying society, holding all men responsible for every bad thing ever etc etc etc. Then, abley assisted by various ambulance-chasing MPs, we fired the first volley in 2021’s war against misogyny by demanding a woman loses her job. Not that the Metropolitan Police Commissioner is any kind of woman, with her brutish demeanor and toxically masculine surname. In fact, if she had any decency she’d call herself Cressida Girldick.

Tell you what, Cressy. Why don’t you leave the protesters alone and solve some actual crime for a change? Because while your attack dogs were knocking seven colours out of oppressed RADA-graduates there were evil right-wingers calling people nasty names all over Twitter. Why not send your boys around to turn them over? Or save your heavy-handed tactics for the anti-lockdown protest this weekend? You’ll get few complaints from leftists if you batter that shower of shite. Because as we know, aggressive policing is only a problem when it’s used on people we agree with. What, you thought we had universal values or something? Behave!

So all in all, a terrible two weeks for Sarah Everlast but a brilliant fortnight for the left. So brilliant that even the unwanted intervention of Sarah’s so-called ‘friend’ couldn’t derail this latest progressive juggernaut. Luckily, the article her turncoat pal wrote for Tory bible Spike! – in which the self-righteous little madam criticised people for politicising her friend’s death – was largely ignored by the media due to its problematic blend of alt-right messaging and simple common dignity. Phew!

Though it was somewhat disturbing to learn that this is the kind of person Sarah associated with. Then again, we’re talking about a woman who fragrantly broke COVID restrictions when walking home alone, knowing full well her inevitable murder would force hundreds of women to risk their lives by descending upon a field in London to pay tribute to the selfish young lady responsible for putting them in danger. Hmm. It’s looking increasingly likely that her killer had a point. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was simply trying to make a citizen’s arrest when maskless Sarah spat at the poor bloke and chased him with her shoe, leaving him with no choice but to defend himself by kidnapping and murdering her.

I take it all back. Free the Maidstone one!!