He Seems Nice

[Content Note: Rape culture.]

British Labour MP Austin Mitchell is unhappy about Pfizer's proposed takeover of AstraZeneca, and unhappy about Prime Minister David Cameron's refusal to intervene in the takeover, so he tweeted this shit: "Cameron dare not stop Pfizer because he dare not offend the US in any way. Roll up rapists."

Unsurprisingly, lots of people were unhappy about that, but Mitchell says the tweet was "too trivial to apologise for," dismissed the criticism as a "storm in a teacup," and then went on a tear about political correctness, because of course he did.

"There is a kind of aura of political correctness creeping over everything, and therefore anybody who uses colourful language is going to have to keep their mouth shut."

He then clamped his hand over his mouth to demonstrate the point to the BBC News Channel audience.

Well, that's pretty good, Mr. Mitchell, but don't you have anything you can tell us about the dictionary's definition of rape?

"You've got to bear in mind that one of the definitions of rape in the Oxford English Dictionary is to plunder and that I fear is what is going to happen to AstraZeneca at the hands of Pfizer," he said.

"People talk about the rape of the countryside and the rape of the rainforest, but it doesn't attract the tonne of abuse that has landed on my head."

PERFECT. Dictionary definitions PLUS the old "everyone diminishes rape by its misuse, so what's the big deal?" chestnut! You're really on a roll now, Mr. Mitchell, but does your bag of tricks include some belligerence about how you were just speaking truth to power?

He defended his comments as "the truth", but he said he did apologise to his party leadership for "the trouble" he had caused.

..."I do apologise for inconveniencing Ed Miliband and our chief whip because of all the trouble and all the reaction I've caused, but what I said was essentially the truth."

BINGO! I'VE GOT BINGO! I hope I win something GOOD this time, instead of the usual sad bag of deflated clown balloons I usually get.

The cherry atop this shit sundae is Labour pretending that Mitchell's apology for inconveniencing them is a meaningful apology:

A Labour spokesperson said: "The chief whip has made clear to Austin Mitchell this tweet was unacceptable. He has now apologised for what was an obvious error of judgement."

And lo did the mirthless laughter reverberate throughout the multiverse.