Day 84: before he starts getting rude and offensive, James Delingpole says, 'Some of my best friends and heroes are fat...'

So the journalist and stick insect, James Delingpole, had a slot on the BBC's Politics Show to get on his soapbox on the subject of fat people . If you can't be bothered to watch the clip, for example if you don't want to actually see a skinny, smug, smirking man feebly flailing at a punchbag and coming off second best. then I have kindly transcribed it for you...

"Before I start getting rude and offensive I'd like to make one thing absolutely clear. I have nothing against fat people individually. Some of my best friends, some of my greatest heroes, are or were fat, from Clarissa Dickson Wright to Winston Churchill, from Eric Pickles to Jabba the Hutt.


"What I'm against is the disturbing modern cult of fattism whereby being overweight is seen as somehow both blessed and consequence free. But being a great porking lardbutt is neither of those things.


"Some people, it's true, can't help being fat but for most it's just a question of willpower - eat less and exercise more and you will lose weight. It isn't blessed because other people have to look at those layers of wobbling, voluminous flesh. And whatever Rubens and the fat lobby say, it ain't pretty and it isn't conducive to reproduction.


"It's not consequence free because it impinges on the rights and freedoms of others. The most obvious example of this is the NHS. The majority of people in Britain are now overweight or obese. In 2013 it was reported that the East Midlands Ambulance Service which serves this part of the world, Towcester, was having to spend £27 million on a new fleet of vehicles equipped to carry the double wide stretchers needed to carry patients weighing up to 55 stone.


"There's a fashionable line that argues that these fatties are helpless victims of a condition beyond their control. That's why the EU wants to give obesity the same legal status as genuine disabilities like blindness or limblessness. This is a nonsense. No, I don't think we should be cruel to fat people but nor do I believe that we should encourage them to feel that they now live in a world where fat is the new normal."

Now whilst James Delingpole is a massive bellend whose politics are not in any way close to mine, I think it is clear that he has his tongue in his cheek, even if it is a forked tongue inserted into the hollowed out wreck of a cheek.

Being in some way "humorous" is the only way to account for his assertion in the post-film interview (I haven't linked to it as the only copy I could find was on a UKIP youtube channel which was full of praise for him) that somebody like Clarissa Dickson Wright couldn't help being fat because she had drunk so many gin and tonics in her life that she had got quinine poisoning. Obviously, and apologies for bad language, this is...

...and reflects an opinion that it is ok for posh, rich people to be fat because they won't be any kind of drain on the state - except, yes, they still are. Because rich, fat people will still need the NHS ambulances that take them to hospitals and, you know, save their lives before they get transferred to the private ward.

James repeats the Katie Hopkins view that it is all about will power. What do they know about will power? What does a skinny person know about how hard it is to fend off cravings? Katie Hopkins at least had the decency to get fat, but most people don't decide to get fat and then lose weight. It's not an actual thing, Katie. That isn't real life!

And James, very kindly, wouldn't cut benefits to overweight people, but he would like the stigma of being fat to return to how it was in the 50s and 60s...

...oh yes, the good old days of fat shaming. Because we don't do fat shaming any more, do we, because there is a 'modern cult of fattism' and 'being overweight is seen as...somehow blessed.' Because we don't do fat shaming any more, do we?

Yes, the world loves a fatty, no question about that. We feel truly blessed. Better than feeling smug and self-satisfied as a result of a wealthy upbringing, a private education and close links to the rich people who govern the country. 

Still it must feel pretty gutting to have to go into children's clothes shops to buy your 28 inch waist trousers, James. As the presenter of the Politics Show said, 'My heart bleeds for you.' Only it doesn't, because there are plenty of places selling trousers that will fit you, even those short trousers you probably had to wear at Malvern College in the good old 60s and that you probably wish you still had to wear. But try finding a 46 inch waist pair of decent trousers! Nothing! 

Now, of course it is shocking that the East Midlands Hospital trust had to spend £27 million on its ambulances. If you want the full facts, here is one of many reports, this one from the Mirror, explaining the story.

But, hang on, that story is from 2013 and it says that half have already been replaced and the full fleet will be replaced by 2016. All 272 vehicles. 

272 vehicles? That number looks a bit like £27 million, it has a 2 and a 7 in it, almost as if they came up with the number on the basis that each ambulance would cost £100,000 pounds.

And yet, according to another, admittedly quite old source, a fully kitted ambulance costs £250,000.

So, over the course of 3 or more years, 272 ambulances are going to be replaced. I wonder how many years ambulances are normally in service for? I wonder if maybe they were going to be replaced anyway and whether maybe the costs aren't that dissimilar, and if you are going to buy a new ambulance maybe you should get one that's fit for purpose. Maybe.

And finally, because I have too little willpower to spend the rest of this lovely day Googling stuff that I don't know enough about, is the EU keen to give obesity the same legal status as 'genuine disabilities like blindness and limblessness'?

I am going to go with the answer to this question being, 'No' but I'm guessing that one of your actual legal, EU-hating people, will say, 'Yes.' And it may all depend on what your definitions are. Not your definitions of 'obesity' or 'disability' but your definitions of 'keen' and 'same legal status.'

An actual lawyer, Audrey Williams, employment law partner at Eversheds, said the mere fact someone is obese is not enough to make them disabled.

"What the court are saying is that obesity is not protected unless it hinders professional life."


So there you go, if you don't like the EU or obese people then you can take that as a yes, if you are a wishy washy liberal like m'self you can take it as a no.

But James Delingpole can take it and stick it up his scrawny behind.

Because what he said is...