Hallo Readers,
At the start of 2017, Jared O’Mara was a 35-year-old, Ed Sheeran lookalikey who ran a nightclub in Sheffield called West Street Live. WTF’s advice is to stay away for reasons that will become apparent as you read on. O’Mara was born with cerebral palsy, got a First in Journalism at Staffordshire University and has creditably spent years campaigning to help those with disabilities. Then in May, without warning, Theresa May called her disastrous General Election which caused a problem for the Sheffield Hallam CLP as it had no candidate and had to find one in a hurry. They chose O’Mara, seemingly without a competitive interview, and he fought the campaign on a platform of pro Corbyn, anti-austerity and help for disabilities. To everyone’s amazement, the sitting MP and former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg lost his seat and on 9 June, O’Mara was suddenly Jared O’Mara MP. It is fair to say that his performance has been undistinguished. He is yet to make his Maiden Speech, has asked only six written Parliamentary Questions but he was appointed to the Women and Equalities Committee.
And then it all went tits up. A right-wing website unearthed remarks O’Mara had made on Facebook over a decade ago, showing him to be a seriously nasty young man. Gays were referred to as ‘fudge-packers’ and ‘poofters’. He disparaged fat people, fantasised about an orgy with Girls Aloud (minus, for some reason, Sarah Harding), and expressed his dislike of singer Jamie Cullen by expressing the wish that he (Jamie) would be sodomised ‘with his own piano so that he died of a sore arse’. The Labour Party dithered whilst O’Mara resigned from the Women and Equalities Committee and apologised for his remarks, saying that had made them as a young man at a difficult time in his life and now understood that they were very offensive. We have all made comments we regret, but O’Mara seems to have stockpiled them for a rainy day. And now it is pissing down.
Worse was to come. Sophie Evans, 25, described how she had met O’Mara on a dating site but did not go out with him. When he later saw her at his club, he told her, in front of her friends, “I wouldn’t touch you with a manky woman’s cock, you ugly bitch”. This was in March 2017, only three months before becoming her MP. Then Liz Aspden, 42, alleged that O’Mara had stood by and smirked as bouncers threw her out of his nightclub (on his orders) giving her a black eye. The next day, Labour suspended O’Mara after yet more old comments appeared, including a reference to women as ‘sexy little slags’, to Spaniards as ‘dagos’ and to Danes as ‘pig-fuckers’. What a pity that O’Mara is (for now) a Labour MP. With those views about foreigners, he would fit right in at Boris Johnson’s Foreign Office.
O’Mara, who denies the recent allegations, maintains that he has ‘been on a journey’ since his 20s. If Ms Evans and Ms Aspden are telling the truth, it seems that his journey ended well before he had reached his destination. His comments from ten years back could have been forgiven had there been some evidence that he had actually changed. But if the new allegations are correct, he has not changed at all and the people of Sheffield Hallam deserve better. Much better. His presence on the Women and Equalities Committee was like Mike Pence becoming trustee of an Abortion Charity. It is time for O’Mara to restart his journey and travel far, far away from Westminster and into the obscurity where he so clearly belongs.
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We start our review of the week’s ghoulish garb with Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson of whom we spoke earlier.
No, sorry, we have all had enough of this sorry slob. His politics are quite bad enough but he could at least try and look the part of Foreign Secretary, even if he does not behave like one. The hair! The collar with rampant wingitis! The ridiculous trousers! WTF has seen better dressed scarecrows.
Here is a newcomer to these pages, actress Lake Bell, wearing Rosie Assoulin.
To be frank, Rosie Assoulin is taking the piss as she has put the lovely Lake into a scarlet shopping bag.
This is singer Kelly Rowland wearing George Chakra couture at the Instyle Awards.
When did Kinky Bride become an actual thing? WFF is baffled. Baffled.
The same event saw stylist Petra Flannery wearing Valentino.
Is there was ever a case of Physician Heal Thyself, as Jesus was wont to remark, this is it, a disturbing mix of little girlie frock and faux bra that is just downright pervy, Shirley Temple goes streetwalking in sassy sandals.
To New York and actress Amy Sedaris, out and about in a very frothy concoction.
Amy looks like an exploded geranium and that wide-legged stance could best be described as unfortunate….
Now we have singer and celebrity hair stylist Jesse Montana, wearing some truly terrible Bieber-like trousers at the Make A Wish Gala.
Either Jesse is hung like a giant stallion or those trousers are just plain stupid. That crotch is not so much dropped as collapsed. If WTF made a wish, it would be that she never had to see Jesse or his trouser again.
Meet TV Presenter Dr Gillian McKeith turned at a film premiere in London last night wearing this thing by Alisa Vaseghi.
When did it become alright for ladies of a certain age to go about dressed like this? Or, for that matter, anyone? Gillian sprang to fame examining faecal matter on TV health programmes. Now she is wearing it.
Finally, she is back! Yes, we have singer Rita Ora wearing Burberry.
Burberry used to be the uniform of the CHAV, defined in the dictionary as a “young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour”. Then Christopher Bailey took over and it got all poncy and pricy. If you want this absurdity, do not bother paying ££££££££ for it. WTF has discovered a fancy dress shop in Byker, Newcastle (birthplace of Cheryl Tweedy-Cole-Fernandez-Versini-Cheryl, or whatever her name is these days) called Make Believe where you can hire this “Chavette” outfit for only £27 50. And you get a matching bag!
This week’s It’s Got To Go comes (quite separately) from WTF aficionados Lady Sumarumi, Pete Clark, Andrew Purcell and Annette about these “thong jeans” by Japanese designer Thibaut. They sound slightly better in French, where they are referred to as “le jean-string”. They are, without question, the stupidest things ever in the history of ever, although not quite as offensive as the scrote tote, (those who saw it still bear the mental scars). Here we go. Brace yourselves …
And the rear…
Like denim ropes anchoring a flagpole. What nonsense is this? The only benefit of these jeans is that if you were to be caught short, you could relieve yourself from, er, front or back bottom with minimum fuss.
OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Please keep those comments coming in as WTF values them like anything. And don’t forget your excellent suggestions for It’s Got To Go. Let us meet again next Friday. Be good.
Xxxxx Zee
I find it curious that no one is mentioning the fact that Liz Aspden is the owner of the Harlequin pub, where Sophie Evans is bar maid and that said pub is less than a mile from Jared O’Mara’s club. The Harlequin is always empty whilst West Street Live is buzzin’. She has lost a lot of business since West Street Live opened. It hosts bands as does the Harlequin but it attracts a lot of students and young people because it’s cheap. Liz has also been very active on social media, especially twitter @harlequinpub bad mouthing O’Mara to anyone one who dares say anything positive about him. There’s a group of them including libdem cllr peter scriven and sophie evans @drunken_musings who quite frankly run a campaign against him. I’m not for a minute saying the incident never took place and certainly O’Mara holds some pretty heinous opinions but I feel that Liz has an agenda which is not being addressed. Thank you for your time Jennie, Hallam
*Pete Townshend described Boris Johnson nearly forty years ago with more flair than I can.
“I woke up in a Soho doorway
A policeman knew my name
He said you can go sleep at home tonight
If you can get up and walk away
I staggered back to the underground
And the breeze blew back my hair
I remember throwing punches around
And preaching from my chair”
I miss The Who.
*Many years ago I had lunch with a friend, and he brought along his teenaged sister who had recently come from Pakistan to go to school here in Texas. She was wearing an outfit that looked to be made from the same sort of fluffy material as Amy Sedaris’ outfit, except that the color was much more pink and it covered her pretty much completely from head to toe. She looked like cotton candy with a face, hands, and shoes. Her brother was yelling “You’re not going out dressed like that!” and I was telling her “That’s a very nice outfit” (I have three younger sisters, I tell them their outfits look great all the time, they know I’m lying and they don’t care, I know my place). My buddy was glaring at me for encouraging her, she was upset because her brother was yelling at her and because a male who wasn’t part of the family was telling her she looked nice, and I was cackling like a chicken on laughing gas all afternoon.
*The colors are different but Rita Oro is wearing an outfit very similar to AC/DC guitarist Angus Young. Is there really a market for female Angus Young impersonators? “Highway to Hell” indeed!
*Those thong jeans are the logical conclusion to decades of the “distressed jeans” trend. Every year they get more distressed. This is all that’s left at the end of the line. I used to wear distressed jeans when I was a little boy. Of course I distressed them myself, but that’s what little boys do.