Macaulay famously wrote : “We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.” And the latest spectacle is the inquisition into the conduct of TV Chef Greg Wallace.
The Gregg Wallace story is again raising questions around appropriate behaviour in the workplace with some claiming that British society has a major issue with misogyny. However, I believe it is more of an issue in the entertainment and arts industry than it is elsewhere, here’s why.
Now, as an HR professional over the last 30 odd years, in a variety of industries, the question of when ‘banter’ ceases to be ‘banter’ is one that those in our trade are frequently asked to adjudicate on. A careful balance has to be struck between ‘banter’, which is an essential part of human interaction and is often used to quickly establish trust through gently prodding boundaries, especially in industries where that lack of trust can end in injury or death; and actual inappropriate behaviour.
No one wants to work in an environment where everyone is constantly treading on eggshells and where HR micro manages interactions between adults as if they were toddlers. We’ve seen plenty examples of HR over reach here, up here in the North East, for example, Newcastle University’s HR team recently released a list of verboten words, one of which was “pet”. The subsequent debate split into two clear camps: middle class and professional types who saw the word as inappropriate and patronising and everyone else, who understood that such words (love, hen, darling, dearie, sweetheart) are actually an intrinsic part of the language of regions and are not used in a sexualised way, rather as a polite and kind way of addressing another. Hence they are used by all sexes to all sexes and from all ages to all ages. I doubt that the garage attendant in her seventies who sold me a tank of diesel the other day was trying to get me into bed when she called me “Pet” several times during our interaction. Ironically, had the University HR department actually done any research into the use of such words, rather than jumping on an increasingly intolerant orthodoxy, they would have understood why such words are not what they are implying and they are seeking offence where none exists. Don’t take my word for it, linguists have studied this and here’s an article with many long and complex words to support my point!.
Why are HR teams doing this? Well, we have recent evidence from several Employment Tribunals where employers have been fined for essentially not policing the speech and interactions between employees. These are often ‘he said- she said’ cases and the employer is often caught out by not having followed a bullying and harassment policy. We also know that Labour are planning to make employers responsible for protecting their employees from being offended by third parties. So someone walks into a pub and asks the female employee working behind the bar:
“Pint of mild, please love.”
Female employee takes offence, reports the customer to the manager and unless the manager acts: seeks an apology or kicks the customer out, the employer may be liable for having breached employment law.
If Ms. Rayner gets her way that will be law. Yet again, a censorious elite class seeking to micromanage the behaviour of a general public it appears to demonstrate nothing but contempt for. In the meantime I would urge employers of all sizes to ensure you have your policies up to date and also ensure you train those policies into your company.
I cannot stress how important it is for HR professionals and others to push back on this over reach. If only because it will be impossible to police, will create huge resentment in workplaces, will tear up team and workplace cohesion and will cost companies millions whilst not actually improving workplaces for anyone, quite the contrary.
There’s of course a big dollop of classism at work here as well, there is an attitude amongst some of my colleagues in HR, that workers cannot be trusted to behave and need to be micromanaged in this way. You come slap up against this in industries like manufacturing or construction. On a shop floor, good natured banter is an important part of a positive workplace with a cohesive team. As already discussed above, banter is an important tool in feeling out another person’s boundaries and building trust. I have lost count of the number of times I have had to intervene when a young, junior HR manager has overheard something that was not what it seemed and therefore thinks they have to act when in fact what they overheard was normal, mutually given banter between workmates.
So when is banter not banter, when does it cross the line? For banter to be banter there needs to be an equal power dynamic or at least, an existing level of trust between the individuals. Wallace has misunderstood or misread this. Wallace is a wholesale green grocer by trade, he has grown up in an industry where being an extrovert is an essential part of standing out from the crowd and of business success. Don’t believe me? Visit any wholesale vegetable, fish or meat market anywhere in the country. These are fast paced environments, inherently working class where there is little time for sensibilities. It was this cheeky chappy barrow boy persona that gained Gregg Wallace his success but it was his inability to read a room which undermined it. Because what is perfectly acceptable and part of the job between equals in a marketplace, may not be acceptable in other environments.
The problem here is that the targets of Wallace’s banter (and I am not talking about the ‘slebs’ who have joined in the pile on with their own complaints) appear to have been young female production staff most of whom are not on permanent employment contracts and are therefore dependent on the largesse, ‘not being difficult’ and positive experience of those around them especially the ‘stars’. This dynamic is a particular issue in the arts and entertainment sector because of the insecurity of employment and because very often the employers are quite small production companies without strong cultures and without boundaries being set by management. Time and time again we see those who are not tuned into the sensitivity of such an environment falling foul of its rules. So into this stomps Gregg, ‘alright darlin’’ ‘nudge nudge wink wink.. Know what I mean’? All of which likely gives rise to cackles from his peers in the market but makes young female production staff, with no guarantee of employment, nervous.
You can understand why they feel this way. Those production companies are often small businesses, and they usually have to bend over backwards to indulge the stars of the shows, pandering to their every need and requirement. If a star barks at a temporary member of staff or upsets them, who is the production company going to support? The star, around whom the entire production is based and on which everyone depends for employment, or the worker? As smaller businesses the production company typically has no HR professional skilled in understanding how to manage this sort of issue and most importantly, how to prevent it. The client (often the BBC) demands the show with the star and this pressure adds to the requirement to ignore bad behaviour and drop the worker rather than the star.
When I have encountered the arts and entertainment sector, the atmosphere that always bubbles under the surface is one of fear. This is an industry where a faux pas which would be protected by employment law in other industries can cost you your entire career. A worker who ‘upsets’ a star finds themselves ostracised by agencies and bookers. Fear is the dominant emotion within the sector. Fear of losing your current assignment and your career.
Ever wonder why Graham Linehan was so viciously cancelled by so many of his closest friends in the sector? It is precisely because the norms which tend to manage workplaces in other sectors don’t exist in this sector. Fear of losing your career infects everyone at all levels, they know how quickly the sector can turn on you and if you have a taint of it then expect to be cancelled and your friends will drop you by necessity. Yes it is cowardice but they also have mortgages and kids.
And of course here is the rank hypocrisy of the sector, that a sector which claims to be so ‘inclusive’ it enforces Stonewall’s most radical gender politics as gospel and cancels and destroys the careers of heretics, despite those heretics’ views being protected under the Equality Act 2010. Is also the sector which tiptoes around primadonna stars who behave appallingly on set. A sector which is so quick to condemn Wallace for misogyny is also the sector which unreservedly attacks gender critical women as TERFS and viciously cancels their male supporters like Linehan.
The reality is that as sanity slowly returns to the British workplaces, entertainment, arts and the creative sector are being left behind, spiralling in an industry where fear, denouncement and witch hunts are increasingly the norm. So why are they being left behind? I’ve already touched on the small business nature of many of these employers, and also the star being the product. However, it’s also simply because there is a perception that those who are free lancers have no protections under employment law or the Equality Act 2010, when in fact they do. Now there is always the De Jure versus the De Facto and in this scenario, the De Facto is that no one needs a reason not to book you next time, they just don’t book you. Until the sector actually addresses this imbalance, this will continue to be a problem, the sector will continue to be dominated by insecure, terrified workers and management quite happy to indulge stars until the pressure grows on them to drop them. Who on earth would want to work in such an industry? Especially in 2024 where in order to secure employment you also need to overtly demonstrate how you adhere to what’s expected of you, which is why the sectors are so much more focused on ‘woke’ stuff than other sectors.
Major reform will be needed to the industry to restore some sanity but first and foremost would be to include agencies in the sector under the Conduct of Employment Agency Regulations 2000. This law makes it unlawful for employment agencies to charge their candidates for placing them in employment. But the law exempts agents working in the creative arts and sport. If this sector was included then the worker, especially those in production and other jobs, would become protected as agency employees. Therefore, the production company would be answerable to the agency for the conduct towards one of their employees. Until this or something like it happens, then I cannot see any way this can be repaired.Lastly, I have noticed how much bandwagon jumping is going on over the Wallace case. On social media and especially on linkedin Everyone with an axe to grind is emerging from the digital ether to use it as an excuse to attack ‘toxic masculinity’ in the workplace and claim that everywhere from the Inns of Court to the local supermarket are rife with unreconstructed males misbehaving with female colleagues. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes there will always be exceptions but it is now very rare to encounter such behaviour as the norm. There is no ‘structural misogyny’ in our country and those incidents we see in the entertainment sector are down to the employment structure of the sector failing to protect its workers and essentially failing to provide them with the same protection as any other sector.
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I’m not following this particular story so I don’t know what Gregg Wallace is supposed to have done or said, nor am I sufficiently interested to find out because I find this entire subject tedious and irritating, to be honest. What I will say though is that it’s important to get some perspective. Perhaps the women crying ”misogyny!” at the drop of a hat would like to go take a vacation in Afghanistan, as I’m sure a member of the Taliban would have a spare room in which they can put up said whingers. Maybe then come back to us in the West and talk about misogyny, because you get a lot of bang for your buck in Islamic countries where women must exist under such a brutal regime;
”Women arrested by the Taliban have said that they are being subjected to ‘brutal’ rapes and beatings in Afghan prisoners.
They said they were arrested for begging by Taliban officials enforcing draconian new anti-begging laws before being sexually abused, tortured and forced to work in prison. Children were allegedly also detained, abused and some were even beaten to death.
The women explained that they had to beg for money and food for their children as they were unable to find paid work after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021 and barred women from working.
Earlier his year the Taliban passed a new law prohibiting ‘healthy people’ who have enough money for one day’s food from begging on the streets.
The Taliban said they have ’rounded up’ nearly 60,000 beggars just in Kabul.
One mother-of-three, aged 32, said she had to move to Kabul to beg for food after her husband, who was a member of the national army of Afghanistan’s former government, disappeared.
After her husband’s disappearance, she said she went to the neighbourhood councillor for help.
‘He said there was no help and told me to sit by the bakery [and] maybe someone would give me something,’ she told the Guardian.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14139691/women-arrested-taliban-subjected-brutal-rapes-afghan-prison.html
Or perhaps the whiners could take their chances in Iran and walk down the street showing their hair, which we take for granted here in the civilized West. You run the gauntlet as a female over there if you defy the hijab laws because the ‘morality police’ are always on the look out and it never ends well.
Perhaps the women having to live in majority Muslim countries can teach snowflake women over here, who are offended by mere words, a thing or two about actual misogyny, the systematic abuse of females and women’s rights and gender apartheid. My advice to these pathetic wet blankets: grow a pair ( a ‘lady pair’, that is );
”This horrific video shows the injuries an Iranian woman sustained after she was viciously flogged by guards more than 70 times when she refused to abide by the nation’s strict Islamic dress code laws.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14158337/Flogged-hijab-Iranian-woman-defied-strict-Islamic-dress-code.html
You are absolutely right.
These hypersensitive feminists always choose their targets very carefully. They shy away from Muslims, no matter how outrageously misogynistic their culture is. Neither do they have a problem with sex-selective abortions, widely practiced in China and India. Men posing as women and using women’s toilets is also OK, as we don’t want to be accused of transfobia, do we?
They always choose safe targets: workplace banter is considered misogyny that has meet the full force of law, with no apologies accepted and with total humiliation and maximum punishment of the alleged “perpetrator”.
Having said that, there is something really weird about the modern celebrity worship: after a while celebrities seem to develop some kind of god-complex where they think they are untouchable. This Wallace guy must be a bit of a prat, but probably nothing more than that.
Yes indeed. Feminists are massive hypocrites and their constant demonstration of double standards makes them look idiotic, their whole ideology a farce and not worth the paper it’s printed on, so to speak.
It amazes me really. We now seem to have not just a cancel culture but a tittle-tattle culture where people actively avoid behaving like actual grown-ups and deal with any issues that may arise themselves.
But aside from just this misogyny lark, the bigger issue is free speech, of course. There was a time, not so long ago, when part of being an emotionally mature adult meant that you had to fight your own battles, not outsource that task to an HR department or go whining to your boss like a little yellow-bellied snitch, totally bypassing the necessary first step of actually confronting the person that’s upset you. Why have people become so wet and cowardly?
As we’ve all said a million times on here, people can say what they want, as is their right under so-called free speech, but they subsequently then have to deal with somebody confronting them if they take issue with what was said, as is that person’s right to respond under free speech. I think this sort of thing is demonstrated here in the DS comments sections all the time. What is also demonstrated is how badly some people take being challenged, because for them ‘free speech’ only works one way. The toys get well and truly chucked out the pram.
That’s a huge generalisation Mogs and really not worthy of you
No shying away for me Major. See my previous comment. And the reason I didn’t call the police when she assaulted me was because the woke police would have probably arrested me rather than she who assaulted me. Luckily for me there was a passing knight in shining armour who intervened just before her fist connected with my face. Would I do the same again? Hmmm, that’s a very difficult question
When men start making “jokes” about rape, it ceases to be banter and crosses a line. When Wallace made a “joke” about rapists’ foreplay, it has more than crossed the line, it demonstrates a very weird mindset.
As far as feminism is concerned, I was talking to some friends in the street and as an Islamist woman was approaching, I said to my friends that I find it very disturbing seeing people with their faces covered. Unfortunately for me, the Islamist heard me and physically assaulted me whilst I was spat on by her children while they screamed Racist at me.
I am of the generation of women who had to campaign for equal rights and equal pay for women and I’m not going to stand by whilst third worlders invade our country and try to force their values on us. Wearing a face covering, as these women do, proclaims their belief that they are second class citizens: nowhere in the Quran does it say that women should cover their faces, this is a MAN-made rule.
And the foolish woman who tried to intervene and, from her liberal values perspective, defend the Islamist’s right to wear whatever she wants, was made to look very stupid when the one she was trying to defend started attacking a Westernised Muslim woman for not covering herself up. They don’t want equal rights, they want to impose their values on us and this feminist isn’t going to stand for it, neither for me nor for my younger female family members
I know from my own time as a boss in Human Remains (banter) that some people, typically men, use banter as a social lubricant not capable of realising the offence it can cause to others.
We were advised that ‘banter’ is not a permissible excuse for behaviour seen as inappropriate by the recipient. I did wonder at the time highly fragile peoples’ sense of offence may in itself be inappropriate – they do exist. Tough call for HR.
And there is always the inverse… women who flirt inappropriately. They don’t usually ‘mean’ it but it can make people uncomfortable. Try making a complaint about that.
Male banter is mostly a positive thing: a sign of mutual trust and acceptance. I work in a predominantly male environment (engineering…) and calling each others “twats” or offering somebody a pair of tweezers when they go to the toilet is just part of the fun and makes work life far more enjoyable.
And yes, some of the women can be flirty.
It’s funny because I’ve always got on better with men in the workplace, even in more female dominant places, such as nursing and other care work. Women can be bitchy, cliquey and workplace politics can be a huge pain in the ass. I think I always got on better with men because you can have banter without offending, winding each other up etc, but also I have/had the ability to work among men and not flirt, whereas you do get women who seem to lack that skill entirely as flirtation is second nature them. I just sort of treat any man I worked with like my brother, then it’s all good.
Yes, I must admit I prefer having male colleagues. It’s more relaxing. You don’t feel like you are walking on eggshells. Hey, you can even have a heated verbal punch-up and it’s all forgotten the next day.
My daughter, in contrast, works in a predominantly female environment and the toxic bitching about that’s going on is just awful.
The trouble is it’s all so subjective, as you allude to. What one person’s definition of ”inappropriate” might be could look completely different to somebody else’s. It then all becomes rather petty and vindictive, and it definitely is a tough call for HR. Some people have thick skins and others not, as is the complexity of the human condition. I just feel that people generally have become a lot more wimpy and pathetic over the years. I’ve no qualms about challenging somebody on what they post here, same as I have none about what somebody might say in real life. It’s what we should teach our kids to toughen them up at school too, as god knows that’s a steep learning curve. Such as, don’t go running to the teacher if somebody calls you a name. Nobody likes a cry baby. Even physical things such as pulling hair or kicking, I always told my daughter to give as good as she gets, as it ends up with you getting more respect from your peers than being the class snitch. Backbones are formed in childhood, both figuratively and literally.
As a white haired septuagenarian I take personal offence at being refferred to as “mate” or “pal” by some young kid in a public facing role. However I have to suck it up as expressing my offence would get me nowhere fast.
My advice to snowflakes is to do the same.
I think this short clip featuring the Met police is a good demonstration. What is ”abusive”, with regards to speech? They were waiting and threatening to arrest this guy ( not sure of the context ) if he said anything deemed offensive or abusive. Well, don’t people also have the option to walk away and not pay the guy any attention? As all sane, non-snowflakes/woketards know: you can’t control other people’s behaviour but you can control how you react to it. The problem is, now TPTB are wanting to control our behaviour;
https://x.com/HoodedClaw1974/status/1865329486914327025
The officer came across as stupid and dogmatic. But as you say, we don’t know the context.
Yes, not the best clip for getting a visual but I didn’t see any Palestinian flags. If I had to make a guess I’d say he’s another Christian street preacher and the people in the crowd moaning about what he’s saying are Muslims. It’s usually the way this plays out. But it’s the fact the police couldn’t even define what they meant by ”abusive”, they were basically waiting on a member of the public passing by to be offended and go make a complaint, which seems kind of ludicrous because the police could just as easily tell the moaning minnie to move along if they don’t fancy listening to the bloke with the megaphone. Who’s forcing anyone to listen to somebody speak?
It’s funny how Jews don’t seem to have that influence on the police. They just have to suffer these ‘Intifada’, offensive Jew-hating protests, week in, week out and have no right to complain about feeling threatened or verbally abused. Muslims have the police in the palm of their hands and are a protected class. You’ll note it’s always the Jew or Christian that gets moved along by police at Speaker’s Corner too. All because they’re triggering the local unhinged and aggressive Muslim population who wouldn’t know tolerance or respect for others’ freedom of speech if it bit them on the arse.
What a firkin state we are in. That copper should have gone home and had a proper shave and thought about his actions. Twat.
Yes, agreed. Total jobsworth prat. ‘Muslim Protection Squad’ doing their thing, no doubt.
These sort of expressions, like pet, honey, luv, are verbal ticks which people using them don’t even consider.
“Aye up me duck” is the common saying in my original neck of the woods and is,like all of these sayings, meant to be warm and human not offensive
If we have to drop these humanities we might as well become robots
Just imagine instead of saying
“A pint of mild please luv”
Just say
“A pint of mild”
Saves any kind of offence then but what does it do to us as human beings?
Seconded Dings.
I think “Aye up me duck” is said to both men and women. I don’t object to terms of endearment – one of the joys of revisiting my birthplace and spiritual homeland, Newcastle, is to be called pet once again – but sometimes when I’m called “dear” it is used as a put down. eg David Cameron “Calm down, dear” It depends on the context and I have no problem in responding in kind. I have no time for women who call out “misogyny” for trivialities
I remember the 18 — 30 drinking holidays in Kavos Greece where they would use young people barely out of college to stand outside the bar and get the punters to buy a drink there. All a bit of a scam at times with the cocktails being watered down and most people too pissed to notice. I was pushing thirty at the time so didn’t appreciate some youth approaching me with his hands out so I just walked straight through him. One thing that I remember being resentful about on that holiday….The Strip Club opened the day we left. Sods law, or ‘Sodom’s law’ maybe!
Greg Wallace may or may not be on the autism spectrum, but is the behaviour of someone with Tourette’s Syndrome to be regarded as inappropriate in the workplace, and not to be tolerated in case it upsets woke snowflakes?
Will those with Tourette’s therefore be excluded from increasingly ‘inclusive’ workplaces?
And what about people with bipolar disorder whose behaviour at times can be ‘upsetting’ to snowflakes, are they too to be excluded and no longer tolerated in our ‘inclusive’ workplaces, but where would the creative and entertainment industries be without them?
Autist TV star is still an oxymoron, even despite this has meanwhile become an extremely popular excuse for anyone who’s somewhere on the naturally born dickhead spectrum.
Chris Packham.
I think the Wallace narrative is a classic “distraction technique” using its propagandist organisation, the BBC, to both create and maintain it.
I wonder what the Establishment is doing whilst the MSM is obsessing over a loud-mouth, heterosexual, working class “bloke.”
Women used to know how to deal with “inappropriate” behaviour, a swift rebuke, or slap across the face for more serious behaviour.
When did the equality – women just as good as men – brigade become such effete, wilting weeds and delicate flowers they can’t take care of themselves.
How cowardly is it to say nothing for years then emerge to “kick the underdog” when it’s down?
And why is “inappropriate” behaviour acceptable when women do it to boys and men?
As for the case in question, as with all the others, I just don’t care.
I have no problem dealing with those sort of men and their inappropriate remarks now but when I was younger it wasn’t as easy to deal with especially when older women in the workplace either ignored it or simpered. There was a very sleazy guy, probably in his 60s when I was a new 21 year old employee, who always managed to manoevre the women in the office into positions in which he could rub his hand across their breasts, just reaching across to point something out. Women much older than me did nothing about it except for the MD’s secretary who told him in no uncertain terms that if he did that again he would be wearing the black coffee she was carrying on his trousers.
Another, perhaps more amusing example but annoying all the same: I was once completely left out of the introductory tour of a new MD of a subsidiary company when he was introduced to two male colleagues either side of me. When I pointed this out to my boss, he wanted to rectify the situation immediately, went and fetched the new guy and on being introduced to me, he said “Hi Liz, what do you do besides looking lovely and drinking coffee?” My boss almost spat his coffee and staggered back into his office and kicked the door shut whilst I said, between gritted teeth “Actually, I do the same as Dave and John.” The new guy said “Oh, looking forward to working with you.” Wish I could have said the same. The MD’s secretary, who used to come to work every day looking like she was going to a wedding, said she thought it was a compliment. (eyeroll emoji) My boss told me I’d missed an open goal – should have said “Fuck all darling, isn’t that enough?” Believe me, Mad Men isn’t fiction, it’s a documentary of my life with Elizabeth Olsen playing my part
As has been said, we don’t really know what GW actually said or how he said it. He should not be punished unless the wrong doing is proven.
What I do think is worth stating is that it is all of our responsibilities in our daily lives to call out stupid/rude/inappropriate behaviour. This is not always easy but maybe had John Torode pulled a verbal yellow card when he must have been around when some of this went on, Greg’s barrow boy ways might have been clipped.
I agree. Why did no one challenge him at the time. This article is right about the power imbalance, but surely some other people noticed the issue?
” So someone walks into a pub and asks the female employee working behind the bar”
‘Got space for a large one’… From what I remember that was on a BBC drama around the millennium and had Joanna Lumley in it. About an old guilt-ridden bloke with a fair bit in the Bank who likes to get pissed. And Lumley plays a gold-digger hoping to get rich quick.
Theres always someone whos “offended”..
Its usually women… They just love this woke world
I seem to remember an advert just a couple of years ago for MasterChef or a similar cooking program with Greg Wallace in it. The whole advert was based on people flirting and messing around. But I suppose it’s ok when women do it?
There needs to be a bit of banter otherwise what you are left with is just a boring cooking program.
Watch Katie Hopkins on X. Her read on the Greg Wallace debacle is very funny. Yes folks Rome is burning and the entire country is concerned with master chef or whatever the program is called. talk about dumbing down a country.
Sorry but all this article proves is the sheer stupidity of people, and basically stating Gregg Wallace is guilty, guilty of what?, for harmless banter, that normal people would either answer or ignore. I have spent nearly all my working life, working with men, and often the only female, and believe me, I gave as good as I got, and it was fun, if it got too “near the knuckle”, a quick, “thats bang out of line” sufficed, todays society are being mollycoddled, and its all to cull free speech and expression, as for calling people “pet,love” etc, its part of the character of the locality, so are these people trying to destroy that now?
Auf Wiedersehen (add preferred pronoun here)
I love being called Pet, reminds me of my granddad and my childhood