Toby Young Masturbation Shame

Still the appointment of the loathsome Toby Young to the board of the new Office for Students causes controversy, despite the minister concerned, Jo Johnson, getting his older brother, London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, to intervene and tell the world of Tobes’ “caustic wit”. Ah, those shafts of wit so beloved of the Reverend Spooner. Next, it will be the shining light.

But not only does Bozza’s intervention carry problems of its own - as Adam Bienkov has noted at Business Insider, Johnson has past form for describing female Labour conference delegates as “hot totty”, comparing same-sex marriage to bestiality, claiming that women students in Malaysia went to University “to find men to marry”, and using words like “filly” and “chicks”, he is defending the indefensible.

That is partly down to Tobes’ self-confessed porn obsession, together with his admission that he expects to be able to watch the stuff while twanging the wire, flogging his log, or however else one describes the act of male masturbation. The London cabbie who suggested to Bozza that he was a wanker - “You’re one of them, mate” - might have been better advised making the observation about Young.

This is because when Tobes Tweeted “RT @songbird2407 ‘God I've gone through about 5 boxes of kleenex so far….Jesus....' Me Too, I haven't wanked so much in ages. #comicrelief”, it was not an isolated occurrence. We know this as he penned an entire article for the Spectator magazine on the subject, under the title “CONFESSIONS OF A PORN ADDICT”, telling the world of his taste for “Adult entertainment”.

Here’s a flavour, as it were: “LAST Saturday night I raced back from the Barbican, where I'd just been to see The Merchant of Venice, fervently hoping that my wife wouldn't be home. That may seem like an odd wish, given that it was past 11 p.m., but my overriding concern was that I'd have the flat to myself to watch a programme called The Glamour Game on Men & Motors”. And what is that all about?

“Since becoming a Sky Digital subscriber last year, I've grown very fond of Men & Motors, a nonpremium channel that offers 'adult entertainment', and The Glamour Game is the best thing on it. Each half-hour episode consists of a photo session in which a Page Three girl is put through her paces by a glamour photographer”. Ah, right. Do go on.

“In this context, 'adult' means something close to infantile since, as Dr Freud pointed out, the masturbatory compulsion is something we acquire in our infancy. And, whatever pleasure we get from indulging in this obsessive-compulsive behaviour, calling it 'entertainment' doesn't really fit the bill. Still, as a habit it's hard to shake off, and that's why, like Greta Garbo, I wanted to be alone”. Alone to have a Bell And Crank.

Well, give the Neville Thurlbeck tribute act a big hand - he’s a coming man. And perhaps it really does make you vote Conservative. But seriously, does anyone believe that putting him on the board of the new Universities regulator is anything other than an act of right-wing nepotism? “What’s your key skill, Toby? You wank a lot? Ah, well, you’re in, then”.

Toby Young is still unfit to hold a taxpayer-funded position. So no change there, then.