[image by Bernd Settnik under cc share alike 3.0 via Wikipedia]
London, October 22nd.
The leader of the British Nudist Party, Mr Richard Muffin, will be allowed to appear on the BBC’s flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight, this website has learned, but his genital area will pixelated to avoid offending the public.
Pressure groups had threatened to bring legal action to prevent Mr Muffin, 43, from Winstanton-Crudly in Derbyshire, from appearing naked on the late night television news show.
“This is absolutely inappropriate,” said Dhugal Knight of the No2Nude organisation, which campaigns against public nakedness, “Mr Muffin is a grotesque affront to our way of life. The British are a clothed people. They have always been a bashful and polite bunch. The BBC should be ashamed to purvey such filth.”
But Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, disagreed.
The Unadorned Truth
“We have a duty to show politics as it really is,” he said. “Mr Muffin presents a powerful argument, and we cannot refuse to play host to him merely because some people might be offended by his views, or indeed by viewing him.”
British Nudist Party publicity material makes reference to the pre-Roman British tradition of going naked into battle, and asserts that clothing is a recent Italian imposition.
“Caesar enslaved us, Caesar clothed us,” the caption reads. “We will be free!”
French Love
The French are equally to blame, according to an interview with Mr Muffin.
“The French perception of the human body is heavily sexualised,” he said. “The British have always been able separate seeing the sexual organs from actually making love, but for the French, who are naturally emotional, there’s no distinction. Clothing is a foreign madness. All the evils of modern Britain come from clothing. It’s an immigration issue, and a national pride issue. We need to throw off our slave identity, our coverings, and cut loose from Europe.”
Mr Muffin points to the unusual church services of Bishop Tolliver Puddle, of the Diocese of Larnborough. Bishop Puddle routinely gives his sermons in the nude, and encourages the congregation to attend in beachwear or even less.
“Why should the pagans have all the fun?” Bishop Puddle asked rhetorically, waving his arms around. “Wiccans go ‘skyclad’ and no one bats an eyelid. But suggest that a sixty year old respectable churchman take off all his clothes – which is after all a memory of the state of innocence in which Adam lived – and people come over all funny.”
Congregationers were not so sure.
Bishops Might Err
“It’s all right when he’s giving the sermon, he’s behind a screen,” one woman in a dressing gown said, “but when he processes, well, it’s a bit much, especially if he’s joyous.”
“That’s true,” her husband said. “Also, some of our fellow churchgoers have a really reprehensible choice of undergarments. One would almost rather they were fully nude, and then one thinks about watching the giving of Communion and sort of thinks, ‘actually, no’.”
Mr Muffin’s party has also been criticsed for using imagery which suggests he has the support of the armed forces.
Privates On Parade
“The forces do not believe in nudity of any sort,” said Brigadier Hugo Wallaby. “The days of cold showers and running naked are gone, and thank God. We’re an inclusive service, a professional service, and we don’t need to be dealing with everyone’s dangly parts. How could we be expected to maintain discipline with everyone looking at senior officers and commenting on their endowments? It’s quite wrong that Mr Muffin and his gang of idiots seek to include us in their unpleasantness. The British Tommy wears a uniform and that’s all there is to it.”
But Mr Muffin hit back.
“These old buffers are out of touch. The common soldier, the real fighting man, wants to show his doodads to the enemy! The generals should remember that under their clothes, they too are naked. We are not afraid of them, but they should fear us. Churchill was a nudist and we’ll use that mandate if we have to. We’ll put the generals to the sword when our revolution sweeps in a tide of John Thomases and Pussy Galores across the nation, oh, yes!”
He also insisted the military was mostly on his side.
“Imagine the glory of our soldiers going into battle like the ancient Celts,” he said. “It would put the wind up the Taliban, you can bet your life on it!”
The Newsnight debate will feature Mr Muffin, Mr Knight, and Conservative Party leader David Cameron. Mr Cameron has himself recently been criticised for his political ties to the Ultra-Nudist Grouping in the European Parliament.
European Members
Mr Cameron withdrew his party from the Centre Right faction of the European Parliament and has aligned himself with controversial Czech Nudist Miroslav Groti and Hungarian Body Waxing Extremist Paol Gurkenz. According to Mr Knight, this represents “an egregious concession to the lunatic pro-baldness wing of the Conservative Party. They see baldness and they think Churchill, but it’s just madness.”
Mr Gurkenz maintains that clothes and hair are used by alien sex perverts to beam impure thoughts into people’s brains. His manifesto states that he will press for laws requiring mandatory group depilation, the policy to be extended to pets after ten years. He was recently at the centre of a scandal involving photographs apparently showing him engaging in creamed corn wrestling with a completely shaven female tourist.
Mr Cameron has declined to comment on the allegations, saying they are a matter for Mr Gurkenz.
Mr Muffin regards this as evidence of the pro-clothing prejudice of the press. “What Paol gets up to in the privacy of a nightclub should be his own business,” Mr Muffin said. “If they’d been wearing clothes, this would be considered perfectly normal, but just because they were naked and entirely hairless, people are being invited to draw all kinds of dodgy conclusions.”
Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir agreed.
“It’s the result of a concerted campaign, orchestrated by Stephen Fry and the Guardian,” Ms Moir said. “Paol Gurkenz is a hero to his people. The press is just being disgraceful about all this. They should be ashamed of their hate-mongering ways. What? They’re nudists? Oh, I had no idea. That does sound a bit wrong. Bit odd, eh? Bit different? I wonder if they’re on heroin. I hear a lot of nudists are junkies, not that I’ve got anything against nudists. It’s a tragedy the way their alarming junkie ways are misunderstood. Did anyone die?”
Jeremy Paxman, who will host the programme, was recently overheard to say that while he usually looked forward to Newsnight, he suspected today’s show would not fill him with the cheery bonhommie which so often characterises his work.
Newsnight is at 10:30 pm on BBC 2.