JAN MOIR: Stop dragging brave Lionesses into our rabid culture wars

Let’s have a little roar of sympathy for the Lionesses. All they have done is power the England side to the finals of the UEFA Women’s Championship, and all they get in return is finding themselves in the penalty box of the culture wars: hardly a level playing field at the best of times.

Keir Starmer scored an own goal by calling for an extra Bank Holiday if the team beat Germany to win the tournament on Sunday.

The Labour leader is clearly delighted to forget all that pesky strike nonsense and instead hop aboard the women’s football bandwagon, even as he still refuses to define what a woman actually is. Give that man a red card for hypocrisy.

There is more. After the Lionesses, including Rachel Daly, beat Norway 8-0 earlier in the tournament, all the thanks they got was a white BBC presenter accusing the team of being too white, which is apparently now a race crime.

Speaking about the Lionesses, BBC’s Eilidh Barbour said: ‘All starting 11 players and five substitutes who came on to the pitch were white, and that does point towards a lack of diversity in the women’s game in England.’

Does it? Or could it simply be that simply the best players were picked for the team and that there is no evidence of systemic racism in women’s football whatsoever, so why even mention it unless you are virtue-signalling, in which case, fill your footie boots?

And now the biggie, the one that takes the fun out of fundamental, the one that questions their very existence. For is it wrong to call the England women’s national team the Lionesses in the first place? Isn’t that sexist?

An earnest female caller to Woman’s Hour this week wondered if being called a ‘Lioness’ was degrading and chauvinistic and shouldn’t it be stopped?

Many would argue that, actually, it is rather charming, affectionate and good branding for the team. The women themselves like being called Lionesses, but no one seems to care about that. Unfortunately, these days it is modish to want to do away with anything that separates the sexes, up to and including public toilets, gender, biology and Brad Pitt’s skirts.

If you think about it, what is truly amazing is that a radio programme called Woman’s Hour has survived intacto for more than 70 years without being vaporised by the kind of ‘feminists’ who ring in to say they are appalled by the word ‘Lionesses’.

Perhaps the indignitati are taking their cue from Hollywood, where everyone who is anyone is now an actor, while the word ‘actress’ has been consigned to history along with the casting couch and pasties — and I don’t mean the Cornish variety.

Female film stars regard being called ‘actors’ as a badge of equality and progressive thinking — until they get nominated for a best actress award, of course. Then the gloves are off, the high-spec gowns are on and it’s every girl for herself in the stampede for the winner’s podium.

And if we have to stop it with the Lionesses, do we have to do the same for female lions in the jungle, who must be known merely as ‘lions’ from now on? That is going to get very confusing, not just for Simba’s mummy.

To want to do away with ‘Lioness’ is to argue that female-specific words carry a negative context. And that really is sexist.

For once — just once! —– can’t we simply glory in the marvellous sporting achievements of these fantastic young women? Look at them go, lighting up a forest of ambition in a new generation of saplings. All over the country, little girls are watching with saucer eyes as a squad of freshly minted heroines parade their talents on the pitch.

England’s winning run to Sunday’s final has found women’s football reaching new levels of popularity, with much talk about how it will inspire greater numbers to take up the game.

With that spotlight comes increased scrutiny, much of it the sour glare of pressure groups and cultural monomaniacs who want to project their pet peeves and gripes upon the team.

Let the Lionesses have their moment. Let them glory in the triumph of reaching a European final without even minding too much that they don’t get paid as much as the men and that they have always been regarded as second-class citizens in the football league.

The Lionesses may attract the negative attentions of those who are determined to see racism and sexism everywhere, yet they play in a superior world. Their game is not corrupted by money, their pitch witnesses less aggression and many of the players are openly gay in a way that is still — tragically — not possible in men’s football.

In so many ways, the Lionesses are so much more evolved than their male counterparts. How petty to try to drag them down with the pet issues of the day. It would never happen to the blokes, would it?

Mother of God! It’s the singing detective

Adrian Dunbar was last seen as granite-faced Superintendent Ted Hastings in the BBC’s popular Line Of Duty. For six series, darling Ted has been hunting bent coppers and trying to unmask the mysterious H.

Now Dunbar returns as a very different crimebuster in new ITV police drama Ridley, which starts soon.

He plays a former detective coaxed out of retirement by a complex murder case. ‘All those years of distinguished service, they don’t count for much,’ he grumbles, nursing a whisky.

So far, so predictable. However, the twist is that Very Sad Ridley — there is much trauma and bereavement in his life — co-owns a jazz club.

Yes! And that he likes to go there and sing his troubles away. No? YES! In the first episode, alone in the club in the wee small hours, he plays the piano and croons The Mountains o’ Mourne. And in a later scene he sings the beautiful Richard Hawley song Coles Corner.

Oh my goodness and the wee donkey, too.

If you like melancholy songs delivered in a Jim Reeves-tastic style by an authoritarian figure in a cosy jumper — and I do — then this show is for you.

In real life, Dunbar fronts his own band. Sure, he is no novice who floated up the Lagan in a bubble — but to appear as a singing detective in a serious police drama is a bold, wild and risky move.

However, after seeing a preview I have to say that, somehow, he gets away with it. Bravo!

There is outrage of a very British sort over passengers faking needs for wheelchairs in airports to bypass queues. Yet in some instances, can the fakers be blamed? Many infirm passengers might not need wheelchairs normally but not all are able to stand in a queue for five hours. That’s my charitable thought of the week, brought to you from the comfort of my desk rather than the hell of an airport. You’re welcome!

Tory wannabes are whistling in the wind

Liz Truss vows to criminalise wolf-whistling and cat-calling while Rishi Sunak goes one further, claiming that sexual violence against women should be treated as a national emergency until it is defeated.

Two pretty pathetic attempts to get the female vote by two politicians who haven’t bothered about us much before but hey, thanks for caring.

Can I just say something? Liz is wasting her time.

They tried that nonsense in Nottingham in 2016, making wolf-whistling and cat-calling hate crimes — but not a single person was ever charged. It’s legally unworkable, if you stop to think about it for five seconds.

How could a court prove malicious intent, for a start?

Meanwhile, Rishi is making all the right noises on grooming gangs — but where has he been on this issue for the past 20 years, or even since he entered Parliament in 2015? Silent.

Now he says if he becomes leader he will direct the National Crime Agency to establish an emergency taskforce to hunt down the criminal gangs that continue to rape and abuse girls across Britain.

A special taskforce to combat these crimes? You mean there isn’t one already? How many young girls have to suffer before something is done?

How can politicians like Rishi and Minister for Women Liz have failed them all so badly? Answers on a postcard please.

Virgin River is back for a fourth series and went straight to No 1 on the Netflix charts. First, some terrible news for fans of this sugary romance. Hope is Not Dead . . . literally.

Many viewers prayed that town mayor Hope — the most annoying character in the history of river-based romcoms — had perished in the cliff-hanger car crash at the end of series three

Instead, she is back and as irritating as ever, even with a brain injury. Meanwhile, everyone is pregnant and many seem to have been impregnated by Jack.

In one scene the lustrous-maned heartthrob took off his plaid shirt — but the camera shyly panned to the log fire. Honestly.

Things better improve on Virgin River — or it will be sailing out of my affections.

Meanwhile, everyone is pregnant and many seem to have been impregnated by Jack

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