Melissa Kite Melissa Kite

Should I report my boyfriend to the police?

He made a joke about punching. Unlike Michael Fabricant’s, it was funny

issue 28 June 2014

Driving along in the car, listening to the radio news, the boyfriend turned to me and said he thought the Michael Fabricant row a very strange one. Fabricant was being pilloried for having tweeted that he could never go on television with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown because he might ‘end up punching her in the throat’, but my man said he didn’t see what the fuss was about. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘I feel like punching you about 50 times a day.’

Reader, be assured, he was joking. Victims’ groups, hold your horses while I explain. My beloved was pretending to have punching urges for the purposes of humour. Do you see? It was irony. I-r-o… Do I need to spell it out?

The builder boyfriend (as readers of my column will know) is the least likely person on the planet ever to harm me. I would estimate that the chances of him punching me are even more slim than the chances of Michael Fabricant punching Yasmin Alibhai-Brown.

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