Eva Wiseman: Dancing is rubbish. Overrated, sweaty, rubbish, rubbish, it’s for people who feel attractive and people whose arms and legs don’t jerk away from their bodies like mine do, like teenagers ashamed to be seen with their mums. It’s not right and it’s not OK, especially in public, a place where some of us eat. If one must dance, I’d hope one’d have the decency to do it alone in one’s bedroom, where only the dolls and JLS posters are there to see. How dare Arlene attempt to inflict dance on us, we who are clumsy and shame-filled and heavy on our feet. Imagine the humiliation of a village forced to polka. Imagine the smell.
• Eva Wiseman is a journalist
Mary Warnock: Obesity is much, much worse. But then I adore dancing and don’t care whether it’s public or private, whether it’s Scottish or Viennese. Or that lovely free-for-all, the twist. I am also rather larger than is ideal (I hesitate to say obese). If
dancing made me thinner, that would be another thing in its favour. Perhaps the government will pay me to help the good Arlene to teach people to dance reels or waltzes or even the Irish jig. I would be the new John Sergeant, enjoy myself as much as he did, and become famous overnight.
• Mary Warnock is a philosopher and crossbench peer
Donald Macleod: How ridiculous can you get! People are obese because they eat too much: give them more exercise and they’ll eat even more. Meanwhile, poor anorexics will be dancing desperately, bemoaning their fatness. It could be a clever government ruse. Have us all feel guilty about our body shapes and we’ll be in no mood to point the finger at politicians. A few of us may die of obesity, but more will die of stress, traumatised by having either to upgrade to a size 16 or make fools of ourselves in public. Why bother? I know the only reason I have a protruding waist is that I have a hollow in my back.
• Donald Macleod is principal of the Free Church College, Edinburgh
Diane Abbott: The rational mind says that obesity is worse than dancing in public. Obesity is wrong. Obesity is ugly. And obesity can kill you. But obesity creeps up on you. By contrast, there is nothing gradual about dancing in public. One minute, you are standing there, indistinguishable from everyone else. Next minute, you are whirling around with multiple opportunities for humiliation. Will you fall over? Will you step on your partner’s toes? Is everyone laughing at you? So, while I know that I should be out there doing the tango, I think I’ll stick to eating a little more lettuce.
• Diane Abbott is MP for Hackney north and Stoke Newington
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