Now let these idiots fade away
It's only been a week since Jan Moir's spectacularly stupid column, but she's tried her best to outdo it today with a spectacularly stupid 'apology' that's more 'je ne regrette rien' than 'mea culpa'.
And no, I'm not linking to it. She got the link-love last week, quite rightly, as everyone wanted to share around the awfulness of what she wrote. But not this week. Go and find it if you want - if you can bear the thought of her web traffic going up by one more number. Last week everyone read her shite, and she claimed few of us did; this week let no-one read her pisspoor excuse of a gritted-teeth apology, and she'll probably imagine the whole world has been delighted by her brilliant words.
But she'll fade away, if we let her, and we should. It's all dying down now. She'll carry on with the same old crap, time after time, but she won't get the attention she so clearly was delighted with. It's time to let her fade away into the mass of other tabloid columnists, some of whom will outdo her for stupidity, for bigotry, for insensitivity in the coming weeks and months. There will be times to call out others when they step over the line. And there will be a chance for the PCC to appear to be anything other than the Wizard of Oz, an impressive front with nothing backing it up. But we'll see whether they decide to have some courage, or wait for the dust to settle and accept the matter has been somehow 'resolved'. I have a fair idea what the answer is.
And farewell to Nick Griffin, too. He's had his week in the sun. People feared he might come across well on Question Time, that he might appear statesmanlike or intelligent and might be able to dodge the questions cleverly. Not really, from the glimpses I've seen so far. He looked shifty, edgy, not particularly bright, and came out with the kind of bigoted shite you'd expect - shite that's not a million miles away from what the tabloids have been printing this week with regard to population growth, of course, or what they regularly print about Muslims, but shite nonetheless. It wasn't a sparkling performance and now the mystique has gone down a little bit.
So it's time for him to fade away, as well. He's been given the 'oxygen of publicity' and he's looked like a fairly crap politician. It's what I'd always suspected. He's not some evil genius who's going to hypnotise the world; he's just a racist who is marginally more clever than most racists. That's all. Just because someone went to Cambridge it doesn't make them Erasmus. To the Oxbridge elites who run our newspapers - and yes, I'm looking at you, The Guardian - it might seem that way, but it isn't.
So let's let them fade away, Griffin and Moir both. They've had their say and now it's time to tell them, with all politeness and respect, to fuck right off. Because there are more important things to detain us between now and the next general election, wars being fought in our name, torture happening in our name. It's easier to focus on something personal, an arsehole like Moir or Griffin, and less easy to focus on something wider, more complex, more detailed; but that doesn't mean that it's impossible. But these two clowns have had their time and have detained us for long enough, I think.
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October 23rd, 2009 - 11:24
They've both got "Celebrity Big Brother 2011" written all over their funny fat faces. I can't wait to a see what shenanigans they'll get up to with Suzanne Tully, Richard Blackwood and Haley Joel Osment.
October 23rd, 2009 - 11:32
As usual, I would struggle to put it any better.
And you-know-who was so bad last night that at some point I actually felt quite sorry for him. But then he said 'we are the aborigines' of England and then I almost started throwing things at my television set!
I echo you really. Let them crawl back into their little caves and let's get on with the real issues now.
@gatulino
October 23rd, 2009 - 11:51
From the snippets that i have seen here and there of Question Time, i feel and think that they heckled him too much. There are two main reasons why i think he shouldn't have been heckled as much as he was.
1)It might draw sympathy towards him
2)He should've been questioned about other things that he might've not been prepared at. Like what he would do if he ruled parliament(Heaven's forbid),global warming, the economy etc…Questions that would reveal how incredibly one sided his "policies" are.
I think Bonnie Greer and Warsi shined,they looked poised and calm, which is how best you can deal with a situation like last night.
October 23rd, 2009 - 12:11
I must admit that the inclusion of Griffin allowed a lot of the other shit that doesn't normally get mentioned to rise to the surface.
Jack Straw was rather well put in his place by Griffin at one point when Griffin pointed out that he, the racist BNP bastard hadn't killed a single Muslim, where Jack Straw had the blood of 800,000+ innocent Iraqi dead on his hands.
Baroness Warsi was caught in her own blatant homophobia, why Dimbleby didn't press her further on it I don't know.
Chris Huhne was caught doing the traditional Lib Dem bait and switch (I'm a Lib Dem because they're by far the most progressive party on Europe and immigration etc) by trying to claim they would be hard on immigration.
Griffin was a complete and utter disaster, laughed down at every point where he tried to distance himself from his own documented racism. Utterly slapped down, time and time again on the idea of racial purity by Bonnie Greer. Who couldn't even bear to look at Griffin for the entire programme.
I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a putsch by the more rabid BNP and they got rid of this weak talking, easy on the immigrants blundering fool and went back to National Front days.
That would put paid to any respectability they have and any possibility that they could get elected.
Good night for everyone who wants truth, fairness and an end to racism. Bad night for everyone on that panel except Bonnie Greer who was brilliant.
October 23rd, 2009 - 15:19
Actually, now that i've seen the whole episode in i-player, i've realized that Warsi did not shine as i thought. The snippets can be deceptive and since i didn't know her before this, i hadn't had a clue that she was homophobic, so that leaves Bonnie as the true star.
October 23rd, 2009 - 17:16
Here's hoping they do fade away and not linger like the stench of a an awful fart.
October 23rd, 2009 - 20:26
Excellent post – there can no longer be any doubt that Griffin is, as we all suspected, pretty much an oxygen thief and as such should be dismissed as being as useful to the world of politics as a cup holder on a rollercoaster….