Sympathy for Liz Jones
I feel a bit sorry for Liz Jones.
It's something I've been trying to wrestle with for a long time, but hear me out. I know she showed no shame in receiving so many donations from people recently, despite spending £9 on toothpaste, £26,000 on a bat sanctuary and many more thousands all over the place. I know all of this.
I know, I know. It's easy to mock. Easy, and right. But in the case of Jones, there are two possible explanations that come to mind; and it's something that I've struggled with in the past, if you take a delve back through the archives. I know, titles such as Liz Jones fucks it up, Liz Jones: I'm really just a fucking tool, to be honest and Liz Jones: abysmal shite might lead you to the conclusion that I'm not entirely enamoured with her body of work.
And I'm not. But I'm constantly torn between two conflicting emotions: pity for someone who appears to be suffering from something which we needn't speculate on; and anger towards someone who I suspect is manufacturing a cockamamey literary persona, a dislikeable ditsy idiot which sucks others (like me) in and makes us feel sorry for her faux-naive clunkiness.
Of course there could be all kinds of shades of grey in the middle. And I suppose we will never know. But if you take Jones at face value, and if she is what she purports to be, and nothing more, then is it right for people - like me - to criticise? Sure, she says that shop assistants are dirty, insults foreign workers when she stays in a Premier Inn and calls homeless people 'smelly and scary' - but is this the work of a professional troll, or just an insight into the mind of an ordinary person whose worldview is very different to ours? It's hard to call. If it's a literary creation, then it's a highly unpleasant one, with a seemingly cruel streak towards anyone in the service sector, or poor people in general, and an infuriatingly oversentimentalised anthropomorphisation of animals to the point where she sees her pets as being more valuable, human and interesting than her human counterparts.
But what if it's real?
Liz Jones was recently on the receiving end of some donations from readers after she expressed her feelings of suicidal depression because of debt. It's a subject she has written a lot about - in many ways one could cynically argue it's replaced her messy and all-too-real details of divorce as the heart-string-tugger in her columns nowadays - and has led to some of the columns I've been angry about in the past.
Now, it's not a new thing for her. You can see from this article back in 2007 that she said she was struggling with borrowing and debt even then - and even there there's a textbook bit of Jones button-pressing, where she says:
Yes, my London house made me £500,000 in 18 months, but these 'profits', for normal people like you and me, are merely relative, unless we don't buy another house and merely move into a (privately owned, local authority financed) hostel.
There's always got to be a dig against poor people, hasn't there? But here's the thing. In that 2007 article she admitted her 'profligacy' and overspending; in her recent article thanking people for their donations - including one reader apparently earning just £46 a week at a Spar shop (ironically the kind of shopworker previously criticised by Jones for being unhygienic when compared to her dogs) who forked out £2 on a EuroMillions ticket for her - she says "People assume when you're in debt it's because you're lazy or profligate".
It's that element of denial that makes me wonder. Is this person deluded or not? Are they for real or not? Are they just writing the same story over and over again, trying to elicit a bit of sympathy, trying to get people to warm to them, trying to induce pity, looking for attention? And if so, does that mean that - perhaps - it might be the case that they are suffering from some real problems?
I know. I know you'll think I'm a terrifically stupid bleeding heart; or a hypocrite for having criticised this person in the past in really strong terms, and now attempting to feel sympathy for her; or maybe you think I'm both. But what I think is this: in the absence of true knowledge, and no matter what I might suspect about this character being a fictional persona, or a caricature of a real persona tweaked to try and provoke outrage or infuriation, I find myself having to give Liz Jones the benefit of the doubt. I have to.
Am I foolish? Naive? Stupid? I don't know. But if there is someone saying they are miserable, and suicidal, and depressed, then I think you have to give them the benefit of the doubt, no matter what you might suspect to be the truth. Because if you're wrong, it could be a really terrible mistake to make.
And yes, I don't doubt that Liz Jones is entirely to blame for her situation, but then so are so many other people - people who self-medicate, people with impulsive personalities, people who end up before the courts, people who are addicts, people who are alcoholics and don't seek any help, and so on and so on. Do I feel contempt for them, and think they should be just left to regret their mistakes, and that no-one should help them? No, I don't, so I think it might be wrong of me to think that of someone else, just because they manifest their shortcomings and their problems by overspending or ending up in debt, rather than by (for example) taking drugs or self-harming, and just because they're wealthier than me, as well. I can't bring myself to do that. I'm torn, but I think I have to come down on the sympathy side now, whereas I haven't before.
My silly bleeding heart wins out, after all. As someone who's been through stupid impulsive behaviour, and getting things wrong, and writing stuff to be provocative, what can I do about it? I do feel sorry for Liz Jones. I do. Because compassion is the right thing to have, even when it's misplaced - and I don't care if it is or not. It would make me no better than those sniping commenters on Daily Mail stories about drug addicts who say "It was their own fault!", and I don't want to be that. It would make me no better than Liz Jones's Daily Mail colleague Janet Street-Porter
and I don't want to be that kind of blithely dismissive "never did me any harm" cold-hearted type of person. That's the kind of pissy attitude I find truly repugnant and appalling, not Jones's bleatings and self-pity.
So I'll be giving Liz Jones the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't excuse the unpleasantness towards other people that she displays, or the casual nastiness towards other human beings, and so on; but I think I have no option other than to try and show sympathy and compassion. If that means I'm a soft touch, then so be it; I'd rather be a soft touch than a hard-as-nails type like Janet Street-Porter. That's who I am, so that's how I have to be.
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May 19th, 2010 - 13:41
I desperately hope ‘Liz Jones’ is a fictional creation, the purpose of which will be to show us how people can be easily manipulated into changing what they thought was a firm position on a variety of moral and social issues.
But actually I think she’s just a selfish twat.
May 19th, 2010 - 13:44
Liz Jones has a compulsive spending habit, but while talking endlessly about it in her column has not swallowed enough pride to take herself to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting to address it. Yeah, I should know.
May 19th, 2010 - 13:52
I stopped reading her articles, I just can never tell if she’s actually for real or if she’s spent far too long working at women’s magazines that she knows the right buttons to press for sympathy, so I’m always conflicted, part of me is pissed of by her but another part feels sorry for her. Does anyone at the Mail actually give a shit about her or are they just happy that she riles people up bringing traffic to the site? Or maybe they know she’s fine & that’s her bread & butter – writing about failed marriages, relationships, finances…….I have no idea so I’m steering clear of her articles then I can’t get annoyed about them & then feel guilty ‘cos I think there might be something deeper there.
May 19th, 2010 - 14:23
Your compassion is to be lauded, but I suspect the woman is simply a cretin.
May 19th, 2010 - 15:23
I’ve started to think that the Daily Mail exists solely to troll — both the people who actually buy it and those of us who visit the site to stare in horror. Its readers are enraged and titillated by the propaganda it prints, and we’re enraged (and, in my case, titillated) by the existence of something so evil.
It would be interesting to read the thoughts of someone who’s actually spent time working there. Anyone know of any blogs by ex-Mail employees?
May 19th, 2010 - 20:28
I did some wrok experience at a local newspaper in Lancashire where the editor was an ex-Daily Mail reporter.
It was the single worst time I’ve had in my life. Not because he carried on the sort of reporting you’d expect at the Mail. Local news is just boring shite. But because he took every opportunity to belittle, berate and insult me.
Maybe he was just an arsehole or maybe it was something to do with wotking at the Mail. I can’t answer that. But as an example he asked me what I’d been doing over the previous few years. My reply was that I’d been at university, studying journalism and English literature, while working retail. Oh, he said, so you’ve just been bumming about. I put myself through university and that makes me a bum!! Great!
I must admit the things he said to me still affect me my confidence today.
May 20th, 2010 - 19:34
Don’t know of a blog but my brother-in-law is a sometime gardening journalist for them… not much detail to add from that though I’m afraid, save for that fact that some of the lesser known journos there are in fact vaguely left-wing and write the shite they do just to make a living… And the gardening bit is ace if you’re into that sort of thing…
May 19th, 2010 - 15:29
This is a very good post. Thank you.
I am torn. As another person with mental health problems I do have a considerable degree of sympathy as a matter of principle – her being an unpleasant, judgemental snob doesn’t mean she can’t also be very ill (and that her editors aren’t worsening her issues by commissioning articles like this http://jezebel.com/5284836/lifelong-anorexic-forced-to-eat-normally-for-3-weeks). I agree that people would have an easier time being sympathetic if her addiction was to, say, drugs – compulsive spending *is* destructive, and it’s not necessarily due to just being a selfish materialist.
On the other hand, while I think she is entitled to help from the NHS, welfare state, and dedicated debt support organisations, I don’t think she is entitled to to the help of her readers. Who…well, they sent in money of their own accord, it’s their business. But while I think almost everyone deserves *some* compassion and emotional support, her lack of selfawareness in happily taking money off people who can barely afford it leaves a terrible taste in my mouth.
At least she’s not one of the Mail columnists who lambasted the culture of entitlement and benefit dependency (but only when The Poor do it, of course). Is she?
May 19th, 2010 - 19:13
Thankfully, I have very rarely, if ever, come into contact with the fine journalistic opinion pieces delivered by Liz Jones. Hence my ability to give any valid opinion on her is clouded with a lack of experience and non-understanding, a definite degree of ignorance. Something, from the evidence I have seen, that runs through a lot of what she does write.
She deserves compassion. If she is truly suffering, she needs it. The generosity, the relative amounts offered by people who read her column, the poor people’s compassion, the thoughtfulness, the kindness and above all the non-judgemental approach to who deserves their help. I find this with people I meet all the time. I found it when I suffered. I find it all around in the hell hole we live in. The smelly, immoral, shallow, black and white broken Britain we live in.
Now her faith in humanity has been restored (her claim at the end of the ”kind thanks” article) I hope she remembers the public’s capability and kindness next time she generalizes about odour, ability or dismissively reduces whole groups of society to having less worth than her pets. I doubt it, if she thought about what she was writing, she wouldn’t write it in the first place.
May 19th, 2010 - 18:44
It is clear that Jones has cripplingly low self-esteem. The anorexia, the compulsive over-spending, the inability to ever think she’s good enough etc etc. That alone, is enough to make me feel for her. No, I don’t agree with everything she says and acknowledge she can be incredibly rude about people – but we are all flawed.
I once emailed her to tell her that she was worth so much more than the treatment she was receiving from her ex, and she sent me a very sweet and gracious message in reply. She is not all bad, she has beautiful manners if nothing else!
May 19th, 2010 - 18:53
The thing about getting money/scratch cards sent to her by sympathetic readers ? She made it up. Read the “4,100 emails” article again – she claims that those letters arrived the Monday after her “I’m broke” diary entry was printed on the Sunday. Small problem with that: Royal Mail stopped Sunday collections in October 2007.
Likewise, to get 4,100 emails on the same day the article in question was published ? Very likely, I’m sure…
May 19th, 2010 - 20:35
I think Liz Jones is in something of a vicous circle. She clearly has a problem being sensible with money. But at the same time being silly with money allows her to write her articles about being silly with money, which in turn earns her an income of indeterminant amounts which fuels her spending, and allows her to write her articles…
And so it goes on. Unfortunately she’s in the position of being able to talk about this in the public arena which does her no favours, since it simply fuels her problems.
I think she’s to be pitied, hell even the Daily Mail commentators pity her which is saying something, but she firstly needs to admit she has a problem which is not helped by her position of influence.
May 19th, 2010 - 20:55
It’s very understandable to wonder about Liz Jones’ behavior. She reminds me a lot of the people on Usenet back about 15 years ago who seemed to always post variations on the same personal, life story. At first you think it’s for attention, but then you have to wonder just what they are telling you, and why they’re saying it. She could be a persona, but for all we know she’s metaphorically equivalent to an institutionalized Oscar Levant, picked up at the hospital by the television station who got him released a few hours each week to host his hit talk show.
May 20th, 2010 - 09:04
The trouble is even while recounting her story she can’t stop with the prejudice. She’s not rooting through her wallet for scraps of money she’s rooting through her Burberry wallet; she’s not trying to avoid the man from American Express she’s avoiding the nasty northern man from American Express.
She complains she has only enough money for a bottle of wine or dog food and although “The dogs were dangerously low on food” “the decision took a while” for her to plump for the dog food.
She complains that not one of her ‘friends’ has called to offer support yet in the very same article chastises her brother for calling her out about the manège she was having built “This is someone who put his kids through public school, has a house in Italy, blah blah blah. And yet he was allowed to say this to me.”
You might argue she’s depressed, has low self-esteem, but what sort of upbringing did she have that leads to the attitude she constantly displays through her columns and her book.
Sure feel sympathy for her, but you’ve got to admit she’s brought a load of it on by herself.
May 20th, 2010 - 09:26
@Andrew G. Doe — no, she doesn’t claim that. She claims she got a lot of emails (the Mail on Sunday has a *lot* of readers, and 4,100′s well under 1% of them: it’s high, and perhaps exaggerated, but not impossible) which said “the cheque/scratchcard etc is in the post.”
I feel uncomfortable about her too. I think she’s a poor, if fluent, writer. She attracts a lot of nastiness, which is sort of understandable, but doesn’t reflect well on those who fail to resist the temptation. I think she deserves sympathy, but not money (really that’s like giving someone sleeping in a doorway who asks for money for a McDonald’s a giant bottle of cider). The Mail should do something for her. I believe depression is an illness, and I also believe that employers have a duty of care to their staff. Paying her a lot and assuming that she’ll sort herself out clearly isn’t working. On the other hand, she sells papers, and winds up lefties – both plus points for the Mail.
Her Premier Inn piece isn’t a simplistically racist as it’s been presented. If you have the stomach to get to the end, she realises that the receptionist worked all night. “‘Are lots of people rude to you?’ I asked her. ‘Oh yes, it’s quite stressful.’”
May 20th, 2010 - 12:54
i do kind of feel sorry for liz jones. i remember reading something she wrote in OWMM (yuck!) about her body issues that were terrifying and clearly suggested someone with BDD. but i also don’t think, if she took the money from the donors, for her to have taken that money was wrong. did she take it or send it back?
it is hard to feel sympathy for her though, isn’t it? but as you say, mental health issues are terrible terrible problems and we shouldn’t criticise or condemn her for having them.
and it is just kind of sickening that the DM and other publications are so clearly making a buck out of someone’s mental health issues.
May 26th, 2010 - 10:34
As someone who has juggled her own income to make sure the monthly budget lasts – down to the last penny – I think the debate shouldn’t necessarily be whether Liz Jones’ actions were right or wrong (though I do have my own opinion about that!) but whether her approach was. I now work in the debt management industry and for most people we help, I find the emphasis isn’t about feeling sorry for themselves, but about using their situation as a life junction, one where they can hold their heads high and be empowered that they are accepting the situation they’re in and doing something about it. They’re not holding their hands out for donations – they’re taking charge of their life and working towards a better future – themselves. When you hear such sad stories from people – and realise every day so many people are in debt, rarely due to over spending, but to personal troubles out of their control – it’s inspiring to see the strength they find within to deal with their troubles head on, and I’m pleased to have a role in helping them do that. What’s heart breaking is that Liz Jones wasn’t able to do the seek professional advice and set the example in the national arena – maybe now, she might.
January 18th, 2011 - 12:32
Buddhists are pretty expert in the area of compassion, and if you do a bit of Googling you might find some illuminating discussions on the buddhist concept of “idiot compassion” – the sort which, in and of itself, is no practical use to anyone, let of all someone like Liz Jones. A more productive one would be the sort of compassion which urges her more forcefully towards the sort of therapeutic help that might help her take responsibility for her own karma. OK, her own life, if you’re uncomfortable with that concept.
As far as I know, her actual PHYSICAL health poses no immediate, life-threatening risk to her. People who have been faced with actual questions of life and death, or come through financial ruin, homelessness etc, often gain indestructable self-awareness, enhanced concsiousness and purpose from the experience. A spell in a “privately-owned, local authority funded” hostel may not be the end of the world…