The ‘Littlejohn is a dick’ blogpost
There's something wearying about writing a 'Littlejohn is a dick' blogpost. There's something about it that's like getting your bicycle wheel caught in a tramline. You know exactly where you're going to end up, and yet you try not to. You have to remind yourself that your hate has made him powerful; if people just ignored him and left him alone, he wouldn't be as popular as he undoubtedly is - if people like you didn't get so irritated by his wilfully ignorant, baseless repetitive drivel, he'd be simply thought of as a bad writer who makes bad jokes, occasionally popping up on Question Time to be an idiot then turning up on a Channel 4 documentary about how it's all the Left's fault for everything somehow, never really explained, but it is, and they hate the Jews as well, just look at them.
I tried to ignore his nonsense the other day, but I couldn't help it. At the time I said I thought it was just a bad joke rather than something despicable, and I do stick by that. However, what he's written today defending his column of earlier in the week is despicable, beyond any benefit of the doubt I might have given him before.
As ever, I won't link to him, as the thought of giving him just one page impression makes me queasy and have to stare at the carpet for a few minutes to make the sick feeling go away. But you should know this: it's a follow-up to his hilarious article, hilariously illustrated by the hilarious Gary, about how Jody McIntyre is like Andy off Little Britain. You know, because they're both in wheelchairs, then they're exactly the same person.
Today's effort attempts to explain his simplistic "one bloke in a wheelchair is exactly the same as another bloke in a wheelchair" riff by saying that it was considerably more nuanced than we might have given him credit for. The bloke in the wheelchair got out of his wheelchair and walked up some stairs! Aha! That means he's even more exactly the same as the 'faking it' character Andy than even Big Brain Littlejohn could have imagined when first he looked to the heavens for inspiration and started typing his chucklesome prose.
But I find that even more offensive than his original column. It shows a miserable understanding of people with disabilities in general, if that's what he's really saying - "look, this guy got out of his wheelchair and moved around under his own steam, therefore, he's just like Andy in Little Britain". The fuck? No-one was ever pretending or claiming that Jody McIntyre was paralysed or incapable of movement. I don't remember anyone saying that or writing it. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think people were arguing that Jody McIntyre shouldn't have been dragged out of his wheelchair and bundled away by police because he was physically incapable of walking. I don't think that was it at all; I really don't think that's the issue that people had with his treatment. People in wheelchairs aren't necessarily unable to walk or move around; it's just that doing so can present problems and issues that are fairly obvious for people who have cerebral palsy, which itself can mean people with a whole range of symptoms, and other conditions. I mean, is it too hard to understand? Let me know when it's too hard to understand, Richard, just put your hand up the moment that the complexity and nuance of real life gets a little bit too taxing for your chirpy black-and-white comedy persona, and we'll run you through it slowly, with a fucking blackboard and some directions and maybe some fucking pictures so you can actually get what the fuck is going on with things. I wouldn't want you to miss out on some vital understanding that the world is a rich, diverse and complicated place in which some people in wheelchairs can walk sometimes, or climb stairs, or something, but that doesn't mean they're not disabled, or that people who are disabled can only be thought of as having disabilities if they're a sack of blood and bones that can't do anything. I wouldn't want you to think that, because that would make you the kind of wilfully ignorant foreskin who wouldn't be able to grasp the most simple of concepts; I wouldn't want to think of you that way, Richard, I really wouldn't.
But it's symptomatic of a wider idea that people have when they think of disability in general. Laurie Penny has written articulately about it this week. The idea that disability is a fairly binary concept, that you're either incapable of doing anything at all, or you're faking it, that there's nothing in between, there's just the able and the disabled and a huge gulf in between, and that's that. That's the kind of hateful ineptitude, the kind of inability to think of things in terms of anything other than 0 or 1, that is driving the Government's desire to drag loads of people off incapacity benefits, because some of them must be faking it, we've got no evidence for that, but we just think they must be, because they must. It's that kind of attitude, the inability or unwillingness to think about how other people, people with disabilities or long-term conditions, must go about their daily lives, or how they get on.
Look. No-one wants to be thought of as 'disabled'. A lot of people with disabilities don't want to be thought of as being disabled, and that's entirely understandable. As someone with relatively minor mental health problems, I don't want to be thought of as anything except normal; I aspire to normality. But the truth is, some people do need assistance. And it's the mark of a decent society that we look out the most for the people who need to be looked out for, that's all, and do our best so that everyone can have a rich and full life unencumbered by whatever hand life might have dealt them. And if that means paying some taxes to do it, then good. People who need assistance need assistance. It's not asking a great deal and it doesn't make a huge difference to everyone else's life. In fact it makes all of our lives better as a result.
But no. Jody McIntyre is just like Andy out of Little Britain. He's in a wheelchair! Oh, some people were annoyed by that. Well, he got out of his wheelchair! Eh! Do you see?
Yes, I do see. I see that Littlejohn is a nasty polarising piece of shit who doesn't like slightly complicated things because they ruin his comfortable, cosy narrative. You could say that his kind of ignorance is a disability in itself, but I think on this one particular occasion the person in question is definitely faking it. He knows what he's doing, and it's a not a pleasant thing at all.
And there you are, the 'Littlejohn is a dick' blogpost. Just the kind of cliched rubbish you'd expect from me. Just the kind of thing I find myself doing time and time and time again. And does it change anything? No. Does it make anything better? No. Does it make him stop what he's doing? No. Does he even notice? Does he care? Does any of this criticism matter to him, in any sense other than to make him thing he's done his job and wound some people up? It's a mosquito bite on a brontosaurus's arsehole. But still. It's what I do.
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About Me
Hello. I'm a Bristol-based writer and soon-to-be-redundant journalist. You can read more about me and the Enemies site here, or follow me on Twitter. Email me if you like - antonvowl at live dot co dot uk
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December 17th, 2010 - 10:48
And you do it so well.
December 17th, 2010 - 10:48
he’s digging himself into a big hole
5 wonder if he suffered in school wit a name like dick littlejohnny ? maybe that’s the cause of it …..
December 17th, 2010 - 15:40
I’d say you’re quite close to the mark – in fact I’d have a few bob on it. His behaviour is characteristic of a maladaptive narcissist. What makes these people is a lack of appropriate parental guidance in early childhood and they remain trapped in that age thereafter. If you’ve ever seen a grown man throwing a five-year-old’s tantrum, you’ll have seen my point illustrated. Putting it simplistically, you have a kiddie in a grown man’s body.
December 17th, 2010 - 10:49
that’s meant to read “I wonder” not “5 wonder”
December 17th, 2010 - 13:24
Num Lock?
December 17th, 2010 - 10:51
Interestingly enough lots of people on twitter were doing the same thing during one of those 50th Anniversary Coronation Street episode, because the disabled character Izzy (played by a disabled actress) stood up with the use of the the bar. Lot’s of LOL SHE’S NOT REALLY DISABLED.
December 17th, 2010 - 11:21
It’s a mosquito bite on a brontosaurus’s arsehole. But still. It’s what I do.
One day, one of us mosquitoes will hit the ringpiece. Until then, we just keep biting.
December 17th, 2010 - 11:33
Your blog is one of my favourite, although I’m not really one for commenting; but this is a brilliant piece of writing; full of rage and reason. Well done.
I can only hope the Internet eventually wipes the Mail from the face of the planet within the next decade – but I fear it would be replaced by something even darker.
December 17th, 2010 - 11:38
There was a time, having never read any of his articles, when I thought of Richard Littlejohn as a relatively harmless, slightly laughable right wing figure of fun. A sort of less successful Jeremy Clarkson.
It was blog posts like this one that taught me what a nasty piece of work he really is. So, if it’s any consolation, these sorts of posts do have an impact on some people. If only to teach us just how bad some of the arseholes who right for the tabloids actually are.
December 17th, 2010 - 12:13
And keep doing it – you’re doing a bloody grand job.
December 17th, 2010 - 12:27
applauds
December 17th, 2010 - 13:38
Yes, but I need to be reassured that not everyone on the internet and by extension the world is a xenophobic Big Society for the Small Minded, Muslim Apocalypse, WhiteBritish fuck-knuckle, and therefore I need you and others like you to keep saying – using reason, eloquence and occasional irate swearing – that Littlejohn is a dick.
December 17th, 2010 - 14:21
I want front row tickets to the show where you explain the hard bits to Littlejohn. The complexity of reality. The meaning of the word cloaca. That’d be comedy gold. Brilliant stuff as per…
December 17th, 2010 - 14:49
Argh! There’s a reason why you are my favourite blogger Anton, and stuff like this is why!
As a part time wheelchair user (coincidentally with the same condition as the aforementioned Corrie actress) the comments in the media and in the blogosphere about Mr McIntyre and the live Coronation Street episode have had me tearing my hair out.
Why is the public perception that wheelchair use=completely unable to move legs.
I have seen snippets from Jody’s blog posted all over the place, twitter, comments sections for the press, in the bloody press, blog comments…The quote is where Jody says he climbed the stairs at Milbank. The conclusion is “Ur huh huh, he’s a fake SEE! he can MOVE his legs!” Well yes, the guy isn’t paralysed, he never claimed to be.
I saw people trying to be *ahem* PC by ranting that it was disgusting that Corrie didn’t use a “real” disabled actor. Many, many more thought her standing up was a gaffe.
Where did this perception come from?
Why do seemingly sensible, otherwise intelligent people do this? Surely they all know an elderly person with dodgy knees or hips who use a chair when out and about but can potter around their sitting rooms ok? You’d think, wouldn’t you?
Right, I’ve ranted too much now, oops, but thanks for this Anton, and I agree about Laurie Penny’s piece, it was ace.
I’m not even going to mention LJ, he doesn’t deserve my energy.
December 17th, 2010 - 15:10
The interesting thing is, Anton, Littlejohn would most likely destroy you in an argument. It’s very easy to take a few hundred words from a newspaper column and then tear them to pieces a few days later over a much larger space.
Aside from a bunch of angry tweeters and bloggers (and a handful of Guardian journalists – but they are such a parody of themselves now they are barely worth registering), the majority of people don’t think there’s anything wrong with how the police moved Jody McIntyre on.
It was obvious that he wasn’t a poor little disabled boy in the wrong place at the wrong time as he has admitted that he has been a persistent nuisance. The police then asked him to move, he didn’t, so they did it for him; exactly the same as they would have anyone else.
What is it Anton, is he a wheelchair user who deserves special treatment because your liberal guilt says so, or is he someone who should be treated exactly the same as everyone else? Either way, the police couldn’t win. If they treated him differently, they’d be accused of discrimination, hurting his feelings, and not taking his right to protest seriously. When they treated him the same as others (something Jody claims he wants), they’re brutal fascists.
Some of Littlejohn’s opinions are vile, left-wing or right-wing, you’re as bad as eachother, and are only happy when there is something to rail against.
December 17th, 2010 - 15:19
The interesting thing is, Mike, I would most likely destroy you in an argument. It’s very easy to take a blogpost and then tear it to pieces in a comment.
Aside from a few commenters (but they are such a parody of themselves they are barely worth registering) the majority of people don’t think there was anything wrong with the way I wrote that blogpost.
It was obvious that I wasn’t a poor little blogger in the wrong place at the wrong time, and I admit to being a persistent nuisance. Commenters then told me I was rubbish, and I ended up repeating their posts back to them in a sarcastic and rather passive-aggressive way – exactly the same as I’d do to anyone else.
What is it, Mike – you again, who returns to this blog after so long apart (Where were you? You never wrote, you never told me where you were going…) from me – are you just a blog commenter who deserves special treatment because your illiberal idiocy says so, or are you someone who should be treated the same as anyone else? Either way, I can’t win. If I treat you differently, I’ll be accused of discrimination, hurting your feelings, calling you a twat, not taking your right to comment in a stupid way on my blogpost seriously. When I treated you the same as others (something you claim you want) you get all upset.
Some of your opinions are vile, left-wing or right-wing, you’re as bad as all the others, and only happy when there is something to rail against.
December 17th, 2010 - 15:33
The thing is, I didn’t comment in a ‘stupid way’, everything was reasoned.You haven’t really addressed anything there, Anton; simply responded in a way guaranteed to please your fans.
Also, apart from the comment on the Lefty baiting post, I don’t think I’ve ever contributed to your blog, so I’m not sure who you think I am, but I’m almost certainly not them.
December 17th, 2010 - 15:37
But I responded in exactly the way you responded. So that makes my response good, no?
December 17th, 2010 - 15:46
No, you just replaced key words and put some insults in there. It definitely made some of your readers giggle though, so job done, eh?
Anyway, now you’re just trolling your own blog. You’ve come full circle!
December 17th, 2010 - 15:46
You mean to say I’m just as guilty of the things I accuse others of? It’s a good job I haven’t just done a blog post about that.
How are you, anyway? We never really chat.
December 17th, 2010 - 16:40
“The interesting thing is, Anton, Littlejohn would most likely destroy you in an argument. It’s very easy to take a few hundred words from a newspaper column and then tear them to pieces a few days later over a much larger space.”
I very much doubt it – Littlejohn’s actual skills in argumentation – that is, connecting a series of statements to establish a proposition (gaw bless you, Michael Palin) – seem to leave a lot to be desired. I recall his radio talk with Will Self, for example, in which he was less than luminous. He resorts more commonly to baseless insinuation. See his 23/11 piece, ‘Oi Bish’, for example, which implies that homosexuality is linked to paedophilia, but stays just this side of PCC guidelines by not attributing behaviour to an individual, but rather to a group. This is a long way from an argument – this is basically the smearing of gays by insinuation – it jumps to an extreme conclusion without establishing premises or laying out a logical progression. These are the hallmarks of an argument.
“Aside from a bunch of angry tweeters and bloggers (and a handful of Guardian journalists – but they are such a parody of themselves now they are barely worth registering), the majority of people don’t think there’s anything wrong with how the police moved Jody McIntyre on.”
An appeal to a faceless majority; this in no way impacts upon the morality or immorality of police behaviour in McIntyre’s treatment. At the risk of falling foul of Godwin, a vast number of Germans during the late 30s and 40s held Nazi behaviour to be correct and fair. This in no way mitigates the horrors of that regime.
“It was obvious that he wasn’t a poor little disabled boy in the wrong place at the wrong time as he has admitted that he has been a persistent nuisance. The police then asked him to move, he didn’t, so they did it for him; exactly the same as they would have anyone else.”
This is, in fact, McIntyre’s right. It is a form of protest, much as a sit-in is a form of protest; it is the deliberate creating of a nuisance, thereby making a political point through exclusively non-violent means. The police, of course, are quite permitted to move such a protester – it is the fact that the response was so vicious that has attracted peoples’ ire, and correctly too. Doesn’t the fact that *another policeman* was the person who physically pulled away the officer ‘handling’ McIntyre tell you something about the nature of his (McIntyre’s) treatment?
“What is it Anton, is he a wheelchair user who deserves special treatment because your liberal guilt says so, or is he someone who should be treated exactly the same as everyone else? Either way, the police couldn’t win.”
He should be treated the same as any other non-violent protester – without violence. You can make as much of a nuisance of yourself as you like; until you behave violently, being behaved violently to is out of all proportion, and wrong. Liberal guilt doesn’t come into it, Mike – it’s the liberal notion of fairness.
“Some of Littlejohn’s opinions are vile, left-wing or right-wing, you’re as bad as eachother, and are only happy when there is something to rail against.”
I agree that Littlejohn’s opinions are vile; I would be happy to label most of them as such. Where I think we disagree, Mike, is that a liberal would rail in defense of equality, of treating all people fairly and equally; a conservative rails against such egalitarianism. One simply can’t be as bad as the other, in my opinion, for the reason that the leftie would argue that all people, *including the rightie*, should be treated the same, while the rightie would argue for a hierarchy that, like as not, punishes the leftie for calling foul.
December 17th, 2010 - 18:30
“The interesting thing is, Anton, Littlejohn would most likely destroy you in an argument.”
really? have you ever seen littlejohn have a face to face argument? he got easily chewed out by micheal winner for goodness sake, the man is demonstrably useless when made to think on his feet.
December 21st, 2010 - 03:01
“What is it Anton, is he a wheelchair user who deserves special treatment because your liberal guilt says so, or is he someone who should be treated exactly the same as everyone else?”
Treating people equally does not necessarily mean treating them all exactly the same. Special needs have to be accounted for. After all, I would say elderly people and young fit people are should be treated ‘equally’, but I certainly wouldn’t expect the police to use the same tactics to restrain myself (at 22 years old) and my 89 year old Grandmother, should such a scenario to arise (I don’t know, maybe bingo got rowdy or something). Nor would I say that the police should use the same kind of force to restrain my younger brother (who is a six foot three rugby player) and myself (a five foot four, definitely not a rugby player female). Yet I would still say that we should have ‘equal’ rights.
Wouldn’t you? So does the same argument not hold for people with special needs (like those in wheelchairs?) and kind of render your ‘you’d all be whinging about not being treated equally!’ rant a little redundant?
Anton, I’ve been busy so I’ve not been reading your blog posts for the last couple of days, and I’ve read the last lot in one go tonight. I just wanted to say I think very highly of you indeed, especially because of everything you’ve said about people with disabilities (I work with people with special needs in the USA) and about people who suffer from mental health problems (I’m no stranger to anxiety!). I think you must be a very kind person, and I have nothing but admiration for you.
December 17th, 2010 - 15:17
Funny thing it, Littlejohn lives in Florida and visits UK infrequently. His drivel of a column is made up of what he can find out from the media.
December 17th, 2010 - 15:50
Mike, they could have wheeled Jody away, there is no reason at all to remove him from his wheelchair.
They didn’t know his disability, they may have seriously injured him. There’s a reason why nurses and care staff have training in lifting and handling.
Taking away someone’s mobility aid is not and never will be the same as lifting and moving a non-disabled person.
This is not a left thing, a right thing, a pro or anti protest thing or even an equality issue.
It’s basic common sense.
December 17th, 2010 - 15:50
If Littlejohn is a dick, when did he become so? Stewart Lee said he’s a c*nt (not working as a c*nt), so he must have transitioned at some point. This needs pointing out next time he rants on about transgender gone mad and has wee Gary scribble one of his stubbly doodles.
December 17th, 2010 - 17:30
@Mike “The interesting thing is, Anton, Littlejohn would most likely destroy you in an argument.”
That’s akin to saying “My brother is bigger than you.” Rather childish… a bit like Littlejohn himself.
December 17th, 2010 - 18:19
I think I love you Antonvowl