ANGRY MOB

Tabloidwatch has already pointed out that Richard Littlejohn's drivel on town hall 'Nazis' is about as reliable and factually accurate as normal, but I felt that some comment must be made on 'Gary's' accompanying picture. Not for the first time it seems in pretty bad taste. If you haven't seen it, here it is, (I personally don't give a shit about nicking it and putting it here):

Firstly, like all of Gary's cartoons, it is a simplistic pile of shit created for the sort of utter moron that actually thinks Richard Littlejohn is a working class hero fighting the good fight. But more importantly, it is full of Richard Littlejohn stereotypes and ignorant assumptions. For example, the 'Diversity Manager' is black, because according to Littlejohn only black people could be concerned with issues of equality and race relations. Littlejohn absolutely slates diversity 'nazis' and the cartoon plays on the fact that groups like the BNP think that 'white culture' (whatever that is supposed to be) is under attack by other cultural groups. Here we have a black person employed to be a diversity manager, but, because they are black we can assume that it's just another attack on the poor white person who no longer has any rights.

I don't think i'm making unfounded allegations that having the diversity manager a black person is racist and pretty crassly offensive. I'm white, but I care about diversity because I really don't think people should be judged by anything other than their character. You don't have to be from a different cultural background or have non-white skin to be interested in diversity, you just have to be a half-decent human being. Not that you run into too many of them on the Daily Mail website (either as writers or readers).

The depiction of the 'transgender co-ordinator' is just the same: a hairy man in a dress, smoking a pipe with a tattoo of an anchor on his arm. Clearly, anybody with gender issues is the perfect target to be mocked - the comedy moustache, smoking a pipe whilst wearing a dress, as well as the unsubtle tattoo - oh, he's a sailor, how original. Still, originality is the last thing the average Littlejohn reader is looking for. Again, the implication is that councils are making up jobs for freaks and paying them to be freaks. It is deeply stereotyped, ignorant and designed to be divisive. Like most topics Littlejohn engages with, rather than try to actually understand an issue he just mocks it and dismisses it as crazy and enforced by evil (Nazis).

One comment - currently 752 in the red - tries to engage with just how utterly silly and offensive the 'diversity nazi' label is, and I think it is worth quoting here:

Quite how anyone should engage with Richard Littlejohn as a serious social commentator when he uses such a stupidly offensive phrase is beyond me. However, the trouble is that there are a lot of stupid people out there who genuinely think Littlejohn is great. Take for example a comment on this site a while back on a post about Littlejohn:

Now, I realise the commenter (Barry Faulkner) might find this a bit offensive, but it seems pretty clear that Barry is a bit of an idiot. You're probably thinking this is a bit presumptuous, but then I have some evidence to back up my claim: Barry linked to his blog. Wonderfully titled: 'Lies Damn lies enough is enough' this blog is the kind of semi-literate childlike ramblings that you would expect from the sort of person who thinks Littlejohn is a serious and worthwhile social commentator. He's the sort of person that could probably sit there with a straight face and argue that people interested in equality and fairness for all human beings are actually 'diversity nazis'.

Visit his blog, try to read some of his posts (it is written by someone who cannot use a full-stop, you could argue it is a modernist stream of consciousness, but I'm not feeling that generous today). Yet, he claims to have 'Started work at 15 in Advertising, onto some TV writing and script editing in the comedy field in the 80/90s', I shudder to think what his scripts turned out like.

I guess you could consider this a smug attack at another blogger, but I'm trying to make the point that Littlejohn is written for a certain audience and that although it is so easy to deconstruct his lies and point out how ludicrous some of his catchphrases are, some people actually share his worldview. This is the danger of myths and half-truths, debunking them doesn't stop everybody believing them, the only way to stop them gaining credibility is to not let tabloid hacks publish them in the first place, because pretty quickly the myth spreads around the world and Google only records the myth, not the reality.