That is for sure that nobody is safe from the savagery
About two weeks ago, Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield were untouchable — the vanilla pairing of breakfast TV, the froth on your morning late. They may not have ever inspired great excitement and passion, but they have neverthless been quintessential This Morning perfection — the soothing tonic of a cup of tea, not too much milk, a spoonful of sugar if you’re feeling cheeky. For years they have represented saccharine, everyday familarity; a comfort blanket that’s big enough for two. They have been human hot water botles, Holly and Phil. Or, they were. Not anymore.
Now, they are outcasts — bastions of “everything that is wrong with this country”, according to The Angry on social media; “smug, self-satisfied and entitled”. “The wave of disgust is going to be hard to come back from,” one person warned. “Hypocrites,” seethed another. “The #queuejumpers plot thickens,” a journalist tweeted. “Holly and Phil’s names weren’t on the media list, This Morning producers’ names were used instead. ITV say it’s because they didn’t want to give their email addresses to the Palace of Westminster press office.” Dun dun duuun!
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. If this sudden coup de grâce in the wake of “Queuegate” feels disorientating — even disruptive — well, that’s because it is; because it rips at the fabric of what we know and pride and believe about ourselves. The demonisation of the king and queen of This Morning ater they visited Westminster Hall to see Elizabeth II’S coffin without queueing with the general public (they even bypassed the likes of David Beckham and Tilda Swinton, who stood in line like everybody else) — has been intense and vitriolic. Fellow presenters, such as Graham Norton, have shuddered and said they would never have done that. A petition exists calling for them to be “axed” from the daytime show, signed by more than 75,000 people. What a crashing thump for the achingly safe and beloved; for a nation peculiarly soothed by the classic male-female broadcast duo: Richard and Judy, Eamonn and Ruth, Susanna and Ed, Holly and Phil.
They hitherto contained all of the just-right ingredients, from Holly’s high-watage grin to “The Schofe’s” cheeky twinkle (and occasional foray into controversy — for every television pairing seems to have a slightly problematic dad vibe to it, too). Still, Holly and Phil have been essential to the way Britain functions as a nation: they are the delayed trains we love to complain about, the moans when you can’t get a GP appointment. They are #Overheardatwaitrose and they are going round to your nan’s and taking a Bourbon biscuit from the tin. They are Very British Problems, and they are — more than anything — a good, old-fashioned queue. They are living proof that that which defines us can ultimately prove our undoing.
For what this shows — above all else — is that if this can happen to Holly and Phil, this can happen to anyone. Nobody is safe from savagery. It is everything Jon Ronson warned us about when he wrote So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed.
ITV has backpeddled since Queuegate, tried to exert damage-control. Holly told the world she and TV husband Phil were given official permission to skip the queue to visit the hall “like hundreds of accredited broadcasters and journalists, strictly for the purposes of reporting on the event for millions of people in the UK who haven’t been able to visit Westminster in person”. It didn’t work. The ire grew. Then, last Tuesday, the disgraced pair addressed the issue live on the programme, with Holly reduced to pleading with the audience: “Please know that we would never jump a queue. We of course respected those rules, however we realise it may have looked like something else and therefore totally understand the reaction.”
Now, there are questions over whether their names were ever on the “media list” at all.