More trolls emerge from under a rock
WILL the folly and nastiness of social media never end? A blogger, Scarlett London, posts a snap of her “perfect morning”. She is sitting up on her bed, clad in pink pyjamas and surrounded by pink balloons as she drinks a cup of tea. Beside her are plates of strawberries and pancakes. It is all utterly daft but also utterly harmless.
The trolls had a field day, sending the by now almost routine death threats and telling her to commit suicide. Why? Because Ms London has apparently sent a “false unobtainable image” to “impressionable young people”. Rot. She is more likely to have made people smile.
Giving us yet another insight into today’s nasty party, Labour’s women’s officer June Tilbury posts: “She’s got bad breath. That’s why she’s alone.” Charming.
The worrying aspect of all this is that there seems to be a very large body of outwardly respectable people who derive some odd satisfaction from abuse and cruelty towards others. Welcome to post-Christian Britain. IT seemed as if half the world’s media was banging on my door last week, wanting my assessment of Theresa May’s dancing abilities. Of course she looked a bit embarrassed but that sort of thing is an occupational hazard of being a politician and so now is that of media obsessed with trivialities instead of substance.
Mrs May had gone to Africa to lay the path for post-Brexit trade deals. Funny, but nobody asked about that.
Stench still rife among Labour
GORDON BROWN is not my favourite politician. He wrecked the country’s occupational pensions system and sold off gold at bargain basement prices but at the weekend he made an impassioned attack against anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and by the time you read this it is likely that Labour will have at last accepted the full definition of anti-Semitism propagated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Yet were I Jewish and British I think I would still be uneasy for two reasons: the first is that the Labour Party was dragged kicking and screaming into accepting something which other parties have willingly adopted and the second is that Corbyn himself, whose antics have caused so much concern, is still there.
If Labour is ever to be trusted again then it must clear out the Augean stables and start in the muckiest part – the leadership itself.